[jiganti]

I'm not sure it would work if no one could tell the difference, and I'll cite your example of the audiophiles.

Many people are overpaying for sound equipment that would sound no different to them than stuff half the price, but the fact that there are people that can tell the difference, who talk about that difference constantly, keeps the deluded part of the market in the dark. These people will never do some sort of double-blind test to identify whether or not they can tell the difference, but since there were originally people who could recognize it, others started to follow blindly. There has to be some starting off point before the masses buy into the hype.