I think the reason why Sony has never been viewed as a higher end product is not only that they are marketing the brand to mass consumers, but, also, their higher end products tend to be pricy without valued justifications.
I had the opportunity to audition some of Sony's top models 10 yrs back. Their amps and cd players were pretty good. The CDPXA7ES is a classic. The amp, I think it's the N90ES, is also killer. But, at $3000 a piece, one has better alternatives. I don't have a very high opinion of the ES speaker line though.