I don't have Drop THX AAA 789. I do have its little single-ended brother Drop THX AAA One. Still under warranty. Fingers crossed it will continue to work well.

Here is my take. The issue is entire consumer market. Most consumers buy products for value (cheaper the better). Besides a small minority, most are not willing to pay more for quality.

The result is that manufacturers and merchant just focus on building the cheapest product. $250-$300 for THX AAA 789 was a greate deal. I am sure there wereshort cuts. Such as using cheaper components, reduced quality control, reduced testing, etc. And result is likely slightly higher failure rate. Hard to say what that failure rate is. Is it 1/100, 1/1000, etc?

And there is no guarantee that cheap product will fail prematurely. Or high-end premium product won't fail. So on average, most consumer still wins with the value products.