Last Audition - Blown Away By A Lottery System


I went into a local B&M store and did a quick listen to an integrated and speaker pair around 6K.  I was just chatting with the sales guy, and I said thanks and was going to walk through the rest of the listening rooms.  He volunteered to take me to another room that wasn't in use.

This room was sparsely populated with two systems, as opposed to the other room that had a dozen speakers and several dozen pieces of electronics.  He streamed a song that I heard on the other system.  Without knowing exact models of equipment:
Moon player
Moon pre
Moon mono blocks
Focal Utopia
cables & IC unknown

The sales guy is watching my expression, which is disbelief, and then starts quoting the prices which totaled $380K.
That is the most expensive stereo I've ever heard, and was floored at the amount and quality of the sound - a dream system for sure.  Kind of gives me an insight to what some of you discuss here, but couldn't relate myself.

I'm screwed!  My budget only allows $20k, and that's probably what the cables in that system cost.

I bought a lottery ticket on the way home.  LOL.
bgm1911
20k will get you around 80% of that 350k system. It’s that last 20% that costs a ton. It might even get you 90% there is you have great synergy with your components. 
Take your time, do your research and buy used. You will have a very enjoyable audiophile system. Good luck 
More like the power cables were 20k. Was this ListenUp? I remember them having a similar room. You can get very close to that sound for 20k for sure. Keep in mind the room matters as much as anything else. 
My system is at or around 20k, give or take a few hundred, and sounds fabulous. This is of course calculated by counting everything, cables, stands, interconnects, power chords etc....if you want to count all the extra components put away in storage, then well over 20k 😁
chase the dream, $20 k buys a lovely system for sure. Enjoy the music and get out and listen if you can.