Absolutely, Bitt. Sadly, that is the area I live in, where there are some people who will fork over a fortune for the sake of having such an expensive system. There was an article about it in the Post last year, about people who spent upwards of $200,000 on their home stereo systems ALONE. I also love hanging out at that store, because much of the time, there are salesmen in there who know that I can't buy any of this stuff, and who also know how ridiculous it all is. They told me some great stories.

One was about a guy who used these huge line conditioners, because of course the power going through your house will affect your stereo to all hell. First he decided that these devices (he had two of them) needed to be placed in sandboxes for minimum interference. They told me his next step was to operate on his fridge so that it didn't affect the house's power as much.

Then there were the stories about people like the guy who hand built dozens of little stands, hooked fishing line to them, and suspended all the cables running to his various components, because there was too much interference from the ground.

Like you said, even if the physics of it all dictates that these methods and equipment do affect the sound, chances are it will be so minimal that many of the things these people do will not matter, because they cannot hear it. Perhaps there is a monk somewhere in Asia that is so in tune with the universe that he can hear the minor change in the soundwaves, but chances are he won't be buying the $10,000 equipment so he can hear Norah Jones that much clearer.

That said, Norah Jones sounded pretty damn good on this stuff I'm not saying it doesn't sound great, just that if I went over and listened to a well-tuned $2000 complete stereo system, I probably couldn't tell the difference.