[3] According to one industry commentator, high-end could be defined as, "Gear below which's price and performance one could not go without compromising the music and the sound.
"[4] Harry Pearson, founder of The Absolute Sound magazine, is widely acknowledged to have coined the term high-end audio.
[citation needed] Audiophile equipment can encompass the full range from budget to high-end in terms of price.
Measurements can be deceiving; high or low figures of certain technical characteristics do not necessarily offer a good representation of how the equipment sounds to each person.
These include accessories such as speaker wires utilizing exotic materials (such as oxygen-free copper)[8] and construction geometries, cable stands for lifting them off the floor (as a way to control mechanically induced vibrations), connectors, sprays and other tweaks.