I view these types of "auctions" as a brag social-media-like post, intended to show off an item one has on a high-traffic site, without actually selling them. Hence the crazy price. I imagine the seller showing the listing to friends and bragging about how it's a $40K system they are listening to.
After all, there is no cost to posting, just selling - and that happens after payment. I'd sell that system for $40K to someone who clicked buy/pay, because I could replace it back for about $5K, maybe even with bigger APM-66MK2 speakers and a mini disc. I will say that these type of posts may push prices on items up, so other seller may actually benefit.
Finally, I will say that this is a very nice system overall, and one could easily spend $40K today on new hardware and not get the same quality, and certainly would not get a new deck as fancy as this 97ES nor a DAT, since no one makes either anymore. Sony made very well performing hardware in this period. For example, those APM-22ES speakers are very decent. I've put them against $2-3K 2-ways, and these 22s always tend to reach lower, cleanly, and sound very controlled. Under rated and under valued in my view.
