While this is probably true for measuring sound systems the brains ability to filter out the room is quite amazing. If you’ve ever listened back to a recording made in a echoy room vs what you it sounded like at the time its quite incredible.

Digital sources I would put with dacs. I doubt anyone can hear a difference between two CD transports.

I genuinely don’t understand how the market supports so much ultra high end highfi gear. It’s almost every week I see some speaker or amplifier that costs 50,000k+ from a manufacturer I’ve never heard of, you check out their website and it looks like they’ve not changed it since 2003. Some of these must sell sell like 5 products a year tops.

Simple economics has to say you aren’t going to get a good deal on a company that has to make all their profits for a year on a handful of sales vs one that can make their profits on hundreds of thousands.