Mr. Calbi is surely not the only offender. It seems that much of what goes on in wildly expensive mastering sessions is more about impressing technically unsophisticated clients than it is about calibrating recordings for typical consumer playback gear.
I recently sold my D&D 8Cs, and got a lot of interest from studio people. It became clear to me that for several of them it was actually quite important how their potential clients would
perceive the speakers. Part of what counted for them was to be able to say "I have speakers which are technologically cutting edge, among the best there is, and recommended by Stereophile". The actual sound and performance obviously also mattered, but I was surprised by the weight some of them put on the
impression of their setup to prospective customers.
I understand that's a part of doing business. Still find it a bit sad that it's like that, somehow.
(btw, reminds me of a story I heard from my cousin, who previously worked on the development of fairly complicated medical technology in a private company. He told me that they had different brochures/sales pitches for customers in different countries. For German customers, they needed to explain
how their technology worked and
why it was superior to the competitors, concerning the basic main functions. Whereas for Chinese customers they often needed to make a very long list of functions and things that their device could do - the longer the list the more impressive, apparently)
