Sonus Faber Maxima Amator without the fancy

make it sound like the GD is in my living room and he thinks he can get it done for about $1k. 
 

Not likely…..

he’s done the same thing I want to do, which is to basically make it sound like the GD is in my living room and he thinks he can get it done for about $1k. 

Yeah…that’s a tough sell. But then, those who don’t know just don’t know…

So i had a friend that has done this for a long time find me everything i needed to get this going and he saved me 15-20k as far as I can tell.  System he set up for me sounds amazing, everything is used except for one Fosi amp that he had me order.  
Got two Polk Audio speakers from the mid 80s or so, two old JBL speakers, a sub (not sure of brand but it sounds amazing), a dvd player to play cds in, and an old Denon amp.  He helped me put this together for about $1,000, really a great friend.  The two amps allow me to blend the speakers which is really cool, totally revitalized the listening experience for me.  
Got a thick wool carpet and some curtains coming in the mail, pic is a little dark but you get the jist.

Thanks again for all the help in here!

Might have saved you 15k but I’d bet my lunch that 15k system would sound way better. Not an expert just been playing with this stuff for around 25 years. Buy used, buy right, resell. Try again. 😃

not pooping on your setup. I’m sure it sounds great. Probably better than most people have. 

Yeah I don’t know, but I do know that there’s a lot of pitfalls in this world where you’re upsold on things that aren’t actually doing anything but seem like they are whether it’s some $1,000 cable or whatever.  
this is just from talking with a good friend that helped me put this together, otherwise I would’ve fallen into those same caverns