I Have 100K for Speakers?

You're definitely NOT getting $100,000 worth of sound. You're paying, maybe $10,000 worth of materials $60,000 in labor - and that's everything from R&D, craftsmanship, testing, etc. The rest is "Value to YOU" Rarity, Cutting Edge Technology, Exclusivity, Owning the Best, etc.

Audiokineses,

Thats kind of the point I'm trying to make. No offense intended to the person I mentioned. The thread just caught my attention as to in my opinion and maybe to others here how sometimes "pay" just for the sake of paying. I think there are 2 types of people in this hobby(again just an opinion and no offense to any). There are those who love music and build systems(albeit used, new, electronics, room acoustics etc) and love music as a true hobby. Then there are those that spend 100k on a system, throw it in a corner and go on and on how they are an audiophile. This is type is concerned more about the $3000 interconnect he purchased than he is with the actual sound. I'm sorry $3k for any cable is just ridiculous. I would have to bet that 80% of those in this category couldn't tell the difference between a 5k speaker and a 50k speaker.(again just my opinion).

You mention the high end car hobby...One has nothing to do with the other...Spending 150k on a high end car has no bearing on why that same person would spend 100k on speakers.

The only point I tried to make with this thread is there has to be a point where the prices on speakers and maybe any component for that matter reaches a stagnant point of return on investment...

A variation on the point Audiokinesis makes seems to me important. Two of the reasons 100k speakers seem crazy are (i) we plain can't afford them, and (ii) even if we had a 100k nonrefundable gift certificate to a high end store that only sold speakers, we probably couldn't comfortably fit very many likely suspects in our real world listening rooms. By contrast, for many of us, dropping a thousand dollars on wire may garner funny looks at the office but the kids aren't eating cat food and it fits in the same holes that the Radio Shack specialty products fit in. I'll fess up: if I lived in a hedge fund manager's house, I'd probably own a hedge fund manager's pair of speakers (though I do hope that I'd spend some time figuring out which ones were worth owning). Let he who doesn't himself speak in tongues once in a while cast the first stone.

As soon as I get my letter from Ed McMann; Alexandrias will be at the top of my list. Presently I too am 'room-challenged' So; new digs--a must.Hey, what are dreams for??

Some of us have millions of dollars in the bank. As a friend recently said, "now that we're dealing with 'play money' what about doing this or that". At some point the number of zeroes loses relevance when considering expenditures.

Now the question comes to mind as you get into these regions of money and spending, "do I 'owe' it to others in any way to share my wealth." Does spending on oneself ever reach an immoral level? I'm not certain how to answer that. I'm sure that many people in the world think that my 2300 square foot apartment and $16k two-channel system seems extravagantly sinful spending. How can I question someone that lives two blocks away in a $4 million house with a $100,000+ stereo???

I think there are no absolutes in this question. Your context and frame of reference enter into the evaluation and you can't say with absolute authority that spending $100k on a speaker system is immoral any more than me spending $3500 for speakers in a $16,000 system.

I feel no guilt, but I do wonder if there's a point where I should. By the way, I DO share my wealth to a fairly high degree, beyond just what I owe in taxes.

Dave