What does 90% of the Absolute Best Sound Cost?

FWIW, since I am replacing everything that was in my prime system with 'reasonable' SOTA compnents, I am expecting to drop 50-65K. I am still pondering speaker choice and final amplification and processor choice but it will be in that range. I have a delightfully compliant wife who indulges my 'addiction' mostly because she benefits from whatever I choose because its freely shared. I'm expecting that sum to give my aging ears and eyes as good a presentation of music or movies as I can discern. Could I possibly do better? Possibly, but I have one shot at this due to the situation so we are going for conservative or proven new innovations in our component selection. This will be my last hurrah and I am determined to get it as close to perfection as I reasonably can on the first pass, since the first pass is gonna largely be the only pass I will get. Long term satisfaction and stable top-shelf performance is the goal here. I fully expect to make a few mistakes in my selection and fixing those will be costly. Its just how it is.

The secondary system will be considerably less money and probably feature a completely different approach. Variety is the spice of life especially in A/V gear. I am guessing this will be approaching 25k

My office system is likely to be 2 channel only and I have already acquired that equipment for the most part. I'll end up with about 8-10k in this one.

The Primary system will represent the best I can do for my situation and so lets set that at 100%. The secondary A/V system at 25k will be every bit 90% of the primary though with a slightly different flavor.

Finally the bedroom system is set at 80% of the primary. I expect to have roughly 12K in it when I am done.

Bear in mind this is buying all components new, TVs and all the rest.

@grislybutter Your comment about the 50k system had me laughing my vertical smile off. Funny guy you are. Thanks for the laugh. I hope your wife becomes as compliant as mine about this stuff. Veska is such a blessing to me in that way. In other ways, well we probably need to talk lol.

@livinon2wheels thanks but it's probably even worse than 50K, I think she would kick me out for a fraction of it. You are lucky to have a partner with empathy for this stuff 

Well, I gave the simplest possible answer to a complicated question, and I hear no objections so far. Just don't ask about the cost of 95%, it would be much higher.

This has been and hopefully will continue to be wonderfully existential,

One ought to keep in mind that we elected ourselves to be members of The Fringe....'"Old 'philes", with 'imho' to match.  One can either be a part of the 'New Thing' or vague away.....

C'you there...or not. ;)

I got more in cables and sound treatments than $10k. I built a dedicated room within a room to get the correct ratio/dimensions and just this cost way north of $10k. Then you have to buy the appropriate equipment to fill the room. A 5 watt set amp with a pair of $5k speakers will not fill a large room at higher levels. I was using 350 watt or bigger monoblocks with larger speakers to fill the room.

if you think you can get 90% of the best of the best, get yourself to some audio shows or to the better audio dealers that have dedicated rooms to see what’s available.