by macrae11 » Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:54 pm
I think most of the $10000-$15000 systems in this thread were referring to Protools HD. When walking in HD land it's quite easy to spend $15000.
An HD2 system which retails for $11000, can usually be bought for around $5000-$7000. This is just software and two processing cards. No interfaces, no mics, no preamps, nothing.
Then say if you need 24 channels of I/O, that's about $5000, using Lynx Aurora converters as a benchmark.
Of course you still need a computer, so that can be anywhere from $1000-$4000 depending on Mac/PC and how much you want to trick it out.
24 channels of good quality preamps are going to cost between $100-$1000 per channel, so that's $2400- $24000.
My ideal mic kit would cost well over a $100000, but if we're being reasonable maybe budget $10000 for all your mics and cables and stands.
So there you have a $23000ish system, that still has no speakers, headphones, amps, room treatment, snakes, outboard gear, soldering station, etc etc etc.
Now to answer your question if you already have all the analog stuff taken care off. For just the HD system with interfaces, could easily cost up to $15000. And that's just an HD2 system. If you want to get into HD3, HD4 etc, or more I/O, the price keeps going up.