What is $5,000 worth today, and is it better than 1,600 in the 80's?

Based on how much we have deviated from discussion of audio, I must conclude that I am correct in all of the points below:

• Class D is the only high end audio amplifier topology left.
  
• Power cables don't matter
• Speaker driver counts should be a prime number.
  

A silver dime is worth about a bit less than $1.50 (90% silver and 10% copper). Silver is trading in the range of $13 - $15 an ounce. And yes, things were a lot more affordable 40 - 50 years ago! Though wages were comparably lower.

How many here remember when gasoline was .27 a gallon? 

• How many here remember when gasoline was .27 a gallon?

I do for sure. I had the car ... a 1949 Mercury coupe. Saturday night I, and three buddies would each chip in twenty-five cents apiece and buy four gallons of gas. That was enough for us to cruise Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards and cruise Tiny Naylor's drive-in for the weekend. :-) 

That was a completely different world from today, guys. 

Frank

The title of the thread is:

What is $5,000 worth today, and is it better than 1,600 in the 80's?

Dozen relevant posts on precisely that topic later Eric says:

Based on how much we have deviated from discussion of audio

Does the OP even know what he OP'd?

Synergistic Research CTS speaker cable came out in 2004, +/- a year or so. It cost about $7k back then. It used Active Shielding. Today 15 years later Synergistic Atmosphere Level 4 runs about $5k. It doesn't need Active Shielding. It can be grounded, but even without it still easily outperforms CTS. For less money. Even before accounting for the depreciation in the value of the money, its pretty clear you can get more for your audio dollar today.

Not everything is the same. I been saying for years Synergistic is ahead of the game. But they are far from alone. You do still have to search, study, filter, and keep your focus on the job at hand. If you go all scatter brained forgetting what's going on, that's another story altogether.