For those of you who had spent over hundred thousand dollars for your sound system.


Do you think, in retrospect, that you could have gotten better sound quality out of your sound system with much less money spend. Do you have any regrets for spending huge amount of $$$? If you can start all over again, what would be different this time around? Let’s talk about electronics only and not room improvement for now. I know they go together, but the subject becomes very broad - assume your room is near perfect for sound reproduction.

P.S. Mike Levine, please don't shy away from the subject.  

128x128tannoy56

I owned a Audiostore for a number of years getting 50%+ off on many items allows systems going into the $6 digit pricing

that being said I used to offer and have created system enhancers that do actually work quite well even in Highend systems such as my Duelund Audio purifiers 

I took the summer off, that being said. Modding your electronics ,as well as Loudspeaker Xovers makes a dramatic improvement saving 2-3x the$$ vs New and without question better performance . Whati have found and please remember on average only 25% or less actually goes into the components or average ,the rest R&D overhead and markup, the Xover parts  in a loudspeaker ,are at Best average ,worlds best Duelund capacitors you will Never see in any speaker ,why ? 
great question ,there are many other very good caps like vh audio, Jantzen Alumen Z ,Jupiter ,Top Mundorf ,Milflex,  ,clarity ,depending on the application each one sounds abit different, with resistors 98% use $2 ceramic resistors. The 2 best area Mundorfs Latest Ultra copper foil for absolute best detail ,2 nd isPath Audio-a bit warmer just slightly less detail , I have been modding for over 20 years learned a lot from Greats like Tony Gee ,Well known for his well know capacitor test book 

Humblehomemade  Hifi capacitor test. Speakers i mod mysel and coupling caps ,ifs it’s much more involved in electronics like Bellison regulators i hire a good tech .

save $10000s and get much better performance . Look for real good used quality and then have it modded by a good Audio tech that knows their stuff.

That's how Dan Modwright made his reputation.

Two points-

First- life is about the zeros. If you have enough zeros after your net worth, you can have more zeros after your audio system or other hobby.  Therefore, the more interesting question is for those who have spent a higher % of net worth (for us older guys) or income (for you younger guys). 
 

Two- we have a “luxury tax” in place at our household.  If I spend $10k on a preamp, then we make a $10k donation to charity above and beyond our normal giving. This makes me consider each audio (luxury) purchase more carefully and has kept my system below the $50k threshold. It also keeps me driving a Toyota and not a Ferrari, which I could probably afford.

@z32kerber 

 

Thanks for posting your system. While I had to look up a couple of the components. It looks carefully chosen and sounds like it works well together. Careful choices of components can assemble really great systems for modest prices. Congradulations!

@charles1dad ---good comment regarding the sound of my Viking Acoustic speakers and Canary Audio Grand Reference 300B Mono amps.  Aren't we all guilty of wondering if there is something better out there?  Are we ever totally satisfied with our system?  I really want to be but the curiosity of what if will always prevail.  LOL

BTW if you want to hear my system, check out YouTube under Viking Acoustic Grande Voix Speakers.