How cheap can you go and still be happy with the sound?

It's really hard to say, there are some great affordable pieces of gear out there and they're getting better and better as time goes on.  I would be happy with a $5000 integrated and a $3000 - $5000 set of speakers.  I'd get a decent streaming DAC and call it a day.  Maybe another $1000 - $2000 for that.

What I've woken up to is that I have accumulated a number of mid-tier gear that had I just saved my money, I could have bought a higher-end piece.  Then again, it's hard to know what you like or don't like unless you try a lot of things.  Thank God for used gear - at least I can sell this stuff without much loss.

 

You can get pretty great sound for not a lot of $ these days. Maybe THIS is the Golden Age.

The price of your equipment bears little relationship to the sound it may produce. While it may be a "general principal" that the more the equipment cost the better it will sound... it... does not mean there are no exceptions - there are many!

I bought a $700 Class D. Audio amp a few years ago (SDS-470C Class D Audio Power Amplifier - 300 watts / channel at 8 ohms), and it drives my $1000 Maggie LRS+ speakers to "audio Nirvana."

That’s about as "cheap" as you can get for great sound! Though, I am using a Bryston BDP & BDA as the source.

Regardless of how much or how little your system costs, as long as it sounds good to YOU, that's all that matters!!!

The price of your equipment bears little relationship to the sound it may produce

That has not been my experience(s).