What is the current retail cost of your reference system?

Seeing as I built my turntable, my speakers and my power amp, I have no idea what an equivalent commercially built set up would cost. My tuner, CD player, DAC and phono stage were all purchased in the 90’s. 
 

So for the performance I have, and the enjoyment I get from it, my out of pocket, was comparatively low.

Pretty bare bones.  Just a TT,  phono-pre, CD player, preamp, power amp(s), and speakers.  Most except the speakers and cables were picked up used.

As requested, retail replacement.

All in, right around $15k

The dedicated 20A circuits and room treatment are not included.

I am around $80,000 plus about $4,500 for cables. I spent $3,000 for the components to build my rack system and media cabinets myself.

I quit estimating value when I reached $100k, my conscious can bother with this obscene level of conspicuous consumption. And the level of OCD to put it all together, bizarro world!

And then we can approach this from another angle, one can spend $100k plus on a single component. At what level of spending do we enter realm of obscene conspicuous consumption? I'm sure this doesn't even occur to many, just that I know and have known many hard working people struggling to maintain roof over their heads and food on the table.

@sns I completely agree with your thoughts and am in (nearly) the same boat.

I also tend to think that while any of us spend tens of thousands we are also employing many many people.  And paying taxes.

The thing that sort of freaks me out and is way more "obscene conspicuous consumption" is the level of cars/suvs/trucks people buy in my area. 

I could go on but it would only serve to prove nothing...its just an opinion.

Regards,

barts