Hegel Barreira's colorful RGB desk setup — Brasília - Brasil

Study a lot about what you really want in your setup and whether everything you're going to buy will be well utilized.

Hegel's setup runs on a pair of Genelec "The Ones" monitors on isolation stands, angled in toward the Apple Studio Display like a proper listening triangle. Blue backlighting washes the bookshelf behind — vinyl, hardbacks, and a stack of amplifier gear catching the glow.

A Mac Studio and a rack of outboard audio equipment sit below the desk, out of the way of the keyboard and trackpad up top. He says the real cost isn't in what you see — it's the DAC and speakers alone that ran past $20,000, the part that actually shows up in the sound.