All of the advances made in audio gear over the past several decades bring me to mind of the early days of Mark Levinson when Mark actually owned the company. Mark Levinson audio gear has always had a cache about it. I remember when Mark started the company way back when. He offered extremely expensive gear for the time which was only sold in boutique type audio stores. As I recall Mark did the external design for his products and Tom Colangelo and John Curl designed the electronics.
Construction was superb, and internal parts used in the manufacture of his components were military grade. Over the years I’ve owned a few pieces of Levinson gear: ML-1 and ML-6 dual mono preamplifiers, both of which were on the dark side sonically, but very pleasant to listen to.
I remember that after Mark sold the company to Madrigal that he later attempted to buy the company back, but was unable to. He started Cello Audio where he went on to make further significant contributions to this hobby. Still few audio brands have maintained the cache of Mark Levinson over the years or have been as successful financially.