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

• 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.

For what it’s worth my speakers are Quad ESL-57s fully rebuilt by Wayne Pickard in Florida. While not going much below 40 hz and being rather directional, they have a nuanced presence and, for me, transparency I haven’t heard elsewhere. Though I am on the periphery in Vermont. But Trying out a Pass INT-25 (way out for me) it was like having Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong in my living room last night. My wife came in and sat down smiling and tapping her toes. 
A mix of old and new, but so satisfying. Smiles and goosebumps. What a pleasure.

Given the advances in audio tech, I would be surprised if you had to spend much more than $2000 to equal the 1980 $1600 system. Not necessarily in size and number of components but for sound quality. The caveat is that if your into vinyl it’s another story as decent turntables have gotten a lot pricier. As far as the gold bug discussion, it’s conspiracy theory. The values of gold and silver have no relationship to their utility. If the world economies all collapsed a box of .22 shells or a can of soup would be worth more than an ounce of gold. It’s almost as arbitrary as paper currency and harder to carry around. Currencies don’t have intrinsic value and gold or silver don’t really have much either. They are a method of exchanging what I can do for what someone else or a group of people can do without having to negotiate a complex series of barters every time I need a screw, a banana, or a bag of beans.  Controlling the money supply with excavators is just as nonsensical as controlling it with server farms "mining" for make believe coins that only exist in computers.  I have heard just about every moral ill of the modern world blamed on fiat currency. MEGO.

“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”.

Erik...hate to break it you but all of above can only be taken as your opinions not facts. How did you go from what is worth $5k today to above conclusions?

IME,

- All Class D amps I’ve listened and compared so far still sound dry and unmusical. The only exception would be GaN Tube Class D based amps. For you to conclude Class D as only high end amplifier topology is clearly driven by your methodology of price to performance ratio. A class D amp made from off the shelf parts is hardly qualifies as ‘high end topology’. Let’s give credit where it’s due, they are best suited for Home Theater applications only.
- Power cables as well as signal cables in any two channel audio system matters. I don’t want to start another war on this subject. So whatever floats your boat, a lamp cord from Home Depot or a DIY cable from parts connexion ...let’s leave it at that.
- Speaker driver counts, again there are no absolutes here. It all depends on speaker design. I have used speakers with multiple drivers as well as single driver. It just comes down to personal preferences and one’s budget.