I heard some mention of this somewhere on the forums here (don't recall where), and I'd like to add a few things:

As a long-term musician I have either been blessed or cursed with a good aural (auditory) memory... And that, of course, includes both live music, and recorded mediums in whatever format...

Ex: In 1975, I lived and worked in NYC in audio sales, and we were setting up a new store uptown called Audio Salon... To shorten the story, Bud Fried (IMF, Fried) comes in with his new Model H system with the transmission line bass commodes... We hooked the things up to some Audio Research gear in our best soundroom, using a Thorens TT with London Decca MC cartridge... One thing I remember is that the cartridge didn't even have a cantilever!... Just some kind of solid mounting arrangement...

Anyway, the sound was so good, it literally ruined my ear almost to this day... My ear 'remembered' what I heard, and it tainted all that came afterwards... Truth was, I could never afford the gear I listened to that day, and it pained me greatly...

Click to the present: I've since learned to train my ear to accept lesser sources than that system, and it took a good amount of doing, I can tell you that much...  One thing that really surprised me was how close low power SET amps came to that nirvana moment...

Note: Irving 'Bud' Fried has since passed away, rest his soul... He was a great guy, and was always available for a talk about audio stuff... I visited him at his home in Phila. a few times, and he had all manner of prototypes to hear in his living room... All based on that wonderful T-line bass system. The best unfettered low freq. extension I've ever heard... He was a real pioneer in high quality audio...

Anyway, back to the subect-at-hand: Right, aural memory... As I said, it can either serve you, or put you in the dumper... I made a rule for myself to not listen to systems way out of my dollar rage for that reason... I know it sounds a bit severe, but given the chance to hear that system again, I would likely decline today...

I now like to tune my aural senses to what is generally available to myself in practical terms... Now, here's where Decware just may cut in in a favorable way: The stuff's actually affordable!... And I think I just may be able to eat rice and beans long enough to put together a system that retrieves at least most of that original experience... At any rate, I look forward to at least trying... (m.)

Mark, you're taking me back to my youth.  After hearing some Fried satillites at my favorite local sound room, I resolved to one day own a pair.  I eventually had the B-2s and the separate model T stereo subwoofers which was the later version of the H-2 system.  I was driving them with  Thorens tt, SME arm, Stanton cartridge, Marantz model 7 pre, and Dynaco Mk lll monoblocks.  And, yes!, life was good!

Tom

Agreed. Synergy is the bottom line. And no matter the individual component or parts, each is voiced by someone, and has a specific signature relative to the sensibilities of the maker's view of music reproduction. My experience continues to indicate that only the gear carefully voiced by music freaks with really amazing ears is worth listening to, and often they do not meet the height of current technological "knowledge." Like my NOS , non-async DAC, my TUBE Torii, and the dirt cheap NOS paper in oil Russian caps I currently prefer. Pretty old technology, and by some standards, built in "distortions."

Then we each try to put our preferred pieces all together, adding our own subjective preferences to a myriad of parts including all the many cables, the power, the room, treatments, components, tubes, caps, vibration control, speakers...hopefully arriving at synergy. The complex of a system is sort of vast on consideration!

And maybe I got lucky, but my system/room sounds more like music than I have ever heard from a sound system. And there is no doubt in my mind that Steve Deckert and Bob Ziegler's efforts were instrumental in this, along with the hard work of other people with a similar passion and perspective for sorting out a brilliant musical experience from audio gear!