I've always felt that extreme high end speakers should always sound great since the designers aren't restricted by cost…the genius is in lower cost stuff where designers have to really think about what's important and come up with something sounding great anyway (and they do, thank you Alan Yun). Great wine makers do this also, if sometimes inadvertently. Note that that small plot of land for the exclusive wine could also produce wine that sucks in a bad year, so it's not necessarily always a plot specific pricing scenario, unless it is. Or isn't. Or something.