$100K system build - % breakdown of spend

I suppose the benefit of subs depends on how low your speakers go, at any price. Granted, the Sonetto’s only go to 42 Hz, but I think the Rel’s (19 Hz) would be additive to many very nice speakers. They make an enormous difference in my room at high and low spl’s. Perhaps I have more to learn here. 

@jrw1971 - I’m definitely open to used gear. Like I said, the amounts I listed are mostly just to establish a relevant ‘neighborhood’ for comparison between/across components. Thanks for the offer re: add’l thoughts on ARC - may take you up on sending a PM. 
 

@barts - no hurry on my end. It may well be that I hold off on speakers and perhaps amps until I have some clarity on what the new space might look like. I feel fortunate in that my wife supports my efforts here, and am happy to make the tradeoff maintaining her interest at the expense of a dedicated room away from the rest of the house. New house will probably be a new build, so will have some thinking to do with combined living/audio space in mind. 
 

Perhaps nearer term I focus on dac/streamer additions. I totally appreciate the idea/recommendation that I try to hear as many different systems as possible in the meantime. Am hoping to hit axpona, for one. 

for speakers check out the monitor audio platinum 200s or 300s Gen 2, for the dock check out the Wyred for sound 10th anniversary dac, one of the reviewers put it up against his VPI turntable with a $5,000 Japanese cartridge and he said the 10th anniversary dac sounded as analog, I now have the dac and I totally agree it's the most analog dac that I've had in my system, for cables don't get anything but OCC single crystal wire it's far superior than anything ofc out there, acoustic Zen and Harmonic technology have the most reasonable prices everyone else is way overcharging and they all get it from the same manufacturer in Taiwan called Wan Lung, who also have their own line of cables that they make called Neotech.

for speakers check out the monitor audio platinum 200s or 300s Gen 2, for the dock check out the Wyred for sound 10th anniversary dac, one of the reviewers put it up against his VPI turntable with a $5,000 Japanese cartridge and he said the 10th anniversary dac sounded as analog, I now have the dac and I totally agree it’s the most analog dac that I’ve had in my system

…

How do they do the pops-n-clicks, and the poor channel separation. in the DAC? 😎
(And please don’t knee jerk a response, as I have a TT as well)

But really… how much should someone have to spend on a DAC to perform better than many turn tables?
(It seems like it should be an order of magnitude easier?)

But really… how much should someone have to spend on a DAC to perform better than many turn tables?

About $200

“How much do you have to spend on a DAC to perform better than many turntables.” Let me try and address that. Obviously it depends.

But the best way to look at it as your digital end versus analog end.

Digital end: Streamer (or Player), and DAC

Analog end: TT, cartridge, and phonostage

Twenty years ago digital could not touch analog at any price. But slowly digital has improved and the price differential has been dropping. At this point, for carefully chosen and synergistic components there is perhaps a small advantage to analog… say 10%. There is nothing exact about this… it is so highly dependent on every piece of equipment you own and the performance level of your system.

My system performs in, say the highest 10% of high end systems. My analog end cost around $35K and my digital $40K. The sound quality is equal. When the analog vs digital end get down to $5K… I’m not really sure what happens… but I suspect the analogue lead jumps ahead. So, you need to put a lot into the DAC and streamer. At this level, you’ll probably have to invest In $8K + to match the analog.

Obviously this is constantly changing as folks innovate and better sounding components and techniques become available to manufacturers. For instance the Schiit Yggdrasil is only ~$2.5K and performs like a number of DACs over $5K. But make no mistake about it… if the rest of your signal path is capable of resolving it… the $10K DAC will blow it away.

If you are interested in high end sound quality and choose good quality and synergistic components… you get what you pay for.