In college I worked in a factory making loudspeakers. Not just any loudspeakers... but these insanely (over)priced speakers:
It was an amazing job. I learned a ton. Unfortunately, it also gave me the bug for high end audio - much of it vintage. For now, I have kids and a mortgage and other stuff to do... some day there will be a listening room.
wow is right. The WAMM is impressive to see - but I preferred the X-1 (which I think is called something new). Yah.. the WAMM - back in the 90s, cost more than I paid for my house in 2008. And for that price, Mr. Wilson would come to your house and help you get it dialed in.
I knew the guys at Cello - the last one left, which I think is still in business. They'd built up a 5.1 rig out of Dynaudio drivers and custom amps hand-built by Mark Levinson. I was told I was listening to $70k a channel. It sounded pretty dope, but it didn't sound 70x as good as a $1k/channel system. Speakers shouldn't be impressive to see - they should be impressive to hear. I find that the weirder they look, the worse they sound (lookin' at you, B&W nautilus). 