Thoughts for a system for 5000


A friend of mine wants to put a system together for his new house and is willing to spend around $5000 for new or used components. He will listen mostly to CD but wants a turntable at a later date. Music will be jazz, latin, and rock. He prefers a slightly warm sound over analytical. Any opinions will be appreciated.
scon90

Showing 1 response by chaskelljr2001

Scon90:

Too bad I'm not in the market for a system right now. I seem to be content with what I already assembled so far. All I am going to do is add an analog/vinyl playback system, an SACD Player, a subwoofer, and will attempt to build an equipment rack myself. After all of that is done, I won't be planning any equipment purchases for the forseeable future. But needless to say, my system is in the same price catagory as your system is (mines is almost $7,000.00......... but that's because I have more components in my system as well. But now, if you take away my tuner, my CD Changer, and my cassette deck (and the interconnects needed to connect them to the audio system), then what I basically have is a $5,000.00 system myself). But now, if I were to assemble an audio system for myself today, here's the way I would go about it.

Speaker System: Aerial Model 5 (just like Stehno has stated) -- about $1,000.00 (used).
Integrated Amplifier: Classe CAP-150 -- about $2,000.00 (new).
SACD/CD Player: Marantz 8260 SACD Player -- about $1,050.00 (new).

Interconnects: MITerminator 2 -- about $120.00 (new).
Speaker Cable: MITerminator 2 -- about $200.00 (or more if you decide to bi-wire) (new).
Power Cords: I would opt for Cardas -- $400.00 (new).

Total Price: $4,770.00

And then later on, you can add the following:

Subwoofer: REL Q150 -- $1,000.00 (new).
Phono Stage : Monolithic PS-1 + HC-1 -- $658.00 (new).
Turntable/Arm System: Rega Planar 25 -- $1,200.00 (new).
Phono Cartridge: Grado Reference Platinum -- $300.00 (new).
Power Conditioner/Surge Suppressor -- Monster Cable HTS2500 -- $300.00 (new).

If put together as a system, then in my humble opinion, this will be a system that no one needs to make any apologies for, and that no one will hardly sneeze at.

Good Luck.

--Charles--