Hey.. I dealt with the antecedents of these now full-into-looney-bin ... descendants.

[tl;dr: The sheep shall be sheared] but you Knew that.
--Anonymous

An avocation, I played at audio consulting (with as little cha. cha. as possible) in the quite early days, where the Giants were (all ™s) Marantz, Crown (massive Ampex-like tape recorders), Revox/tape, and a slew like Scott, Fisher, H-K AR and the better Kits from Heath, Dynaco et al. Then, esp re vac-tube IFs (the Ultimate being the Tchebyshev filters of the nonesuch Marantz "10-B" tuner w/ oscilloscope: to minimize FM multipath reflections. Though that one would never need "adjusting") .. measurements began to morph-into disingenuous Ads, poco á poco.

ie One Could then, actually improve various adjustables ..tweak for a better than std. IF curve etc. and that was not BS. Could minimize THD or IM-distortions.. not BS either though not fully revelatory of what "Musically-Bitchin" might ever mean?/despite Science n'such. {sigh}
But matters diverged pro regressively as more folk with imagined/sometimes-Real-er Golden ears AND a wallet to match: these became thelawul prey of the Grifters-just-like-today's ignoble clan.
[That's the short-form]

I ceased paying attention on hearing of the first $40K bare *turntable and reading the befflegab of--still extant?--Sterophile magazine. Actively missing from most-all the current lots was the honesy exhibitions of Edgar Villchur, KLH wherein: Live was seamlessly alternated with (pre-) recorded passages of clasical music. This was indeed Science not Grift. The high-water mark in 'the field', I wot.

* subsequent hearsay was that you could pay >$100Grand for such. (Unconfirmed; too lazy to search re Now)

Next.. honesty diffused well-into the bafflegab + NO double-blind comparisons as described 'happened'.
(In fact I have to refurb a couple 'NAD's and somehow replace the drivers in a nonesuch 'time-aligned™' pair of bitchin speakers ... as may never happen should I, post-Nov, g.t.f. Outta this Chicken Outfit; shall then settle for the small.. somewhat amazing gadgetry by Tivoli + a few. These be suitably portable. But not: a Marantz 8-B or pair of "9"s driving full range electrostatic speakers by KLH.

Oh well; moi's ear-pans ears can more easily be fooled now anyway [/sour-grapes.]
So it's all Drumpfish-pure-shit-grade hyperbole, greed, prices a ƒ(perceived wallet-weight) and ... all I can say is:

You Can find, refurb (replace caps and the usual e- guts) wonderfully musical amps like the Marantz 8-B atereo amps; last one I looked on eBay for a price check was >$3500. Hell I peddled a few 10-Bs and other nonesuch things; also got to live with them etc. The only useful Listening test, if you educate your ears (and how you employ them in clever A/B comparos.

---

Carrion;
doubtless there are several Megabuck 'systems' out there; these purchasers are the lawful prey of [see above.]
I Mean: how about dem "decibel Playoffs" wherein utterly deranged-sheep put Kilowatts of audio into a car enclosure {but at least ..even these cretins allow that: No One May? Should? CAN also sit inside this torture-chamber.} and we're talkin 'bout orders/magnitude >>Jet-engine at 1-foot, ETC. What a seppuku-driven Species.

..and the inability to See that this must be so: is just another gauge of the deemed-irrelevance of Facts ... apparently not confined to the possibly-terminal political-seppuku now a Real Possibility
in this [formally defined by UN as] 'third-world'--call it 'Failed'-State.

(Never has Mr. Azimov's proposition re Ignorance in Murica been so perfectly proven as Now).
The audio version is, of course a very sub-_subset of the Std Bizness Lie.