The market will eventually decide as it always does. What's disturbs me is this industry, at the "uber" end, is really becoming a "boutique / how much does your speaker" cost. How do you quantify a $45K mod within the context of musical enjoyment?
I agree with XV-1 regarding CJ. Another recent example is the new Esoteric K01X CDP. Priced $1K above the legacy model, which I just purchased at a reasonable discount.
Seems to me the runaway train is out of control but what do I know.
But keeping context Esoteric comparable product would be GRANDIOSO P1 Transport with GRANDIOSO D1.
Those are not cheap, the transport is nearly double the price of the K01X and without dac functionality.
Cheers
Orb