What of your gross annual income is your system?

About 20%. In decending order (most expensive first( Room construction, Front proj. speakers, amps, video proc. pre-amp, cdp, cables and tweaks

Assuming I had purchased my system at retail it wound have cost about 37%. You must understand this is a work in progress, thus, the manner in which my money is allocated is quite odd. Ibeleive i will elect to list as Constraveler did (in decending order). Pre-amp, cables, speakers, amp, cd player, subwoofer and tuner.

I guess that it's not what you make, but what you do with it. I've been putting things together for about 5 years. The most that any one item cost was around $3200. Speakers around $3200 x 2 (used), tube pre-amp $1500 (used), SS amp $2700 (used), tube amp $800 (used), active tube xover $2200 (new), tuner $2000 (new), dozens of NOS tubes ($?$?$?), power cond/cords $2500 (new/used), speaker cables $1800 (new/used), interconnects $3000 (new/used), trans+dac+jitter $3000 (used), room treatments $200 (used) and misc probably $1000 give or take. Throw in source material and the total is probably around $30,000. All new gear might be twice that amount. Averaged out per week over 5 years that's about $115/week. If I could do it all over, I would do things differently. I'm very happy with what I have. But I now know that I could build an equal system for less, that I would enjoy just as much.

I might be a little light at about 15% -- time to upgrade!!

Most of my system costs are in the speakers (33%) then the amps/preamp (purchased as a package at about 30%) then the speaker wire (10%), cd/dac (7%), room treatments (6%)and then all other. Stumbled into some great deals so my allocation is not really where I want it to be. The source systems, interconnects, room treatments and power supplies need more attention. But then, I'd really like to move to a tube preamp too. Lots of upgrading ahead! I can hardly wait.

I like Newbee's approach! I always suspected that I was ill. I'm at about 2x G.Y.S. at the MSRP. Obviously, I didn't acquire everything in one year, but it does add up rather quickly. It's not the destination, but the journey that counts.