The Common Misconceptions
The common misconception that people have behind high-end would be that it refers directly to the price range of the audio equipment that it encompasses. This is only true to a certain extent. People also tend to believe that the audiophiles who like to use high-end audio equipment normally focus on the quality of the sound rather than what is recorded. This only represents a very small percentage of audiophiles.
Essentially, high-end audio tries to achieve the goal of reproducing the recorded music perfectly as it was meant to be heard. However, there is a caveat: The reproduction of the audio event is limited to the quality of the recording itself.
Whether one is listening to a good recording, well reproduced, is relevant, not just to one's overall enjoyment of the music, but to one's appreciation of that music, too, in the sense that one can hear and listen to the music better. For example, suppose I'm listening to Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. There are many recordings of this piece, of varying quality, both in themselves and in terms of the performance. (One of the best remains the old Living Stereo recording, with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony: It's been re-released, on vinyl, by Classic Records, and is also available on a well-mastered CD.) This is a very complex piece of music: Much is happening in various parts of the orchestra at various times. Listening to a good recording, on a real good system, one is able to 'pick out' the various parts of the orchestra, distinguish what each of them is playing, in much the same way one can if one is attending a live performance: For example, the first and second violins do not blur into a huge mass; there is a clear differentiation between them. It obviously makes a difference to one's appreciation of the music whether one is or is not able to make this kind of differentiation.
So the goal for the high-end audio consumer is: Perfect reproduction of recorded music. And a subsidiary concern is: Perfect recordings.
Of course, one can not achieve perfection in either case: These are ideals. What one can do is keep the ideal in mind and buy, or seek out, equipment which leads in that direction. This brings us to the defining characteristic of manufacturers and designers of high-end equipment: That their goal is to make components that embody this ideal, whether they are expensive or inexpensive. Of course, the closer a manufacturer tries to get to the ideal, the more his or her product is likely to cost: And there are undoubtedly some high-end products that cost an extraordinary amount of money: Amplifiers that go for $60,000; speakers that cost $125,000; phono cartridges that go for $7500; etc. But one does not have to spend that kind of money to get truly 'high-end' sound. Even more importantly, it does not matter how much one is spending: Whether one is an audiophile is not determined by one's bank balance. To be an audiophile, one need only accept and pursue the ideal: Buy equipment which is made with the ideal in mind; decide that every cent one spends will purchase better reproduction, not bells and whistles.
Source: [Richard J. Heck Jr.'s Audio Guide]