Without a test printout of frequency response, signal-to-noise ratio, THD+N and one channel un-driven crosstalk measurements, it would be difficult to gauge the price to performance value. You have to know what your competitors are capable of at any price point.
I believe these days there is almost no connection between performance and price, unless the price is really low, say below $500. For example see, https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/measurements-of-gustard-p26-preamplifier.10492/ and products of Schiit.
For those who have mentioned remote control @raysmtb1 @sid42, you either get good mechanical controls, or remote control. It is very expensive to implement a mechanical switch which is working in interaction with remote control for channel switching. Motorised potentiometer is also making tactile experience from using volume knob worse. For C15 McIntosh went a classic way of using microcontroller-driven electromechanical switching, with a simple tactile switches on front panel. The downside is basic tactile experience: there is little fun touching such buttons, but pros are integration with anything which can be controlled through microcontroller: RS232, remote control, mobile app, etc.
BTW in the device above, the buttons are having orange, yellow and blue shutters inside, so when you press it, it mechanically becomes colored from inside.
My question is do people in hi-end/hi-fi really care of tactile experience?
