The Ushers and the Wilson Sashas are both reviewer-owned gear. Both pairs of speakers were driven by the AudioQuest Wild Wood, very short lengths, just 4 ft., connected to Odyssey Kismet monoblock. I'm really happy with a digital source, a Vista laptop, running through the Audiophilleo 1 S/PDIF USB interface.
The in the Usher system, cabling is 57% of the total; in the Sasha system, it's 39%. Changing the Kismets with the new D'Agostino Momentum amplifiers, $42K, changes the cabling plant to be 36% or 28% respectively. So there's not really any way to escape cabling being a significant part of the budget. And the Sashas/Momentum have not outrun, so to speak, the cabling plant.
See reviews over at
www.6moons.com for the Audiophilleo and the Kismets. Review of the Sashas, being done with colleague Ed Kramer, will be up in a few days, also at
www.6moons.com.
Budget:
1. Source, well, basically nothing. Even a $130 Alix network client will be fine.
2. Audiophilleo 1 S/PDIF processor is $900 (plugs directly in to the DAC, no cable)
3 Speakers, $3K or $30K, depending
4. AudioQuest Wild Wood, $7K
5. AudioQuest Sky analog interconnect, $11K
6. Odyssey Kismet monoblocks, $5K
7. Weiss DAC 202, $7K
8. Audio Magic Oracle power conditioner, $8K
9. Audio Magic Liquid Conductor power cables, $15K
Now, what constitutes the "source", well, it would be the computer (free), the Audiophilleo 1 and the Weiss, makes $8K.
My continuing observations are that some of the best, relatively inexpensive speakers with excellent cabling will sound much, much better (meaning, more transparent) than really expensive speakers with mediocre cabling. The budget speaker approach gives better value at lower risk, so to speak.
My "problem" is that many a well-heeled gear collector will have trophy speakers, and they're sooooo good that all I can hear are the less-than-lovely qualities of the cabling! What to do? Transparency to the source cuts both ways, and in speakers, bigger is most definitely not automatically better.
Expensive speakers (Sashas) with excellent cabling (Wild Wood) sound even better, but of course you're spending $37K total compated to $10K for the Wild Wood and Ushers, almost 4 times the price.