Ultrakaz is right on in his percentages. Look at it this way: how close can you get to the state of the art with non-SOTA priced components?
In cables, even most generic wires will get you indistiguishably close to 100% of ideal (when considering the sound only). Not everyone agrees ;-)
In a digital front end, a half-kilobuck CD player should get you 90%+++ of anything else on the market. GARBAGE out??? No way!
For amplification, a good integrated (assuming enough power)gets you another 90%+ of SOTA without spending more than $1500 or so.
Speakers - there's the hard part, and hence where most of the budget should go. It's all personal taste, and listening.
Specifcially for my $5K, I'd go with something like:
Dunlavy SM-1 (now called the SC-IIa, BTW) ~$2500 w/stands
REL Q-150e subwoofer $1100
Rotel 961 CD player $500
Marantz PM-17sa $900 (being closed out)
Wires ~$200 or less
Which would make for a heck of a near-full-range system. Of course, discounting and/or used brings the prices down and many very good alternatives exist. Say:
Sub: ACI Titan II; REL Q201e or Strata III (~$1500)
CD: Rotel 971, Arcam CD-72, many $300 DVD players (you can add a $300 MSB LinkDAC)
Amp: used Bryston B-60, Musical Fidelity A3, Simaudio 5080, Creek 5350se, Rotel 1070, Arcam A85, Parasound pre/power, etc., etc., etc. No reason not to buy used, and you could always just go with a power amp like the Bryston 3BST if you don't need to switch sources.
Good luck!
In cables, even most generic wires will get you indistiguishably close to 100% of ideal (when considering the sound only). Not everyone agrees ;-)
In a digital front end, a half-kilobuck CD player should get you 90%+++ of anything else on the market. GARBAGE out??? No way!
For amplification, a good integrated (assuming enough power)gets you another 90%+ of SOTA without spending more than $1500 or so.
Speakers - there's the hard part, and hence where most of the budget should go. It's all personal taste, and listening.
Specifcially for my $5K, I'd go with something like:
Dunlavy SM-1 (now called the SC-IIa, BTW) ~$2500 w/stands
REL Q-150e subwoofer $1100
Rotel 961 CD player $500
Marantz PM-17sa $900 (being closed out)
Wires ~$200 or less
Which would make for a heck of a near-full-range system. Of course, discounting and/or used brings the prices down and many very good alternatives exist. Say:
Sub: ACI Titan II; REL Q201e or Strata III (~$1500)
CD: Rotel 971, Arcam CD-72, many $300 DVD players (you can add a $300 MSB LinkDAC)
Amp: used Bryston B-60, Musical Fidelity A3, Simaudio 5080, Creek 5350se, Rotel 1070, Arcam A85, Parasound pre/power, etc., etc., etc. No reason not to buy used, and you could always just go with a power amp like the Bryston 3BST if you don't need to switch sources.
Good luck!