“If I ventured in the slipstream,” sings Van Morrison, heartily. “Between the viaducts of your dream…” The lyrics from his 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks pour out across the room via a pair of £14,000 ($21,500) speakers. They’re turned up pretty loud. Detail locked in the recording comes bursting through.

In particular, the stereo imaging (a kind of acoustic illusion) is super sharp, with instruments crisply defined and clearly discernible as coming from different sides of the “stage”. Violins and flutes ripple off to the left, the bass hangs low and a little to the right, while Morrison himself, beating the rhythm into his guitar, booms directly from the centre.

Bowers & Wilkins, the company that makes these Diamond 802 speakers, has a range of even more expensive offerings – such as the eccentrically seashell-shaped “Nautilus” model, which retails at £60,000 ($92,100).