Sidebar: Awhile back there was a very high end audio store located near
where I live in the far suburbs of Washington DeeCee where I hung around on
occasion.. Got pretty friendly with one of the sales folks and we would
shoot the breeze when there weren't customers around. One day he tells me
about a customer, who owned a ultra high-end rig, who had come in and was
complaining that the previous night he had attended a performance at the
Kennedy Center in Washington. He said the symphony's sound didn't have the
"air" of his home system.

Now let's face it: a true blue, dedicated, audiophile lusts for nothing
more than the top-of-the-line turntable going to a top-of-the-line tube
phono stage to a top-of-the-line tube pre-amp to a top-of-the-line tube amp
and then to their top-of-the-line speakers. So much for minimium
distortion, jitter, etc. in your system.