Rick is one of those audio guys, like me, who gets excited about the best audio possible and works continually toward that goal.Come on, I think this applies to nearly everyone here, designers and consumers. Rick is only one of 100's of engineering minds out there making new discoveries in state of the art audio systems. For one man to be labeled the Cable God, as this thread very much implies, is rather silly.
As rare as some components of a design might be, and thus expensive, I guarantee you, there will be a new discovery of some new element that results in a design outperforming the current reference. The magical magnets will be a thing of the past and magic black pearls attached to the ground lead with duct tape will be the new discovery. And the cost of that new design's materials would be a fraction of the old reference's cost. But sadly this $300 cable to produce will be $30k as it is deemed twice as resolving as the previous $15k reference. And the lunacy continues onto the next chapter.