My listening room is worse than a trade show room. I was able to listen past that. Background. I just spent the last 10 years on a hyper search for the best gear. Me and 3 of my friends have heard the best. I listened to a 750k system in a perfect acoustical enviorment. Raidho came to his home listening cottage along with solutions and set it all up with measurements etc. He used ansuz cabling. He actually had 3 different high end systems 3 years at a time and I spent substantial time with it. I and my friends have also had Veloce, allnic, Sonus Faber, Vienna acoustics, revel, rel, audio research, high fidelity, cables, Mit, kr audio, mark Levinson, Gato audio, esoteric, MIT, Clarity Cables, kimber cables, atlas cables, Tara labs, classe, Marantz, soulutions, Resonessence labs, Sony, Ayon, dynaudio, Melco, Lumin, esoteric, focal, rogue, Melco, Hegel, oppo, Clarus Cables, McIntosh, musical fidelity, luxman, Bryston. First I would like to say because of system matching and the research I have personally put in. A 10k beating my system is possible but highly unlikely. I think there a people who haven’t heard the best gear so the reference point they have is limited. What I have found is there is an improvement once you get around that 10k Mark is substantial. I’m not saying you can’t get great sound with less but 10k is a great price point. When you get to 25k and up you usually get better technology based improvements. Usually soundstage, transparency, lower noise floors, dynamics, bass performance, treble performance. I think once you get past that there is the 60k and up systems. They are a different animal IF THEY ARE DONE CORRECTLY AND MATCHED PROPERLY. ALL OF THIS DEPENDS ON IF YOU MATCH YOUR EQUIPMENT, ROOM, CABLING AND SOURCES PROPERLY. I’m not asking people to agree with me these are just things based on my last 10 years of independent research. Your experiences are probably different. I think I did in 10 what it takes most of us 25 years to do. I have had access to a lot of gear cabling and listening enviorments. My system is currently up on my Facebook page. I’m proud of it and after I listen to higher priced gear I don’t come home disappointed with my gear. The best system I’ve heard was the late Dave Baskin of design Audio video. He had raidho 5.1 with all solutions electronics and ansuz cabling. It was about 700k retail but it was truly the AUDIO MATRIX AND TWILIGHT ZONE. For that money it should have been. Yes it kicked any systems a** ever and I never want to hear something that good again cause I was about to foam at the mouth. Anyway my Gato FM6 speakers, KR Audio va900, Resonessence Mirus Pro, clarity Cables, high fidelity reveal cables, atlas mavros, Sony es5400 modwright, Melco server system ticks all my personal boxes and kicks a**. You can find your path cheaper or more expensive. You ear is your ear. I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of high price gear is better but you can spend less and get to a better place if you match your gear, have great cabling and sources and put it in the right acoustical enviorment. Just my thoughts based on my 10 years and all the brands and systems I’ve heard.