I got a quote of exactly that to put in a new addition dedicated to the muse. I decided against it because I figured it just wouldn't work for me.
Inheritance ($100K) with a caveat
So you inherit $100k but with the caveat all the monies be put into a two channel stereo system.
And can never sell.
What to do?
Analog? Digital? Both? Tube? Solid State? Cables? Room treatments? Build a stereo room?…
And can never sell.
What to do?
Analog? Digital? Both? Tube? Solid State? Cables? Room treatments? Build a stereo room?…
47 responses Add your response
30 Onkk Cue turntable 15 Origin Live Conqueror, Soundsmith SG1 and 2 extra styluses 6 Moabs with Duelund, Jantzen, Goertz and Path Audio crossovers 3 DBA 12 Raven Reflection MkII integrated amp 5 Townshend F1 interconnects and speaker cables 15 M101 Nova and Supernova power cords 1 Decware DLC power conditioner 5 Townshend Pods and Podiums under everything 2 Synergistic HFT, ECT, PHT everywhere 6 TDF (aka Krissy magic) ==================== $100k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otCpCn0l4Wo |
It is a tough call. I left something out and had to edit. Without the time pressure I would do my best to replace the Reflection with a Raven Shadow and Townshend Allegri Reference preamp. I wonder if you appreciate the incredible value this system represents. The Allegri Reference is passive and so uses no expensive power cord, yet achieves SOTA preamp performance. The Raven Reflection likewise being an integrated uses only one power cord. Either one saves a big chunk of power cord money while still providing incredible performance. Also the Allegri needs no Pods, they are built in. The Townshend wire is incredibly hard to beat, for sure nothing for the money, and the same goes for the Moabs. And power cords. Soundsmith SG1 is both an incredible SOTA cartridge but also needs no phono stage- another huge savings both for the phono stage as well as the power cord it would need. This is also the only user-replaceable stylus anywhere near this level of performance, and you did specify forever. Anyone proposing anything digital is doomed, NO ONE keeps ANY digital forever, so any system with digital in it is doomed, dead, stick a fork in it DONE! You. Can't. Touch. This! |
Millercarbon… I probably do not understand the complete synergy of your system. But I have been a fan of Townsend products for a LONG time. I still have and use a Townsend audio platform from the 90’s. Only trouble is right now I’m have difficulties locating the air pump. cable savings is a big deal. especially now that I’m retired. |
If adding to my current system: Zellaton Plural Evo $55k Brinkmann Oasis/Thales Statement/Fuuga $45k From Scratch: Zellaton Plural Evo: $55k Thales USA Package: $15k McIntosh C2700: $8k McIntosh C462: $9k McIntosh MPC500: $2.5k Custom rack: about $6k Remaining on streaming Couple hundred for Blue Jeans cabling |
Millercarbon… I probably do not understand the complete synergy of your system. But I have been a fan of Townsend products for a LONG time. I still have and use a Townsend audio platform from the 90’s. Only trouble is right now I’m have difficulties locating the air pump. You mean the complete synergy of my proposed $100k? Or my current system? https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367 Nevermind, they are the same. At least in the sense they both reflect the way to audio nirvana is less to do with buying big name components and more with making the best use of funds apportioned across the full range of fundamental requirements. The conventional way of looking at it is you need a source, amp, and speakers. This was popular and highly effective up until about 40 years ago, when we started getting better and better with wire, vibration control, and acoustics. Now those are all pretty much equally as important as the big box components people trapped in old school last millennium mindset still are fixed on. The synergy comes in realizing, say you have $20k and want the best amp money can buy. The old school last millennium knee jerk reflex is to start blathering about which is the best $20k amp. The intelligent synergy approach is to understand a $12k Raven Reflection integrated amp with a Synergistic Orange Fuse and ECT and sitting on Townshend Pods with a M101 Nova power cord will absolutely walk all over anything those old behind the times people can ever come up with. Because they will blow their whole wad on the amp, leaving zip left over, so it is handicapped by having to run on its own factory feet, its own Buss fuse, and with the absolute crap black rubber power cord. To top it off most of them will say buy separates, in which case multiply the problems with even more boxes to power and connect. So the synergy lies in thinking through all the different needs and finding the best way of doing them all with the least amount of money. The system I would buy with $100k intended to last a lifetime uses a Soundsmith SG1 which is not only one of the finest cartridges money can buy, it is also one with user-replaceable stylus and includes its own phono stage, which considering the level this is at could run you $10k easy. Read the reviews. Also don’t forget that to get that performance the $10k phono stage will need an expensive power cord and Pods and Fuse, etc. Every additional component is not just an additional component, it is an additional thing that needs to be tweaked to extract the most performance possible. Otherwise you leave money on the table, so to speak. Likewise the tone arm, Origin Live uses integral tone arm wire. This eliminates a big expense, since a phono lead at this level could easily add another $3k to $5k with little if anything to show for that extra expense. On and on it goes like this. The DBA is a four sub system. Most guys would have blown their wad trying to get great bass from monster floor standers. The Moab is no slouch in this department but a $3k DBA delivers SOTA bass for relative peanuts. Another big synergy is using high sensitivity speakers. This enables the 50wpc Ravens to be more than enough power. Anyone foolishly advising anything under 92dB has to then have hundreds of watts - 200 to be precise - to match the level of these 98dB speakers. Watts cost money and so there it goes, wasted simply because of a weak approach to system building. Synergistic HFT are way more effective acoustic control than old school panels and tubes. They cost less, deliver more, and take up way less space. It is just like that with everything I listed. This whole $100k system requires only 2 power cords! One interconnect, and one set of speaker cables. Money buys quality and the more wires the less money per wire. This maximizes your money, bigly. What else? Oh yeah, the crossover. Something I proved by experience just recently. Moabs with greatly upgraded crossovers will walk all over much more expensive speakers. Ulfberht are better of course, but for what they cost you could buy Moab, upgrade them, and put them on Townshend Podiums, and have money left over. Put them up against each other, no contest. System synergy wins every time. Where this comes in for you, once you get the hang of this approach you begin to find all kinds of areas that can be improved for very little money, and when you do buy something it will be a genuine improvement and not just another box. Your old Seismic Sink btw, pretty sure it is a Presta valve, any bicycle pump with the Presta valve adaptor will work. Presta are the ones with a tiny little knurled knob you loosen to pump and then tighten back down. If not then check with John Hannant at Townshend Audio he would know for sure. |
