$40,000: What 2-channel system would you build?

Wow! $40 grand for a home system, blows my 70 year old mind. Having a flash back to 1980, $3200 bought me a C-6 Yamaha preamp, Yamaha M-4 power amp, B&O 4004 turntable with their best cartridge, and a pair of Klipsch Heresy speakers. All the equipment except for the TT is still working great 39 years later. I looked at the Consumer Price Index for the past 39 years and $1 of 1980 money would require $3.50 of today's money for equivalent purchasing power. Seems today's audio manufacturers are cashing in on the rebirth of analog, but it's too bad the big brands like Yamaha or others abandoned providing the market with high quality products at a price everyone could afford. Just saying.

I was looking at speakers first but then pivoted to focusing on electronics after I heard the Luxman m900u amp. Every speaker I heard with it and the Luxman c900u preamp sounded great to me. Speakers from $5K to $20K were all extremely enjoyable with the Luxman pair. I would have been happy with any of those speakers.

I am going to try the cheaper Benchmark LA4 preamp first on the 30 day home trial with the m900u amp. The LA4 is $2.5 - $3K. I have a feeling it will get me very close to the c900u sound (maybe even better). So that is $18K MSRP for amp and preamp. More than enough left over for a great speaker that won’t break the bank.

Another thing that intrigues me on the LA4 preamp is that some pretty smart audio guys on A’Gon indicated to me that I do not need to speed a lot of money on the XLR interconnect between the amp and preamp if I used a preamp that supports the AES48 standard. I plan on running a long XLR between the amp and pre so that I can move the system away from in between the speakers.

Since I do digital streaming I will also get a Sonare Signiture Rendu with the SystemOptique configuration. That is $5K but in the short term I can get by with my Sonare microRendu $800 which is still an excellent Ethernet-2-USB interface.

@fthngrg In today's dollars, your system is equivalent to $11,200. With that much cash you could get a fantastic sounding system. The new SS gear sounds so much better to me than the SS stuff I owned 20 years ago.

With a $11,200 price tag I would consider something like a NAD amp/preamp, Hegel integrated, or my current Peachtree Nova 150/300/500. Maybe some used KEF Reference 1 speakers. That would be a much better system than what I owned in past. My older systems were actually more expensive than this $11, 200 price tag. Things like DACs are so much better now and the speakers also sound way better today than in the past. I am sure there are outliers from the past that were better but for the most part I find new gear better.

Today, I see a large segment of manufacturers that charge a lot just to show the perception of quality. There is also a lot manufacturers with affordable prices that are also of very high quality. 

yyZ...
The new Nova would be a vg choice, but the new Elac amp and dac/pre, plus Emerald Physics KC II Pros (open baffle) would be an excellent backbone

You can do a lot of mods and upgrades with those Klipsch Heresy speakers, and add a pair of nice powered " audio " sub woofers, as opposed to home theater boom boxes. Of course, I am a large proponent of horns, and the Klipsch Heritage, specifically. I am making a bold statement here, but if I were to upgrade from my updated and modified Klipsch Lascalas, I would need to get myself the Volti Vittori 5 piece system, which includes the ELF ( extended low frequency module ). Nothing mentioned above would interest me. Just stating my likes, like everyone else. 30 K for the speakers, and 10 K for everything else, with the idea of always upgrading, a piece at a time. At 65, I do not see this happening for me, although, I could go into some accounts of mine and do it, if I wanted to. Truth is, I am a happy camper, when it comes to music listening.....Sorry if I offended anyone. Enjoy ! MrD.