Off topic a bit, but I think the pretense is also a symptom of the fact that it hasn't been all that easy to be in the audio biz for quite awhile now. My sense is that there was a time when mass-market availability actually lined up with good sound, which worked out fine as long as the masses were demanding (or at least felt they needed) decent stereo systems.

I could be wrong, but it seems like the boutique manufacturers got a lot pricier once it was clear that they'd always be selling less no matter what innovations they were coming up with. Bose kinda split the difference by understanding a paradigm shift: They made folks believe their products are a step up when the only thing they really had going for them is that their systems could be hidden in your living space. And then (drumroll, please), Apple changed the game completely by making bad sound "cool" by virtue of its invisibility…iPod's are portable and hold a ton of poorly-rendered music. How do you sell something no one wants to look at? The idea of HT addressed this to some degree, but HT systems aren't really for music (and btw, um, how do we hide the subwoofer?). I'm rambling a bit, but the bottom line is that we're such a long way from the consoles and stuff that used to define good audio.