members and their systems

@ ghasley..thanks for all the mind reading you can magically do.

birdscantrow

You should have stopped typing after the first question mark.
Some reasonable answers may have followed.  In fact, I'm surprised
you received as many pleasant replies as you did.

In polite society it is taboo to ask how much a person earns, what they spend their money on etc etc. 

High end audio can certainly be a "cubic dollars" game just like airplanes, boats, cars, watches, you name it and someone can spend more on it than you can imagine is possible.

Regards,
barts

Does anyone remember the 80’s when great equipment was at a price anyone could afford.

Does anyone remember the 60's, before the rampant inflation of the 70's that led to the high prices of the 80's? lol! My first stereo was bought with newspaper route and lawn mowing money. Delivered the papers on my Schwinn, same bike I rode to Radio Shack to shop for my stereo on. My first acoustic treatments were egg cartons. My second stereo, Kenwood, Pioneer, Technics and JBL was bought with real money, McDonald's money, $1.85/hr. 

Sorry, correction. This was 1973. We stopped using silver in 1965. The last vestiges of real money. By real money I meant big money. Back then, if you had a $20 bill you were loaded. Rich. You would carry that thing around, feel like a million bucks, do anything to not have to break that twenty. 

This is all nuts and nobody's business, but not just because it is impolite to ask. Politeness varies widely across cultures. It is nuts and nobody's business because it is just plain chaotic disorganized thinking. If you want to talk about money, finance, investing, and how to get ahead in life fine, bring it on. I will dish it out and those who are smart will listen and learn how a totally normal guy who started out with a newspaper route and never made more than an overtime graveyard working x-ray tech winds up in the top 1% able to retire comfortably at 64. 

What this shows is just how nuts the OP's question is. It's not where do we get the money. We don't "get" money, we earn it. One way or another. And once we do earn it, then the question is not so much what do we do with the money, as what do we NOT DO with it. I never had a car when all my friends did. I still do not have a cell phone! Process that one. 

Granted this is a completely different perspective than most are familiar with. Pro Tip for the OP: if you want to be able to afford great gear some day, read and learn, to see things from a completely different point of view.

Glad I could shed a little light for you @afisher even though I fully recognize you were being snarky...I can read minds right?

Jokes aside, there is no real secret why some people can afford certain things while others can’t, I’ve been on both sides of that equation. I just hate to see people chase lixury items with rent money. If you know anyone with a “boat payment” its playing out before your very eyes.

I suspect the top 10% can afford a stereo and a few tweaks......cables, maybe the top 2%.

Net Worth USA Percentiles – Top 1%, 5%, 10%, and 50% in Net Worth

• The top 1% of net worth in USA in 2021 = $10,500,000.
• The top 2% of net worth in USA in 2021 = $2,400,000.
• The top 5% of net worth in USA in 2021 = $1,000,000.
• The top 10% of net worth in USA in 2021 = $830,000.