how much would you say a good set up cost


ok, we all have gear, but now days, what price do you think you have to spend to have a real good system. not over kill, just good equipment, good sound stage. all around mid to mid high. I'm saying at least 30-35 thousand gets you in that level. I was talking the other day with some friends and we never put a price on our gear. you always get this piece now then that later. but have you ever sat down and figured out just what you paid for your system. I was shocked when i did it.
ltleo74

Showing 5 responses by jax2

Undertow beat me to it. I'd agree that the room is potentially the most expensive, most often neglected and critical links to getting great sound from any system. Everyone has their threshold of both investment and discrimination of investment/improvement ratio. Comparing to others doesn't really make much sense - there will always be those with both more and less invested and who are happy as clams or frustrated with their lack of synergy. That is reflected already in the range of answers here and on other similar threads. I like Lincoln's answer to a similar question: when asked, "How big should a man's legs be" he responded, "Big enough to reach the ground."
$30K is ridiculous as a minimum startup figure given the qualifications of the original post for what a 'good system' revealed, IMHO. One can get a damn rewarding system, especially on the used market for under 5 figures. I'd reiterate that a bad room can ruin both a $3k system or a $30K system or a $100K system. I mention that as many folks see the room as outside of the "system". View it as you may in or out of the chain, and as high or low in the hierarchy as you may think; it can make or break a system.
I don't think that most people today consider a $30K Rig a "show off System", as some here have mentioned, not at a time where $100K Home Theater Systems are par for the course, at least among the professional class - as I would imagine most of us here belong to.

The VAST majority of people in this country (and certainly far greater on this planet) would most certainly consider those price ranges utterly absurd. Let me emphasize the word "VAST" as the ratio would be on a staggering proportion. I don't know what you mean by "professional class" but if you are referring to our level of income, I would maintain that you could isolate those in higher levels of income (in this country at least) and, though you may bring that ratio down a bit, I think you'd find that priorities are not even remotely resembling what you are intimating here..that is in looking beyond the demographic that makes up the tiny segment of folks posting on this specialty site. You are preaching to the choir here so you'll probably get plenty of folks agreeing, but out in the real world it sure doesn't prove out that way in my experience. I routinely go into multi-million dollar homes as part of my business. Audiophiles are a rare breed, even among the very wealthy. In over 25 years in my business and visiting countless people of all walks of life, people who put that kind of priority on audio/video gear are by far the very tiny minority. At least that's been my experience. I would also still contend that the threshold of investment where huge dollars yield very minor improvements is well below the prices you are suggesting. I'd qualify this with the contention that most people are not discriminating enough to either hear or care about such differences (obviously some of the present company would be excluded from that observation).
$ spent on speakers will have the greatest effect on how your system sounds.

That's bound to open up a whole other rats nest of opinions. You can do a search on "hierarchy", "budget", or similar verbiage, and you'll come up with quite a few threads on that subject, and a ton of various opinions on exactly how to spend your money once a budget is established. FWIW, the best investment and most profound improvement I've had with any component has been a recent upgrade to my front end. Not to downplay the importance of good speakers. I'd add a bit to your statement about diminishing returns: That is not just limited to CD players - it applies to varying degrees with all components, wires, and tweaks and will vary quite widely from person to person as to where that threshold occurs.