Alright, I guess I have to jump in here for a moment, since I am a recording engineer and an audiophile, and I used to sell and install high-end home audio. $6500 for Nordost is kind of a rip since Cardas is much better, but honestly, that ain't the most expensive.
I worked for ListenUp Audio Video in Colorado for three and a half years (
www.listenup.com ) and during that time I installed home theaters ranging from around $5,000 to over $250,000 for single room systems. What was in the quarter million room? Well, the 60,000 Meridian DSP-8000 speakers ran for the front left and right while the lower cost DSP-6000 ran in the center, and surrounds. A $20,000 Meridian DVD player and 18,000 Surround Processor took care of the source material. The projector was a 30,000 Sony VPH-G90 shot onto an $8,000 Stewart screen. The whole room was acoustically treated with Dow/Corning acoustical treatments to the tune of around $20k. Do you think it sounded better than the $5-10k systems, of course.
Why would somebody buy something like that? Well if you run a billion dollar a year company and you love movies and music, that's what you get.
When I introduce people to hi-fi or introduce students to recording I encourage them to use A-B testing. Listen carefully and see if you can hear a difference. Once you hear a difference, make the visceral determination of which one you prefer. Then try to describe the difference. I've done listening tests in the studio with $100 mics and $1000 mics and $4000 mics, and gone through that exact process. It is absolutely true that sometimes the $100 mic is the right one for the sound, but if we are talking about a Shure 58 vs. an AKG C-414 vs. a Neumann U-67 on a female jazz singer, which do you think sounds better. Sure I could buy five SM-58s and still take a Carnival cruise for the cost of the U-67 but when money is no object and you can finally get the best sounding stuff with no compromises, you'll probably just buy all three mics - and then some.
If you want to have some real fun with hi-fi and experience the audiophile world, take a trip to your local hi-fi shop which is admittedly easier for some than for others. In NYC, Portland, Seattle, etc. that is easy, in other places it's hard. And don't think that Circuit City, Best Buy, Radio Shack, Magnolia, Audio King, Sound Track, Ultimate Electronics, or any of those are true hi-fi. I mean the littel boutique stores that have a $30k pair of speakers on display. Take along your favorite store bought CD and your best home-brew and listen on a $2,000 system and on a $20,000 system and then on their top system. Most of the sales staff will gladly let you play your stuff on whatever is setup. If you can't hear a difference then you have been turning that amp up too loud in the garage and you really should be more careful.
For some more fun, check out these manufacturers:
www.boulderamp.com - Boulder Amplifiers makes 1000 watt per channel pure class-A solid state amps in the $20-30k range. I've enjoyed many hours of hanging in their listening room listening to their $20,000 phono preamp or $18,000 DAC (being fed 24/96 from an Alesis Masterlink because nothing consumer would output 24/96).
www.wilsonaudio.com - Buy the top of the line Wilson Audio Modular Monitor (WAMM) speakers for $160,000 a pair and Dave Wilson flies to your house to set them up.
www.bwspeakers.com - Bowers & Wilkins invented the kevlar woofer and have put the speakers in Abbey Road for decades. They run from $250 a pair to $45,000 a pair.
www.cardas.com - Audio cables built around the Golden Ratio. Yeah, and they're from Bandon, OR.
This is getting to be quite a long post - sorry. For those curious, I own an Ayre Acoustics amp (V3) and preamp (K1) and B&W speakers for my two channel system and a Rotel Receiver (RSX-1065) and PMC speakers (TB-2 with an XP-1 sub), the two channel system uses mostly Cardas cable while the surround uses mostly Synergistic. Why all of the expensive stuff - well come on you don't pay retail when you work in the industry. And as for the recording studio I just finished building at the new job - 2 Yamaha DM-2000 consoles, ProTools HD-3, JBL LSR 32 speakers in 5.1 with 3 LSR 12p subs as the .1 channel and running with the left and right front speakers for stereo. The cabling is almost entirely Canare with a touch of Mogami around the digital connections. The mic collection ranges from the SM-57s through to the Neumann U-67s with lots in between. No, none of this is to show off or try to prove that mine is bigger than yours, it is just simply to point out that when you can get the good stuff, you should and there is a reason why fifty thousand dollar speakers exist - they are better than $40k speakers.
There are some wacky audiophiles out there as there are some wacky recording engineers (that swear up and down that you need all tube, all analog tape for recording perhaps?) and then there is the ocassional audiophile/recording engineer who justs loves every end of the recording process.
-Jeremy
