The issue, of course, is not whether one can create an expensive device through the incorporation of expensive components but whether the inclusion of such components yields a discriminable difference in sound.
Is a person who has laid out $10,000 or so for a preamp going to say, "Well, ya know, I don't really hear any difference; I just like the look of the panel face...or the looks on the faces of my guests when I tell them how much I paid"? Obviously not.
This is where the value of blind testing (which is NOT the same as quickie, push-the-button ABX testing) comes in. Alas, we get very little of that in the magazines and none at all in forums like agon. Without careful, extended listening by objective individuals (which excludes owners, manufacturers and dealers) we're really hard pressed to know whether the lavish investment in hand-built capacitors, 6 AWG air core inductors and 0.001% precision resistors makes a difference commensurate with cost--or even any difference at all.
So a few people end up paying terrifically high prices (and defending their decision to do so right to the last breath), while others sag in discouragement, sure they'll never really experience nirvana, while yet others descend into cynicism and begin to write for Audio Critic....
We should keep a couple of other facts in mind, too. One is that not all high priced products are filled with high priced components. There've been enough exposes of high end gear built with low end bits, and megabuck speakers complemented with $25 off-the-shelf drivers. Caveat emptor! Another is that the phenomenon of salon pricing is not limited to equipment manufacturers but extends down the food chain to component manufacturers, as well. One very well respected component vendor charges hundreds of dollars for inductors that any boob with half a brain, a spool of magnet wire, and a ten-buck surplus coil winder can make for himself in half an hour.
The ecodynamics and the psychology of the high end are complex but these phenomena are fairly central to its current unhealthy state, I'm sure.
will
