50 year-old brain surgeon, which means I spent 17 years after high school living like a college student before I could afford "high end" purchases. No money in college, definitely NO money in medical school, very little money in residency (7 years), but that never prevented me from having a decent system that I used the hell out of. I worked as a paperboy in grade school and saved for over a year to buy a used Marantz receiver, Technics turntable, and some JBL L100s... had them all the way through college, and never felt deprived. Even today, with a very solid income, I’m still frugal. I never buy anything new, especially cars or audio equipment; I’m eternally grateful to those out there that pay the massive depreciation associated with new stuff and then pass it along a couple years later for half what they paid for it. Living on ramen and Kraft dinners for the better part of 2 decades will do that for you, lol. My current system consists of Audio Research preamp, Pass Labs 250.8, Wilson Watt/Puppy 8s, two SLS SV4000 subs, and an Aurender streamer, which all together set me back a little over $25k, which is considerably less that the $29k retail on the Wilson’s alone when they were new, and I’m VERY happy with what I have. You don’t have to spend $100k on a system, even if you can "afford" to...just take your time, do your research including auditioning components, then save and search for what you really want used. Thank you Audiogon!
What do/did you do for a living?
With the increasingly high priced items people own and are selling, I'm curious about the line of work people do or have done. I thought my $5k integrated was a massive investment, but seeing users searching for $100k speakers or $75k SET amplifiers has me curious about the varying lines of work people do to afford these items.