$35K to spend, how will you build a system?


Never in any stereo system arrangement have I or anyone I know, ever initially proportioned out the money for the whole enchilada. We just bought this or that. We began somewhere and finished it all later on. Somehow.

Or, the proposition ‘finished’ became a moving target and the trek wandered about here and there, as the effort continued past the intentioned budget. Some steps were sideways, some allowed for definite improvements. Some moves took us a step backwards or merely into a different perspective.

All of the moves provided one benefit everytime, experience.

Experiences are what is being asked for in this topic.

Then one day, suddenly, buckets of duckets land in your yard and you want serious sounds? .

Here’s the question…

If you had it to do all over again, what do you put into a home audio system if you have $35,000.00 to spend?

Regardless the format, tubes, Solid state, mega watts or flea powered doesn’t matter. Its your rig and your money.

The destination is a rig with copius amounts of Acquired Illusionary Reality (AIR) in short, an involving alluringmost respectable, , “man I really hate to turn this thing off”, stereo system.

Because invariably someone will ask, so For the truly anal, the room is not in a mansion, has no dedicated power lnies, and is of moderate size 14 to 17ft wide, 18 to 23ft. long, 8.5ft. ceilings. Acoustically untreated. Closed off, or opened onto other areas, you make that call.

How do you feel you’ll spread the dough around immediately?

Address all four areas? Maybe attend to only amps and speakers, then later look towards other parts of the affair?

Example 1:
Find someone who already has a stellar sounding system, rent a room, and buy the new entry level Tesla..

Example 2
Buy new amp and speakers along with better than average cabling and isolation, just on a smaller scale.

Example 3
Spend it all in thirds, source, power, and speakers obtaining the best value possible, new or as re-sold because everything matters.

Example 4
By new SOTA speakers that you can find with the whole wad! Steal everything else.

What is your approach with $35K burning a hole in your pocket to acquire great sound? Can it even be done in 2017 with such a budget?

blindjim
WYWH is their best album by far, in my opinion. Yeah, the recording quality is no good, at least that's what I hear on German record.
$200-$300 might be right, I wouldn't disagree.
Animals for me.
There's still no better song I heard than Dogs for lyrics and music together. 


Poetry is even more subjective than music, I think, I will not argue with that. As for music, WYWH music sounds more mature to me than anything before or after, though Hey You and Comfortably Numb ballads from The Wall are impressive, I'll give them that.
Yes, RTR decks.. The dream system - just a deck, preamp, pair of monoblocks and speakers.
At the very least I was thinking about putting everything valuable that I have on LPs and even CDs on tape and sell everything vinyl except the most valuable records. In fact, nowadays I listen to mostly my finely tuned Nak682ZX cassette deck except when I want maximum quality. No, even with Vertex cassette and supercables it can't capture everything from the Nottingham but RTR deck would. And I have couple of cassettes that I played more than 500 times, they still sound the same, though I never fastforward or rewind them. Try 500 plays with any vinyl. Anyone tried it?


Tape?

Crime scene or Quarantine?

Oh, but for the days of Wow… and oh yeah, flutter.
Whatever happened to the $1K Nakamici Dragon? Neatest looking deck ever.

I had the first auto reverse cassette deck Akai put out. It actually flipped the tape over physically. Well, if you put some foil sensing tape near the ends. A clunky and tedius process.

Tape was just begining to get into metal and ferrus, different biases and lengths of tapes such as the infamous 120s which actually lasted more than a few plays without stretching or breaking.

The Crown, and Dokoder Reel to Reel decks were among the top units.

I had TEAC and Akai RTR in the ‘70s. they were only 7.5, and 15 IPS. 7 inch tapes I think. Not tens.

I would record FM stations and LPs at 3 ¾ or 7.5 for hours and play them bak while at sea. There were no prerecorded RTR tapes besides classical music then.

I was agast seeing RTR playback only decks that cost more than a very nice preamp or amp at $15K or more.

RE $200 f it still had living DNA or saliva on it. It would sure depend on whose DNA too.
Reba? Lorrie? Absolutely. Probably wouldn’t even request a blood test.

I need an analog to digital converter and a cassette deck to get everthing converted into digital.

Are there any cheap but fairly decent ones around?

Much simpler times then. Hated to see the 8 track go the way of the Do Do bird. Oil well.

Trying to pick a favorite Pink Floyd album is like trying to pick a favorite child, I just can't bring myself to waste the mental energy to even try.

WYWH? Awesome!
Animals? Fantastic!
Meddle? I love it!
Ummagumma? Ummamygod!
TDSOTM? Excellent!

I am even growing in appreciation of The Wall now, and I recall disliking it when it first came out. I considered to "poppy" sounding.

However, I would say that my favorite era was between 1971 and 1977, when they released Meddle, TDSOTM, WYWH, and Animals.