I am not an audiophile, but I hear some variation of this mostly from people who have never listened to exceptional masters using really good audio equipment. Sure, the cost/performance ratio is usually prohibitive, but once you have that experience, I don't know how it can be objectively called "shit that just doesn't matter".

There is also using the aforementioned setup when high. For people who like doing it, the difference is even more obvious, and the ratio starts looking reasonable.