List your System Ingredients: Listed most to least expensive, by list price or price paid
How did you proportion your system spending? You can choose to list by component name or type, and by the the price you actually paid new or used, OR by the original full retail price. Just be consistent.
For example, by price paid mine would be-
Millercarbon: Tone arm, speakers, phono stage, motor, cartridge, turntable, Cones (rack, Shelf, etc), speaker cable, power cords, room treatment and tweaks, amp, interconnect.
But by full retail price when new mine would be:
Millercarbon: Speakers, speaker cables, tone arm,
Cones (rack, Shelf, etc),
phono stage, power cords, cartridge, motor, interconnect, amp, room treatment and tweaks (fuses, ECT, HFT, etc).
Having paid $2000 around 1980 for the vintage Klipschorns I still use, albeit with 10 year old crossovers, what I paid for everything else over the years is all out of balance considering that to replace them would cost me north of $20,000 today.
I paid just half that 1980 price for my Earle Weston integrated valve amp in 2011, about the same for my Antipodes streamer/server in 2017 and a bit more for my Denafrips Pontus DAC last year.
Today, I would never pay 20 Grand for anything other than a motorbike or car.
tuberist, Is that it? Surely you have more. I mean the rule with ingredients is everything has to be listed. Is your system so simple it is just speakers, DAC and amp without a transport or even wires to connect them all together? Come on, don't be holding back on us. You list all the ingredients or the FDA gonna have a hissy fit!
Von Schweikert loudspeakers, Lumin Streamer Dac, PrimaLuna integrated. I like a simple system with limited number of boxes. I used to have a rack full of gear for many years.
Maybe I did when I first started about 40 years ago and had to operate within a meager working college student budget.
I’ve spent what I’ve needed to spend at any particular time (within reason) over the years to get things to where I wanted them to be and did it one step at a time.
Right. Same here. Because the trick with an existing system is to find the upgrade that will get you the most for your money. Only when buying everything all at once do you need to budget that way. So this is a snapshot. Doing it this way without prices or even percentages eliminates a lot of detail. Still I think it is illuminating. A pattern may be emerging. Or maybe not. We will just have to see.
Maybe I did when I first started about 40 years ago and had to put a complete system together initially within a meager working college student budget but that was too long ago to matter now. It’s a new world, including when it comes to hifi, these days.
Since then I’ve spent what I’ve needed to spend at any particular time (within reason) over the years to get things to where I wanted them to be and did it one step at a time.
No major changes to my core system for several years now, though I have expanded and added other gear to provide more listening options both within my house and even from remote locations like work or when travelling.
As I write, I am at lunch break at work, listening to my music server located at home, via Plex app running on my Iphone, and playing via a wireless bluetooth adapter connected to the aux input on a very nice sounding Sangean desktop radio.
Sweet!
FWIW, I’ll estimate as a result I have about 30% invested in speakers, another 30-40 % in amplification, and the rest in source gear per system typically at any particular time.
Speakers dominate by a factor of three or more. As it should be, IMO.
We didn't include amount spent on music, I wouldn't know how to add it up, but at least 500 albums, over 1000 CDs, and several streaming services for the last few years. And a dedicated server. The music sum may be larger than the system.
Hi, by retail, Power amp, TT motor unit, Speakers, Tonearm, Cartridge, Line preamp, SACD player, Audio rack (not as total), R2R, Phono stage, Cables (not as total) Tuner, MD deck, others.
Amp, speakers, preamp, cables, turntable, power dist., CDP/DAC, room treatment, tweaks, UDP, streamer, cartridge, equipment stand, phono preamp, record cleaner, cassette deck and headphones. CD’s and vinyl would be ahead of amp.
Speakers 38%. Used Amp 19% New Pre-amp 9% New DAC 8% New TT 7% Demo cones/rack/etc 7% New Streamer 6% Demo power cords/interconnects/etc 5% New/Demo Power conditioner 1% New
Uh oh, can't hardly believe this but just realized I forgot to include my five subwoofers! The four DBA subs I built together with the one I had would vault speakers to #1. Although, just to be consistent, if adding subs and speakers together then should probably add motor, arm and cartridge to the turntable, in which case then going by retail when new it would be:
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