@blakeyrat said:
If you can show me wrong, please do so.
First of all let me admit that my knowledge is about 15 years old. I haven't even been in a HiFi shop since; I have my set which is starting to get a old but I'm still happy with it. I had it stored for a couple years; when I got it back, it blew me away again like it did the first time. I'm sure that today you can get a set with the same quality as that one for maybe a fifth of the money - of course technology has progressed, but it has done so not only at the low end, but also at the high end.
Secondly, a digital output is not going to help you if what you want into your ears is analog music. At some point, digital information has to be translated into waves. This is bloody hard. Cheap CD players have a cheap DAC which is simply not as good as a good one (duh). Similarly with amps, look up how hard it is to amplify an analogue signal. Again here, better components will give you better results, but sadly they usually cost more money. Insert your own car analogy here (pistons, ball bearings, oil, whatever).
Last but not least, you mentioned the test with an oscilloscope. Once you get into the territory that you can only tell the difference with that kind of instruments I'll grant you everything you want to say about audiophiles, but you don't need expensive apparatus to tell the difference between a Ferrari and a Chevy Nova, do you? Your ears are the only instruments that count. If you can't hear it, don't spend the money. Why am I so convinced that you CAN hear the difference? Because I had so many sceptical customers in that shop. They came in sceptics, and became customers. Like I did.
Without much exaggerating: the difference between an ok Sony $500 set and a really good set is the difference between canned tuna and fresh tuna, or pineapple, or pasta. You don't like music? Great, you saved yourself a lot of money. You tried it and didn't hear it/like it? Even better. But don't tell me you can't hear it without even trying because that's just silly. I was just as sceptical as you are, but at least I was willing to believe my own ears.