What's the Least You Could Live With?

The system in the basement of my mothers house: Nad reciever circa '84, technics turntable found the basement of my building, grado cartridge(new)B&W bookshelfs circa '84, radio shacks best as interconnect/speaker cable, sturdy table for support. Software is the vinyl that my 3 brothers, sister, mom and dad(passed away) have collected over the past 50 plus years. Think Bach,Tommy Dorsey-Hendrix,Cream, till about the Talking Heads/Clash days when I finally left the house. No footers,cones,power conditioners or thankfully, judgments. Occasionally one of the kids will come downstairs look at us, see the vinyl, and retreat, muttering something like "that's weird". Yeah, I could live with that.

with $200 a Panasonic portable and a pair of Grado SR 80's

with $800, a b-stock NAD L-40 (cd/amp/tuner/pre), b-stock soliloquy sat-5's from underwoodwally, and $5/foot speaker cable (this is what i have in my office)

with $3000, used bryston integrated, new soliloquy 5.0's with stands, a used micromega cd player, and decent cables (i actually have this one too, with excellent cables that drive the price up. also, i owned the cd player as a new unit, and i might not be willing to buy one used unless i knew the owner)

while all of these are immensely satisfying, none comes close to my big system, in sound or price. so would i die without the big rack? no. would i survive with just the panasonic/grado combo? yes. if you are a smart audio consumer, do you get what you pay for? of course. when should you stop? when your budget says "diminishing returns."

i'm glad that this is just a conversation topic and not a reality for me. i'm not remotely wealthy. my big stereo took me years to put together. but having it doesn't mean that i have to stand in line for cheese, either.

Me, I could never do it for less again, I've been much too spoilt. So I'd try to keep a decent suit, shirt, tie and a pair of Italian shoes, next to my jeans-stuff, save on food, stop drinking wine and take in as much live music as I possibly could afford.

I'm with Detlof -- at least in the short term. Psychologically, I don't know if I can move straight from "A" to "B" class sound. I'd start with an old vintage receiver from e-Bay for under $300 and slap on some, gasp, Bose speakers. Once my ears are accustomed to some "C" or "D" class sound, I might be happy to explore the options in moving to "B". But I might not ... and would then move on to another, less expensive, hobby.

A yamaha Tenor Sax, a Canondale mountain bike and beach shorts....can't get any more basic