If you feel you can build a better audiophile computer for much cheaper than the Lampi Komputer then more power to you. But for the average non-tech savvy audiophile such as myself, Lampi is offering a really nice alternative for an audiophile quality computer. It is basically the same computer that Mike and many other audiophiles have had to assemble themselves brought together in one turn-key unit complete with the latest and greatest music software. Sounds like a great deal to me.
Ken, every desktop computer I have ever owned, I have built myself. I am sure other computer builders will agree with me on this point: building a computer is not hard. What is hard is choosing the parts, and even that is not too hard. It gets a bit more tricky if you want to build a computer for a specialist application - e.g. for an "audiophile" computer, you might want it to be fanless and fit in a small form factor case with no moving bits inside. Then you'll have to think about what CPU cooler will work for you, find a fanless power supply that will still fit in your case, buy cards that are not too tall or long, etc etc. Even when you get the whole kit together, you might find something silly ... like the path of your CPU heatpipe might prevent you from installing a card.
It is not the building that is difficult, it is the shopping.
If I had a list of parts that that Lampi was built from, for sure I could replicate it at much lower cost. They have already done the most difficult part of the build for me - that is, find the parts that will work for this application. And remember - I am no computer genius, I am just an idiot with a screwdriver.