Something funny happened to me when I walked into the Marriott's Room 422. I had been feeling particularly stressed and particularly drained, and I really didn't want to listen to any more music or exude any more pleasantries. But I was suddenly relieved of all that negative energy—seriously, I could feel it!—upon walking into Room 422.

It was kind of miraculous.

And you would hope for miracles from a system that costs a zillion dollars.

Not a zillion, really. But close. Room 422 was home to Santa Fe Audio, The Signal Collection, and Covenant Audio Consulting. The system was made of: Continuum Criterion turntable with Copperhead tonearm ($55,595) and Air Tight PC-1 cartridge ($6000); WAVAC EC-300B SET amplifier ($26,490), PR-T1 3-chassis preamp ($29,000), LCR-X2 3-chassis phono stage ($25,000); Lansche Audio 4.1 loudspeakers with purple-glowing Corona ion tweeter ($55,595); EMM Labs DAC2 ($9000) and TSD1 transport ($11,500); Dragon Shotgun Widowmakers cables ($36,000/3m); Pranawire Cosmos speaker cables ($7850/2m), interconnects ($4650/1m), and Satori power cords ($1795/1m); IsoClean 80A3 80AMP power conditioner ($4200) and PT3030GII isolation transformer ($2100); and (whew) the Sistrum component rack ($2000).

Does that add up to a zillion? Might as well. It also adds up to seriously revitalizing, fricking therapeutic sound.