> High-end hifi is full of grift. It literally relies on people with more money than sense who can be persuaded to spend a fortune on components and extras that either make no difference to the sound or make it objectively less accurate.
Replace "hifi" with any other product and the sentiment remains the same. High-end houses, high-end cars, high-end clothes, high-end food, high-end technology... the ostensible quality of the product is entirely divorced from the price, because the actual product isn't the speaker or the handbag or the smartphone or etc; the real product is social signaling via conspicuous consumption.