[Tonto Yoder]

Questions like this come up regularly, but I don't remember ever seeing a thread here dealing with how to budget $$ for the various components of a system.

Personally, my system breaks down roughly as
      13% speakers
       33% preamp-amp
        7 % CD player
          35 % vinyl playback
            11% accessories (cables, stands, AC)

Two things that stick out are the high percentage for vinyl vs. CD and maybe the low percentage for speakers?? My explanation is that I like LP's and have devoted funds there and that my speakers are the oldest pieces in the system: they used to make up a bigger percentage of the system cost, but as the other gear has been upgraded, the speaker percentage has gone down.

It might be interesting to see how others allocate funds?? This thread also might make sense in the "Starting Block" circle if the moderators want to move it.

[Marbles]

Questions like this come up regularly, but I don't remember ever seeing a thread here dealing with how to budget $$ for the various components of a system.

Personally, my system breaks down roughly as
      13% speakers
       33% preamp-amp
        7 % CD player
          35 % vinyl playback
            11% accessories (cables, stands, AC)

Two things that stick out are the high percentage for vinyl vs. CD and maybe the low percentage for speakers?? My explanation is that I like LP's and have dev ...

If you bought a component used, do you put the price you paid, or the retail price?

For an even more interesting analysis, why not add the cost of music, broken down by type (i.e. LP's, CD's, Concert DVD's, DVD-A, SACD etc..)?

[Carlman]

I think room treatments should be part of the mix.. since it's a big part of how your system sounds.  This could even include furniture bought for the sole purpose of sound treatment...

[Tonto Yoder]

Marbles,
Feel free to calculate however you want to, but I used actual price paid in the percentages I listed: my speakers, CD player & turntable/arm cart were all new while the pre/amp/phono preamp were all second-hand.

Carlman,
Personally, I'd put room treatments under the accessories category with cables and AC conditioning. I imagine the percentages paid for all accessories would change depending on the total cost of the system???
Someone with an entry-level system might not have ANY room treatments.

[_scotty_]

As a DIYer my expenses break down very differently from the average enthusiast,depending on what I was able to build vs. what I had to purchase from the manufacturer that I could not build for myself.
11% sacd/cd/dvd
3.8% pre
7.1% pwr
10% TT/phonopre
3.3%tuner
2.7%cables
62%speakers
The funny part about percentages in my case is that it looks like I followed 1970's  system resource allocation guidelines, which was to spend
the bulk of your budget where the buck stops, at the loudspeaker. Obviously in my case I couldn't build loudspeakers that were not handily
out-performed by what I could buy ready made.

[TheChairGuy]

Marbles,
Feel free to calculate however you want to, but I used actual price paid in the percentages I listed: my speakers, CD player & turntable/arm cart were all new while the pre/amp/phono preamp were all second-hand.

Carlman,
Personally, I'd put room treatments under the accessories category with cables and AC conditioning. I imagine the percentages paid for all accessories would change depending on the total cost of the system???
Someone with an entry-level system might not have ANY room treatments.

Awesome post, Tonto!  I've wondered this a bit myself.  The Brits have traditionally advised to spend more up front relative to the back end...but they typically have smaller spaces in their homes to house large speakers.  I've adopted that advice and been pleased with the value quotient overall:

Vinyl Playback (TT/Cartridge) - 6%
Main Speakers/Passive Sub/Stands - 7% (modded small Optimus' work and N.E.A.R Boom-2 sub work great for me)
CD Playback(Transport/DAC/PS) - 23%
Power Conditioning - 15%
2 MultiAmps(w/active XO)/sub amp/preamp - 21%
FM Tuner - 3.5%
IC/PC/SC Cables - 18.5%
Accessories(stands, isolation blobs and cones, foam room treatment) - 6%

I used actual prices paid and any mod costs involved in any.  My tuner and Thorens TT are over 15 years old, thus holding down their %.  They are good enough for my needs.

Believe it or not, I'm really happy with my speaker situation overall and this won't be changing for awhile.

