Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I apologize for a slightly snotty inquiry (which responded to what I perceived as your over-generalization).
But I think there's another explanation here other than purchasing for status to impress other people.
Maybe somebody likes good sound, but has no interest in being an "audiophile" or a hobbyist. He/she doesn't want to wade into thousands of posts on WBF or start subscribing to audio magazines, and spend a significant amount of time reading reviews and visiting multiple dealers and making a whole big, complicated project out of it.
So he/she finds the nearest high-end audio dealer that carries Wilson and D'Agostino and MSB and Transparent, etc. Without much prior audio equipment auditioning experience for comparison or triangulation, he says himself "This sounds pretty damn good. I've never heard anything like this before. I like it! I'll take it!"
So he buys the whole set up (about $450,000) and the dealer installs it in a large living room in the customer's vacation home. The customer listens after the installation, and he/she is happy with the system.
Again, he's not a hobbyist. He has no interest in being a hobbyist.
He dipped his toe in the water for a finite period of time and a finite amount of research and he bought something he believes he likes. He just likes the idea of knowing that whenever he visits this vacation home, if the spirit moves him, and he feels like it, he can listen to a good audio system. The customer likes the idea that it's sitting there waiting for him.
I don't think this purchase has anything to do with status. It is very far from how members on this forum go about selecting components, and why. But that doesn't make it all about status.
