looking around my room at my gear; there are only 5 pieces of gear where i have not personally known the designer/engineer/builder of the gear and spoken to them a number of times.
my Ortofon MC Anna cartridge, my 2 Studer A-820 master recorders, Herzan active isolation shelves, Entreq grounding boxes and my Furutech GTX-D(R) duplex outlets.
I know all the other gear's designers (and they know me); speakers, amps, preamp, tt, tone arms, digital dacs, power cables, interconnects, speaker cables, tape repro, system power grid isolation transformer, record cleaner, even the rack and decoupling footers. i know all those people and appreciate their perspectives and passion for their products.
these designers have the technical chops and degrees; but also they all love music.....passionately. and they 'get it'.