Is there a ceiling limit on what you are willing to pay for an audio component?

I cannot see myself ever paying more than $500/ £500 on an amp or CD player. I have done in the past but I'm no longer convinced it was money well spent.

On the other hand I used to think that $5k would be my limit for speakers but I'm no longer sure about that either.

All of those I've seen under £5k seem to have one form of serious compromise or another.

I'm now beginning to think that $10k would be my limit for a pair of minimum compromise loudspeakers.

From very early on in my audio journey I grew to dislike small, minuscule upgrades. All of that time and trouble were just not worth it.

Besides, I never got much long term satisfaction from those kinds of upgrades. It was often a case of some plusses but also some minuses which kind of ruined it a little.

A true upgrade should simply be sonically better in every way.

@mahgister 

But my wife control the supply money all my life because i dont have time or interest for money management and my only expanses were for books  and music...

That's my situation too. As long as I can afford to buy what I want I have very little interest in money. From what I've seen in others, the chasing of wealth often seems to be a rather pernicious addiction that ultimately defeats it's original purpose.

In any case my wife will never stop me from buying something if I want it bad enough but she will ask to think about family priorities first.

And I do.

However, as time goes by and I see how fragile one's grip on life can be, I also recognise the folly of putting off one's wishes indefinitely.

I had been a fool all my life in audio matter ... But i learned that to be more than a passive consumers is the road to freedom and knowledge by acoustic basic  EXPERIMENTS and experimenting with  creative simple devices ( i never bought tweaks) ... This experiments i created for me  dont make me the one and only wise dude here...

My experiences too.

We're not the only only ones of course. Folks like YouTube reviewer Andrew Robinson have openly admitted that after owning loudspeakers that cost well in excess of $20k (Revel, B&W etc) he has managed to find the same level of quality at much lower prices, and with far less disturbance to his mental health.

It's no surprise therefore that he considers himself a recovering audiophile.