All vintage equipment and solid state because you will need the quiet with vintage speakers and both analog and digital with all audio magic cables, interconnects, and power conditioning. Kimber cable pk10 power cords with analog and digital sources but only cd sources for digital and a turntable for analog along with a good tuner to warm the system up with. You also need to find a house with a good stereo room with proper sound in that room and our solid corners with no windows with acoustic panels and ceilings to cut down on the sound outside the room. The whole thing needs to be in a basement to avoid resonances with the floor and walls and when you accomplish all of this wow it is truly an amazing experience. |
I.Do.Not.Want.To.Touch.That. *eww* I would engage some Trumpian-style ’investment’ in an audio dedicated space that would have it’s tentacles of cable to every room in the home built around said audio space.... ...which obviously requires the ’support technology’ of a kitchen, restroom or 2 1/2, a space or three to ’retire to’ which allow for the contemplation of what I’d been listening to Seriously.... ...and to piss everyone off, have a D distribution amp to drive it all.... The ’One Ring to Bind Them’ theory, Revisited. ;) |
SO easy. Have your dealer set up various current models from Magnepan IN YOUR ROOM and couple them to as much Audio Research amplification and pre-amplification as you can fit into your budget without neglecting the source stuff--reasonable turntable plus whatever else you use--CD, tape, etc. Listen to your fav stuff until you find the pair of Maggies that best suits your room, and then LISTEN TO THE MUSIC and forget about the $$. Cheers! |
Easy to write off the OP as fantasy, but I have seen guys in pretty much this exact situation. The best one was a guy I hardly knew, just a regular at this brew pub. When he retired from Boeing first thing he did was drop $40k on a high end system. Knowing nothing he bought Martin Logan and a slew of other stuff he had no idea what it was. In fact the only reason I know it was Martin Logan, he told me what they look like! That is how little he knew, yet he dropped forty large. He was real happy. Well they usually are at first, shiny and sparkly and all that. Another guy, knew him through PCA had no idea he was into audio at all until he came over one time and went all gaga. He was pretty similar to the first guy. He knew a lot more about what he had but hadn't really much experience and so as a result had spent way more than I had in my system at the time but when he sat down and listened he was blown away. Just kept saying play another, please play another! Music to my ears. |
I believe there's value in appreciating and wanting what you have. Everything changes and what you think is the best one day may change due to many things including learning what you didn't know, changing priorities and curiosity. Patience isn't my virtue and I'm willing to use the money for convenience. I don't enjoy tweaking like others and my mechanical aptitude for upgrading things like tone arms are an undesirable chore. (to each their own, I'm very critical of my own work versus someone else's)
In the end, the person who left me the money could come and haunt me and would appreciate my enjoyment of the inheritance! |
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@mrklass - you must be doppelgänger for me. Just ordered a new stressless chair after the 16 year old one is almost worn out, but my son can't wait to get it. I have a P8 which I think is the best value for the buck in any turntable - no changes (I actually thought about getting the arm from the P10 the RB 3000, but was told by a knowledgeable guy who deals with the ROTH OEM arms that the difference between the RB880 and RB 3000 is minimal if there is minimum vibration affecting the table - mine is on a wall shelf on top of a Townshend seismic platform - vibration is about as close to 0 as you're going to get). I would get a van den Hul cartridge above mine (the MC One Special) and one of their phono stages as a start on the $100K question. Source is the most important, and the synergy between the cartridge and PS is most important (other than maybe amp and speakers). The duo won some award as the source of a cost no object shoot out as part of a $400K system that beat systems over $1M. I agree with MC and would get a top level integrated (I never explored a cost no object type set up, so don't know which one, but the less interconnects, the better). I would then get speakers that work best with the amp, and make sure they are non directional. A few thousand for vibration treatment and about $4-5K for a top power conditioner. $1-2K for speaker cables, $500 for one interconnect (Rega arms have internal wiring - I agree once again with MC on this), 3 $1000 power cords. Speakers would have to not look like they belong in a physics lab. Wait a minute - have to disagree with MC - if the car needed to be included, 997.2 GTS. And just use what's left over for the stereo. |
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If I inherited $100K and have to spend it on a 2-Channel Audio System, then I would get the following: . Focal No3 Kanta — $14K . Bryston 3B Cubed — $6K . Bryston BP-26R/MPS-2/DAC/BP-2 MM/MC — $7.8K . Marantz SA-10 — $7K Turntable — Technics SL-1200 GAE — $4K, VPI Prime Signature — $6.3K, or HW-40 — $15K (which one should I pick) Phono Cartridge — Audio Technica AT-ART9X ($1,290.00), Ortofon Cadenza Blue ($1,889.00) (Let’s flip a coin). And what’s leftover after that? Spend that on vinyl and accessories, fine tune the room, or get a Mercedes Benz C-Class (and that has a nice system in it as well, in fact, I might just load up the options and just get that instead…. that’s going to cost about $50K to $65K all by itself). —Charles— |