"Trickle up" theory

Continuing with Nrenter's explanation, many systems we hear are either in showrooms or set up in the home as though they were showrooms. To my ears, this often provides a more sterile, less intimate sound as the rooms have an unnatural feel, damped and empty. It provides a good environment to listen to the detail generated by the equipment but not necessarily to connect with the music.
The type of music also determines our need for detail in the presentation. When I listen to rock I want to literally feel the music and whether I hear every note by every instrument is inconsequential. When I listen to classical, I need the details, the air, but not the bang.
Our expectations are always at play when we listen to music. In the car or a friend's basement we are not concerned with the presentation, just the music. When we see and hear a high end system we expect to see and hear a high end system. Sometimes that gets in the way of hearing the music.

Unsound and Drubin, actually Drubin first, I think you're on the right track: speed and timing are two different things. For instance, I hear more correct timing - to my subjective ears, but other around me have noticed it - from tube amps, which generally sound "slower" than solid state amps. Emphasis on leading edge dynamics is not the spaces between the notes, or the lingerings or contrasting stacatto of certain notes or phrases. Rhythm is a primitive things which many solid state amps get right, the basic bass line timing: what I'm talking about in timing is a more subtle thing, difficult to describe, which actually came up in a discussion of the Shure V15 cartridge. If you permit me, I'll quote from this, as it took some time to put my finger on it: "We tend to think only in terms of detail, and though the Shure is respectable here, many beat it. But the rhythmic interactions between the different components of a piece of music - right down to the timing of the rising intensities or softenings of a singer in counterpoint to other instruments - is simply more clearly discernible especially on a Shure, and on MMs in general." Now let's lay aside the whole MMs vs MCs thing. Still hard to get a bead on what I'm talking about. Part of my point is that the language the audio press uses becomes our reference point, and we end up unable to hear anything else, because we do not have a name for it. It's like learning to hear imaging, which we don't hear until someone points it out and uses te word "imaging." This is a subtle form of mind control which "trains" us to go for predictable and easily identifiable things like detail and dynamics, thus allowing (some) high-end manufacturers to start designing something marketable. Pieces that emphasize leading edge information counterfeit true timing, which can be better heard through some slower-spunding components. We recognize this quality, I think, when we say some component "just sounds right." If we had the right language (a change, or a shift in emphasis in point of view), then this quality would be recognized as fundamental to the music: we can live without soundstaging, or without bass, or without tremendous amounts of detail, but if we don't have this subtle timing thing I'm trying to describe, then we aren't really happy with our systems. It's this subtle interaction between instruments with respect to lags and starts which enthralls us: the rest just impresses us. This is beginning to sound like a Socratic Dialogue!

In the context of this thread, I have to describe an experience I just had at a high-end shop I just came from. I've already said that the experience of walking into such a shop and being drawn in by the music is extremely rare, and I just had such an experience. A pair of top-of-the-line Tetra speakers were playing at the back of this store, and the music emanating from them was wonderful and I was drawn like a bee to honey. Now on the racks behind the speakers was lots of impressive equipment - Copland amps, YBA and so on - and I asked the proprietor what was playing. And he pointed to...a Rotel integrated RA-02 and matching CD player! I was sorely tempted to just buy them and simply bow out of the game altogether...I still am, hmmmm...just couldn't get over it. Amusing anyway, as I fell for the old "it sounds good it must be something expensive" thing myself. Hoist by my own petard!

A FEW CORRECTIONS TO "THEORY".

The price paid for home audio system not neccessarily have to be expencive but the purposes may be different for different rooms.
Amp and speakers are two the most expencive components that contain the largest design effort along with expencive row materials.
To make and design a full range 400W/ch power amplifier is much more difficult than 4W/ch SET that can't be full range by default.
A high gain adjustable phono-stage is also effort-based component.
For larger rooms you need larger speakers or at least with larger power handling and larger power amplifier to drive them. High-powered amps wether tube or SS need expencive power-supply parts and quite an amount of time to optimize performance.
The price of preamplifier less affects system performance since there is realy no need for expencive parts for power supply, no need as obvious for expencive output devices. Another words the preamp is cheap compared to amp or speakers in general since row parts don't cost too much.
CD players especially in our digital 21st century are getting better and cheaper. A cheap $50 DVD player will sound fantastic compared to the 15 year old vintage one that probably worthed near $400 back then.

Yes, the system could be expencive especially for large rooms where you need larger power and stronger speakers.

Hey? What happened to Slappy?

I see now that I didn't explain myself clearly enough through this thread, and got carried away myself, though there were interesting and informative results! Some say I am condemning the high-end in its entirety, some associate the statements with a condemnation of complex designs...the focus is too much on the equipment and not enough on the idea. So that people know where I'm coming from, I will say that I am a media analyst, meaning that I examine and analyse how the press uses various rhetorical tricks (playing with the facts) to manipulate public opinion. This includes the audio press. So I felt that the constant "trickle down" the audio press uses encourages us to automatically assume that the high-end is superior, and that we should thus always assume that spending more will gain us more. While this is true in some cases, it is not true in all. Those with experience have all bought equipment which, while more "informative", left us ultimately dissatisfied. The audio press is definitely not objective in this, because if they did not laud the new cost-no-object designs and prod us into constantly spending, then they would have no future. This, again, is not to say that these pieces do not deserve the accolades, but does point to a conflict of interest...we must keep our eyes open and question. If a basically unmusical piece's design is incorporated at a lower price level, then what is the result? Does a purely engineering solution (say more mass which means more expense) always lead to an improvement? Do the men who design these expensive pieces actually have talent with respect to musical as opposed to information issues? And finally, is it always true that the cheaper components cannot teach designers of expensive equipment a thing or two? If cheaper equipment often sounds more musical, then I believe a good designer should stop and say "hmmm...why?" So to the constant and uniform "trickle down" which is universal rhetoric in the audio press, I say "damn it; trickle up!" Quite simply, question and oppose, the key to advancement in any science or art, audio being both.