I sold my Rockport Technologies speakers, Gryphon preamp, Gryphon monoblocks, expensive cables, expensive SACD player etc and it paid for my active Linkwitz 521.4 system with 2 Linkwitz Hypex Ncore based 5 channel amps and two car audio systems. I couldn't be happier.
I will bet the new crazy $$ Gryphon is not much better than my old flagship preamp and amps from a decade+ ago (Mirage, Colosseum).
I really believe objectivity is moving the game forward in HiFi, and people don't need to pay what I did to get audio nirvana. I didn't even reach audio nirvana with the Rockport/Gryphon setup to be frank. What I'm happy about is I was still easily able to sell the Rockport/Gryphon setup to dumb traditional audio HiFI people who are still wow'd by the traditional big heavy monoblocks and passive speaker setups.
So yeah, I think objectivity and a fully active setup is the way.