They should charge more for it…

With all due respect, the testimony of your buddy delivered third person and without any backup information (like does your buddy have a conflict of interest, what else in the system besides Wilson speakers, which Wilson speakers, what TT did the GMT replace or what other TTs were used as comparators, etc) is not of great value. If you can get answers to some of the foregoing questions, it would be helpful, I guess.

Funnily, I have never liked anything audiophilic that is made from carbon fiber, except some Yamamoto and Oyaide headshells I bought in Tokyo.  CF tonearms (e.g., the one made by WB) and speakers to my ears have a dull-ish coloration that I find anti-musical. So that biases me against loving the WB GMT in advance, based purely on the materials science behind it, but of course I could be very wrong and would love to hear it in an environment with which I was at least vaguely familiar.

I think Einstein was referring to a hypothesis, not to audio gear. A hypothesis should be as simple as possible to explain the data, but not simpler.

The design concept of the GMT is reminiscent of an older very high end turntable that was made in the Pacific Northwest and now may be out of production.  (I can see it in my mind's eye, but I cannot recall the name.) A very powerful 3-phase AC synchronous motor is driven by three separate and discrete amplifiers, one amp per phase and controlled by precise upstream circuitry to maintain stable speed without the need for a separate servo mechanism. The bling that you guys object to is not appealing to me, either, but the idea and its execution appear to be first rate. I like that part.

I read the GMT white paper on the WB website. What they’ve done and the way they did it are impressive. I’m sure it’s superb. Whether it had to cost as much as it costs is a matter for someone else to decide. All manufactured products are about making money.

I refrain from mocking equipment based on pricing alone, but one has to realize that the guy who spends the big bucks will always be limited by the quality of new and used LPs he must play on it. He’ll need a good imagination to even dream he’s hearing music on a much higher plane than the rest of us, because of the limitations set by the available source material.