High Performance Audio - The End?

Well mixed and mastered music on a competent system sounds better than poorly recorded music on a summit-fi system.

That could actually be true, but good music on a mediocre system is better than less good music on a great system.

@jjss49 I think I might buy all that. However nicely presented or laid out at corporate level it looks, by the time you get down to street level it's generally more of ceaseless knife fight, everybody looking for their advantage. But, that's capitalism.

...and I know I would hate to have to wait in line for my daily allotment of 'art' from the state. ;)

I watched the video and practically, I think he nailed it pretty well. The example of pop music on Magnepans is a classic example of wrong speaker for a particular kind of recording. Been there, done that. But that is not strictly a case of too high performance for the genre. The issue is also lack of performance regarding large scale dynamics with planars. You will hear the music but probably seldom feel it.

Interesting Steve worked at SBS. Did not know that. He reviewed Ohm Walsh speakers recently and was very impressed. The time I went to Sound By Singer and mentioned I owned Ohm Walsh speakers the guy there totally dissed them.  I do not think it was him but not sure.

Huh? Some of my favorite music is on crappy recordings. A good system just allows you to hear further into the recording be it bad or good. Contrary to some opinion here, there are some excellently recorded popular records. Many of them are trying to give you a different experience than being at a live recording. It is part of the art form. Amused to Death (Roger Waters) is an example. 
It is really a mater of priorities and how much you are willing to spend.
You can build a system for about $120,000 that is very close if not SOTA.
Spending more than that will not get you much farther. You might call that the point of diminishing returns. 
As a young audiophile you start with what you can afford and over time you evolve your system until you get where you are happy. That point does exist. If you wind up with piles of money and want to buy $145,000 amplifiers, well why not? Are they worth that much? Hell no, but if they make you happy why not? Most of us can't go that far but trust me on this, you don't have to. It is much harder to build a SOTA system on short money and I have heard some very expensive not so hot sounding systems. 
Does the quality of an individual recording mean anything? Not if you like the music. There are loads of audiophile "candy." Super recordings of bad music. You can buy those if you want your system to sound good.
Right now I am listening  to a half speed mastered version of The Captain and Me. The best of both worlds:)