You are mixing two things. There is a difference between Intel charging you >$1K for a CPU that is 5% faster (in games) than overclocked $300 one versus scammer selling magical power cables (made by gypsy virgins in Romanian monastery on top of the highest mountain, in full moon) to some rich retards.

$40,000 DAC? someone really went ahead and fabbed their own silicon (~$1mil for low volume run)? or did they maybe picked up $100 (at most) part, put it in a shiny box and started looking for suckers?

Do you even realize what $40K gets you? we are talking military grade Agile^^key'hole/RohdeShwartz multi gigahertz arbitrary waveform generators here, not some pityfull audio stuff.

Here are some examples of multi thousand dollar scams: http://www.lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/REFERENCES/wadia%20WT%20... http://www.lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/REFERENCES/Goldmund/gold... http://www.lampizator.eu/LAMPIZATOR/REFERENCES/THETA%20Unive...

Audiophoolery is on the same level as creationism, it only works on uneducated simple minds with no metacognition.