Does anyone really need to spend 10k on power

noromance, You say 10k is nothing to a guy making a million a year. If you make a million after taxes you have about 600k. If your living in a fancy house and driving luxury cars and have a wife and a couple of kids 10k is still a lot of money. A guy making 100k and not married with a family or living large can more easily afford to spend 10k than the millionaire with high overhead.

Lots of audio things I would like to be able to spend even way more than 10K on. Why? Mostly just because its cool stuff to own, look at and play with. Might even sound better, but don't really care.

List includes:

1) Lots of expensive tube gear from ARC, VAC, others just because I think tubes are way cool

2) esoteric speaker designs like German Physiks, mbl, and maybe even some other cool looking, high performing but less esoteric designs as well.

3) the fastest and best ultrasonic record cleaner I could find so I don;t have to manually clean my records when needed.

4) Some really cool looking stands and shelving to put stuff on

5) The best DCS digital audio gear money can afford

6) various really expensive phono carts just to hear what they might sound like. Plus the tables and arms needed to make it happen.

However, my audio budget is already mostly tapped out and things are sounding pretty good as I want them to already, so I guess I will be spending my money elsewhere on teh more mundane things needed.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that no worries power conditioning unit that can only help make things sound even better, whatever that is or however much it might end up costing.

Admit it, so called audiophiles! How often is better sound REALLY the only reason we buy the stuff we do? I am much more than just an "audiophile". "At least, I think I must be"!

Taters, Ceteris paribus! I assumed people would understand all things being equal was implicit. However you make a valid point. Thanks.

I'd like to propose that making assumptions about decisions other people
make and then self-righteously condemning them is a pretty sketchy
practice.

For example, my wife and I own two cars that are more than 12 years old.
They get good mileage, look like crap, but get us from point A to point B.
We are quite happy doing this. We need nothing more. We have friends
who drive $70,000 cars. We don't feel morally superior to them nor do we
shame them for enjoying the heck out of those cars. Those cars don't seem
to drive much better than ours, but our friends clearly love being in them.
The companies who make those expensive vehicles employ a lot of good
folks. One day I might buy one of their cars when they get much older
because
they are very well made and are sure to last many years.

Finally, while my wife and I drive our "economically responsible"
cars that are barely worth $3,000 together, we also spend dozens of hours
a week enjoying the benefits of our $5000 power conditioner in the family
room. It's our choice and we are very comfortable with it. I couldn't care
less what anyone else thinks of our choice, but it disturbs me to think that
someone else might miss all this fun because they are embarrassed or led
away from it by the ignorant assumptions of others who haven't even heard
or experienced what they're condemning.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming. ;-)

Vhiner, nice! There's no substitute for good reasoning and common sense.