I think that fundamentally, everyone agrees that there are diminishing returns with audio products, people just have different tolerances for bad audio, differe

I think that fundamentally, everyone agrees that there are diminishing returns with audio products, people just have different tolerances for bad audio, different amounts of fucks to give about it, and different levels of ability to configure their setups. I don't know what the distribution of people looks like along those axes, but you sound "normal" to me in regards to taste, and by virtue of being on this forum are probably above average in regards to technical ability to configure things. Lots of people would probably find it a bit too much trouble to worry about and configure the external audio receiver and freestanding floor speakers (which incidentally describes my setup as well), but I don't think that's equivalent to them not recognizing the improvement. Sound bars seem to be deliberately intended to fill the market segment for people who want and can afford better sound, but can't manage the configuration.