I beg to differ. I have been in the hobby since I was 13 years old, so we are talking 50 years now. Granted I have never owned the true high end, but I haven't owned shabby equipment either.
I acquired the ZU Dirty Weekenders a few months back. The most exciting listen in easily the last 20 years in my systems. I currently own Wharfedale (Denton and Diamond 10)) and have owned KEF (Q55) and Rega (Ara and RP1). Not even close to the Zu, then again I have only owned pure bookshelf sized and large standpoint sized speakers of the other brands, as opposed to a floorstander.
The other speakers that I heard that I was this excited about were from Focus Audio and that was at a trade show 15 years ago.
Rich