Help me spend $100,000 on a new system
I’ve recently been considering moving and downsizing my home. While exploring how much I might sell my house and land for, I was shocked that I might have an excess of $100,000 after selling and buying a smaller new home with less acreage. I’m 71 years old and can’t take it with me, so I’m trying to figure out how to spend that potential resource.
One possibility would be to purchase a new stereo system with all that cash. I would like to demo a system costing that much to see what sound quality you could get for a stupendous amount like that. But I don’t have any idea what brand/model components to look at. Perhaps you could suggest components you might consider if you were setting up a system at that price point. Also how would you budget the total amount per component including wiring.
I am not interested in adding streaming or anything else I might not already have to the system. I would be open to buying separates to replace any single component such as the integrated amplifier. Maybe a separate DAC, phono stage, preamp etc. Please tell me what you would do.
Following are the components I already have to upgrade. My system consists of Magico A3 speakers, a Luxman 507uX MK2 integrated amp, a Marantz Ruby KI CD/SACD player, A VPI Classic 2 turntable with a Fatboy tonearm and a Lyra Kleos cartridge. Wiring consists of Audioquest Rocket 88 speaker cables, and VPI house brand wires that connect to the tonearm. I forget the brands of the other wires and cables, but they are of similar quality to the above.
I also have a Shunyata Hydra Denali 4000 power conditioner with a Venom power cord (I think) that I will continue to use without upgrading.
I would welcome any of your suggestions and utilize them next time I go up to Washington DC to visit dealer showrooms for demos. Thank you much.
It does sound weird to consider spending that much on a system costing over three times what I paid for my first home, so I hope I’m not sounding uppity here.
Mike
@skyscraper (aka Mike) yes, Cary is still in business, but now they are Cary direct and not from a dealer. But unfortunately this is not Dennis Had's Cary Audio Design anymore. I honestly do not know about the quality of their products these days, but their customer service is not nearly as good as it was in the old days. But still, if I had a bunch of money to spend, I would be considering their flagship amps. However, you may be looking for a cut or two above those. |
Sounds like you are already listening to some pretty kick-ass stuff. Stuff, anyway, that would kick my stuff’s ass. I always thought that if I had a lot of disposeable cash to play with I’d want to get into some of Cary’s SET stuff. Back in the early ’90s I got a guy I worked with interested in tube gear and I turned him on to my dealer in Filthadelphia. The friend I worked with had bumped into the station from a station in California that had been closed and he had a lot of money (all things being relative) to play with, and, among other things, the dealer set him up with Metaphor speakers and a pair of Cary 805s. The system the dealer sold him cost around 20k, so I do not know what the appreciation on that over 30 years would be. (20k on "a stereo" was enough to blow everybody’s mind at work, however.) I always felt the dealer undersold him on the preamp and digital front end. Anyhow, the Cary 805s have long been on my wish list, or even better, a pair of Cary 211 FEs. I suppose for digital I would go Esoteric, and any analogue front end I bought would be better than what I have now, wch is none at all. But sadly, my wish list is all based on a fantasy I have never heard but only read about, so you can take all of that above with a grain of salt.
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Sorry, @hilde45 , that was just airline industry talk and I didn't mean anything by it. That's just what we always called it (like LaGaurdia was "LaGarbage", and so on) and it just got to where it was second nature without even thinking about it. The dealer I was referring to was a guy from David Lewis Audio, btw. |
@mitchagain , I am also a member of that club. |
@skyscraper , if I had the financial where with all, this would be my goal also. As it is, I know my limitations, and for that reason have never tried to listen to anything that I knew I couldn't have. I am not saying that logic is good for everyone, but I know myself, so I know that hearing something that was approaching The Holy Grail would not be good for me. Earlier in this thread I alluded to a work friend of mine who, going on 30 years ago, bought a pair of Cary 805s and some other gear. I never went over to his place to listen to the system that he bought because I felt the need to be happy with what I had at the time. But what he was always telling me was that "It is like being there." And that is what I have always heard about the SET stuff, particularly the higher powered SET stuff, and for that reason, if I could afford to buy it, I think I would want to find a way to hear it in action. On another note, getting into the later '90s, after I had made a few equipment upgrades, I bought some NOS tubes to retube the new stuff with from Andy at Vintage Tubes. In the course of a few conversations via telephone, we wound up discussing gear. I remember him speaking almost orgasmically about what 200 watts of pure class A push pull power sounded like. I remember him using the term "liquid fire" somewhere in that conversation. Tht would also be something I would like to hear if I could afford to buy it. |
@skyscraper , sorry about that--SET = single ended triode. As opposed to push-pull. I am not very tech minded, but here is a page from Wiki describing the SET circuit.
Here is Cary's latest description of the 805s Here's a Stereophile review from '98 on the Cary 805s
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Oops! I missed this when you posted it. I think you ought to just maybe give them a listen before you rule them out. They really are not all that complicated and with the disposable funds you are talking about you could do yourself right in the tubular regards. And who knows? You are seem to be looking for a change from what you are listening to presently (as good as I bet it sounds!), and a real top notch tube system might be the change you are looking for.
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@scottwheel , can you expound upon that? |