I listed Power Conditioning separately as it would obscure the true cost of it in my system.

I'll probably end up having my transport or DAC modded next, believe it or not, as I think that will be the best bang for da' buck. I'll wait a while and probably invest in some great digital amplifier in the future - I think that will be the future, at least for woofer drivers.  

I have some DakiOm Stabiliziers coming in, if they work and stay in, the accessories may notch up a %.

[Tyson]

It used to be:
40% electronics
40% speakers
20% IC's and speaker wire.

Very soon it will be:
80% speakers
15% electronics
5% Wire

Selling $5k worth of amp/preamp/source for a simple integraded digital reciever radically altered my balance

[maxwalrath]

What move are you making Tyson, and what was the equipment you are selling? You switched from an Odyssey to an AVA amp recently, correct?

My mix...24% speakers
              19% cd/dvd source
              19% pre
              19% power amp
              16% power/IC/speaker cables
              3% NOS tubes, tweaks

I need to add room treatments in the mix, but I'm moving soon so I'll have to wait until then.

[JohnR]

My view is that there's a certain minimum quality you need to achieve in amplification (and to a lesser extent, source). After that, you can use cheaper speakers or more expensive speakers, the quality will (AOTBE) be better with more $ in the speakers but you won't be selling yourself short with the electronics.

In other words, perhap it would be interesting to list the total system cost as well

[nathanm]

My present system is grossly biased towards the source components, which I think is a mistake.  $3000 for vinyl, $1500 for CD, $600 speakers, $400 amp.  It should be the other way around, with the brunt of the dough going to speakers.  I would expect to get better results if I had huge kick ass speakers driven by a modest NAD amp and a cheap CD player than if I had little mini monitors driven by Pass Labs monoblocks and a Burmester CD player or some such.  Of course, this whole scenario is based on the sometimes false assumption that spending more money gets you better sound - this is a myth I am gradually beginning to realize over time.

Of course, one really critical part of the puzzle doesn't cost much - making a hospitable environment in which to relax and enjoy music without distraction.  What else could explain the reason you read posts about people visiting these audio conventions with hotel rooms stacked to the gills with super duper expensive gee-whiz components and being totally unimpressed with the sound?

[JoshK]

CD   13%
Vinyl   18%
Pre   5%
Amp   16%
Spker   34%
Cables   10%
Tweaks   5%

Grand shibang, somewhere around $14K. Used to be more when I had tube electronics.

[bubba966]

Hmmm, I knew I had some whack ratios, but now I know exactly how weird they are...

Display & Video Converter  8%
Receiver  11.75%
Speakers & Subs  21.5%
Sources  41.25%
AC  5.75%
Tweaks  1%
Cables  10.5%

Grand total of about $25,500

Source breakdown is DVD  57%, LD  40%, S-VHS  3%

Don't have any room treatments yet. Something I need to correct at some point...

[Tonto Yoder]

....

In other words, perhap it would be interesting to list the total system cost as well

I think you're right that the appropriate allocations might well be different for an entry-level system vs. a cost-no-object one.   But it COULD be a bit intimidating to post the details of a modest system in the midst of the 10K-25K
gear.

[Tyson]

What move are you making Tyson, and what was the equipment you are selling? You switched from an Odyssey to an AVA amp recently, correct?

Actually, I've owned the AVA stuff for almost a year now, must be some kind of record for me

For what and why I'm switching, see:

$300 receiver kicking butt

[PhilNYC]

Just curious...I see a lot of folks (not necessarily the people who have responded to this thread) who say they don't believe in the whole price/performance thing in high end audio...that they can frequently find cheaper equipment that outperforms more expensive equipment.  If that is the case, then the whole idea of looking at percetage breakdowns of system costs seems to not really mean anything.  Anyone have any comments on this?

For the record, my reference setup is as follows:

CDP - 17%
Preamp - 23%
Amp - 18%
Speakers - 33%
Cables/Accessories/Tweaks - 9%

All told, about $20K...

