If you had $20K to spend, what would you buy in audio?

[Lee]

I’m curious what members want at this price point.

 

[MarkusBarkus]

...another 80 grand.

 

[ricjor1]

I would replace my Chord Dave DAC.

 

[tmallin]

See my system description from the link in my signature below To replace everything mentioned in this description would be about $20,000. That includes the services of an electrician to run dedicated power and ethernet lines, a lifetime subscription to Roon and a few years worth of subscriptions to Tidal, Qobuz, and several other audio streaming services. Some of the items are no longer available new (e.g., the speakers and P.I. Audio electrical equipment) but can be found on the used market. This as musically satisfying a system as I've ever owned and I've owned systems costing more than five times this much.

 

[oldvinyl]

Refresh for my cartridge. Another record cleaner. A DS Audio ES-001 Stabilizer.

 

[Dr Tone]

It wouldn’t quite upgrade my speakers, so I would upgrade my preamp.

 

[Chop]

I'd buy a used Robert Koda Pre amp.

 

[tima]

more records

 

[Paul1960]

6 TB Grimm MU2. Sounds slightly better with Roon than my Innuos Pulsar/Holo May KTE DAC does with the Sense App. Since I love Roon and hate Sense that would be a good upgrade for me. Second choice would be a used Audio Research Ref 10 line stage preamp. Probably a bigger sonic upgrade than the Grimm but getting better sound from Roon would be more valuable to me.

 

[matthias]

I would buy streamer and amps from Fredrik Lejonklou:

Lejonklou

 

[Argonaut]

Well aged Single Malt …

 

[PeterA]

more records

Me too. I would likely start by replacing re-issues with originals of my favorite music. Then I would expand my collection in specific areas of interest.

Unfortunately, a better listening room would cost more than $20,000. I could also buy new tubes.

 

[TooCool4]

Replace my Spectral DMC 15, with a Spectral DMC 30SV S2

 

[Republicoftexas69]

Maybe well nothing.

 

[Lee]

more records

Now there's a man content with his system.

 

[msimanyi]

Lee, did you mean that as how would we spend $20k to improve our current systems or did you mean what would we buy for a $20k system?

If the former, probably two of the following: power/ground upgrades, preamp, network switch / infrastructure.

If the latter, I'd put the emphasis on a solid DAC with volume control, streaming (likely the basic BACCH-DSP for Mac system, running on an M4 Mac Mini, effectively hosting Roon fed by Qobuz), and the best speakers I could afford that then gave me a reasonable amp I could upgrade later.

 

[Gregadd]

Sadly, my dream system is astronomically priced. Maybe I could get decent room treatment at that price.

 

[mtemur]

20K won’t buy you good speakers, even second-hand. If you’re lucky, you might find a good pair of vintage speakers in nice shape that will do the job.

Aside from speakers, you can achieve very satisfying results with other components for little money. So, buying more records with 20K or saving more to buy nicer speakers is the thing I would do. And certainly I wouldn’t ruin any room filling with sponge called room treatment.

 

[Hobblecreek]

Loudspeaker cabling -- I have my eye on a set of Siltech Ruby Crown 40th Anniversary Series after demoing them in my home system.

 

[Narayan]

20K won’t buy you good speakers, even second-hand. If you’re lucky, you might find a good pair of vintage speakers in nice shape that will do the job.

Aside from speakers, you can achieve very satisfying results with other components for little money. So, buying more records with 20K or saving more to buy nicer speakers is the thing I would do. And certainly I wouldn’t ruin any room filling with sponge called room treatment.

20K won´t buy you good speakers even second hand? Myself, Sonus Faber, Boenicke Audio, Dali, Dynaudio, Wilson Audio, Magico, Qualio Audio etc and this link beg to differ:

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