Another term JGH used (as did I believe Dick Olsher, his protégé) was Perfectionist Audio. That term suggests the goal (the perfect reproduction of musical recordings, unachievable of course), regardless of the price it takes to get there.
HP and his TAS staff focused on and mostly reviewed only components that were considered to be advancing the State-Of-The-Art. ARC were actually not THAT expensive in the early and mid-70’s; it was Mark Levinson who, it seems to me, instigated the upward spiral in pricing, and the image of Audiophiles as the kind of people who want to own only the best of anything, including, of course, hi-fi gear.
I was at Sound Systems in Palo Alto in 1971, there to hear the entry-level speakers by the new speaker company Infinity, the Model 1001. I at one point in the time I was there that day heard another customer ask the owner of SS what car he owned. The owner’s chest puffed up, and he loudly proclaimed a Mercedes Benz 280 something (I think it was). He looked around the room, to make sure everyone was duly impressed. Sickening.
When hi-fi shops started calling themselves Audio Salons, I had had enough.