[bubba966]

Just curious...I see a lot of folks (not necessarily the people who have responded to this thread) who say they don't believe in the whole price/performance thing in high end audio...that they can frequently find cheaper equipment that outperforms more expensive equipment.  If that is the case, then the whole idea of looking at percetage breakdowns of system costs seems to not really mean anything.  Anyone have any comments on this?

Phil,

Isn't the whole point of this thread to see where everyone actually put their $? I don't recall anyone mentioning any set or standard $ ratios.

So why would it matter if someone found one thing that vastly performs above it's cost? They still bought it, right? And it still is a certain percentage of the total cost of their setup.

I'm just not seeing where performance of your gear has anything to do with just looking at a percentage breakdown of your system.

Maybe if this had been a thread about "it's said that you should have this % put into speaks, this % put into amps, etc" and the question was asked if you fell into that category, then price/performance would come into play. Because if you did find something performed well above it's price for you, and you ended up putting more $ into another part of your setup as you didn't need to drop so much into one area it would seriously screw up any "recommended" $ ratios.

[mgalusha]

Some things seem to have a somewhat linear price/performance ratio until you reach a certain point and then the ratio becomes decidedly non-linear. Very much a case of diminishing returns. Determining that point is damned difficult and I think quite subjective but spending 20K on say, an amp would be impossible to justify from my perspective.  

Anyway, my ratios are:

Preamp + Tweaks - 5.22%
Vinyl - 7.37%
Digital - 11.74%
Amps - 19.57%
Power conditioning -14.35%
Cables/isolation/etc  - 2.61%
Speakers w/subs - 39.14%

About $15K all in total. What this doesn't show is any cash spent on experiments in DIY. Such pieces may not be in the current system but the costs are sunk and most of them won't be recoverd. I'm sure there are others in this boat.

mike g.

[PhilNYC]

Phil,

Isn't the whole point of this thread to see where everyone actually put their $? I don't recall anyone mentioning any set or standard $ ratios.

So why would it matter if someone found one thing that vastly performs above it's cost? They still bought it, right? And it still is a certain percentage of the total cost of their setup.

I'm just not seeing where performance of your gear has anything to do with just looking at a percentage breakdown of your system.
...

Bubba,

Maybe I expressed myself incorrectly...I was simply trying to get a feel for what people thought about the whole $$ allocation thing...wasn't trying to say this thread is pointless or anything like that (otherwise, I wouldn't have posted my own allocations).  For people who do believe in the $$ allocation thing, they might react to this thread in a certain way that is completely different to those who don't, so I was just hoping to get the question out there on the table for people to comment on as a sidebar to telling about their dollar allocation percentages...

[srclose]

I've also found the law of diminishing returns applies to about everything.  I calculate the $/Mhz ratio for CPUs before building motherboards, and purchase where the cost vs performance curve begins to level off.  I was pretty much out of audio for about 15 years and then started reading again about 2/3 years ago.  Since then picking up mostly used equipment.  This curve is hard to establish in audio because price seems so often very loosely related to performance - a polite way to say that many published evaluations seem to nearly represent fiction.  I've traded quite a bit, but starting to close in on a long-term system.  I think I'm currently low in money allocation to source now, and need to upgrade both CD and turntable.

speakers:  39%
preamp:  14%
amp:  14%
transport/DAC:  7%
turntable:  10%
phono preamp:  2%
cables:  8%
room treatment:  3%
power conditioning:  3%

I bumped into AudioCircle after reading the SP Technologies Timepiece review in EnjoyTheMusic and talking to Bob at SP.  This has been a great help.

SRC

[Gordy]

CDP, new, moded -  35%
Int. amp, used -       19%
Speakers, kit -         17%
Tuner, moded-         5%
Power cond. new-     10%
Cables, some used-  7%
Tweaks, Room-        7%

Total for the above is about 13K, but what might be for another thread is my (active) main system cost vs. software...   Not counting vinyl (no TT) my ratio is 38% vs. 62%.  Guess that's a great excuse to blow a wad on new cd's!