Classic/bargain must have hi-fi / AV kit

[TonyRPH]

Lost_BMW said:

After an enforced move back to a one room 'home' (pending divorce) it pains me but I've no room for my stuff so if anyone is interested in the classic DNM Primus pre-amp and power supply two box combo or even a pair of scruffy but excellent sounding Wharfedale 708s let me know (no point on EBay I suspect . .)

I can remember with such fondness my old Linn Sondek LP 12, DNM, Musical Fidelity P170 and 708 set up. Beautiful sound; ah, the good old days!

Used Hi-Fi seems to fetch little on Ebay these days (did it ever??)

[Mark34bn]

My Linn Axis sold for a great price on Ebay( It was 17 years old aswell)
As did the CD6000K.I. and my two Target 2 shelf stands.
You might be surprised..

[TonyRPH]

Mark34bn said:

My Linn Axis sold for a great price on Ebay( It was 17 years old aswell)
As did the CD6000K.I. and my two Target 2 shelf stands.
You might be surprised..

Some high end kit (such as the Linn you mention) seems to command high prices still.

The CD6000KI has a cult following too - so no surprise there..

I'm surprised at your stands.

Try selling something a little more run of the mill though - and unless it has a cult following, the item just doesn't seem to reach a good price.

Another example is the Marantz CD17 - a few years back they would command silly prices - but now you'll be lucky... (Unless it's one of the KI editions)

This is simply based on my personal experience - and could be completely wrong.

It's a buyer's market I think...

[Lost_BMW]

TonyRPH said:

Mark34bn said:

My Linn Axis sold for a great price on Ebay( It was 17 years old aswell)
As did the CD6000K.I. and my two Target 2 shelf stands.
You might be surprised..

Some high end kit (such as the Linn you mention) seems to command high prices still.

The CD6000KI has a cult following too - so no surprise there..

I'm surprised at your stands.

Try selling something a little more run of the mill though - and unless it has a cult following, the item just doesn't seem to reach a good price.

Another example is the Marantz CD17 - a few years back they would command silly prices - but now you'll be lucky... (Unless it's one of the KI editions)

This is simply based on my personal experience - and could be completely wrong.

It's a buyer's market I think...

Unfortunately I sold the Linn years ago - an advert in a hi-fi magazine and a bloke came from Holland for it and the P170 amp which surprised me.

I tried EBay with a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 9 speakers and - twice, including a recent separate auction - my Atacama Equinox table = next to no interest even with low reserves, the stand got a high bid of £78 when it cost over £400 I think!

[telecat]

The Axis is a rare and sought after turntable these days. They do fetch good money.

[Mark34bn]

telecat said:

The Axis is a rare and sought after turntable these days. They do fetch good money.

I loved my Axis, but I split with the ex GF in 2003 and didn't have room for the HiFi in the new flat.
Thing is I'd stopped buying vinyl in about 1991 so unless I was in a 'nostalgic' mood I didn't have anything to play on it!
A bloke from Italy won my stands (Ebay) and paid over £100 plus delivery which was £60 or so. Bit mad as I think they were about £50 each when I bought them in 1987.
I miss my amps the most. Arcam 9 & 9P,they were gorgeous things.

[964RS.]

I've 3 pairs (or 4?) Wharfedale 708 loudspeakers (I used to work at Wharfedale).
1 x Monitor Audio R232(?) loudspeakers.
2 x Meridian MCD Pro CD players.
1 x Nakamichi Dragon cassette player (possibly the last one made).
1 x Aiwa ADF-990 3-head casstte deck.
2 x Aiwa ADF-770 3-head cassette decks.
1 x Musical Fidelity A200(?) class A amplifier.
1 x QED T200(?) tuner

I'm always on the lookout for a pair of Wharfedale Option One active loudspeakers if anyone know who has a pair for sale!

So you can see I love classic Hi-Fi!

[heisthegaffer]

I was just given a Kenwood KA3020SE amp (not in the same league as most of the other kit admittedly), a NAD CD Player C521 and a pair of Mission 731s, possibly 731SEs.

Sounds great in my garage, unsurprisingly better than my Yamaha pro-logic DSP-A590, technics 490 CD player, Wharfedale Z1 (I think) and Sony MDJS-520 minidisc player.

In fact, I'm really impressed and chuffed.

[964RS.]

I managed to get a pair of Wharfedale Option Ones for less than £250. Hi-fi heaven. In an active, dipole, monolith kind of way.

[Crackie]

964RS. said:

I managed to get a pair of Wharfedale Option Ones for less than £250. Hi-fi heaven. In an active, dipole, monolith kind of way.

Congrats on finding the Option Ones you were searching for

I'm a big advocate of classic hi-fi ( as thread title ) and don't think there has been any significant progress in performance for decades, for me the standout classic/bargain amps and CDs are.

INTEGRATED AMPS
Cyrus One
Rotel RA-930AX
Pioneer A-400
Audiolab 8000A
Incatech Claymore
Roksan Caspian
Audio Analogue Puccini
Sugden A21a
Lyngdorf SDAi 2175

PRE AMPS
Audio Analogue Bellini
DNM3a
ATC CA2
Creek P43R

POWER AMPS
Rotel RB-971 / RB-03 / RB-06 / RB-1050
Rotel RB-981 / RB-1080
Musical Fidelity MA50
Sirius D200 / Gamut D200
Lyngdorf SDA2175

CDs
Technics SL-PG200A or 277A or 520A or 620A ( The A at the end of the model number means it was made in Europe using a Philips swing arm laser )
Rotel 965BX
Exposure CD ( Original model )
Marantz CD52Se
Sony CDP561E or CDP715E
Resolution Audio Opus 21
Meridian 206B

Speakers
Impulse H2, H6, Lali,
Mordaunt Short MS10i/20i Pearl
Quad 11L
Castle Warwick
Castle Durham
Spendor Prelude
AVI Nutron
AVI Biggatron
Living Voice Avatar

£200 Technics SL-PG520A + £200 Cyrus One + £2250 Impulse H2 sound incredible together.

Edited by Crackie on Wednesday 8th April 09:26

[philv]

Kef reference 104/2 speakers
Ruark equinoxe speakers - very rare

Both absolutely superb

[Parabola]

I have...

NAD C370 Amp
NAD C541i CD Player.
Dynaudio Audience 42 Bookshelf Speakers on Partington Dreadnaught Stands

Am looking to move on a little with some second had kit.
Maybe an Arcam Alfa 10 CD Player, the NAD C541i sound a little 'bright' to me.

Could be the Dynaudio speakers need a change though.

Any suggestions for some floorstanding speakers to look at?
Will keep an eye out for some Kef reference 104/2 or Wharfdale option ones.

Was thinking if they were biwirable, I could invest in a second hand NAD C270 Power Amp too!

[TwigtheWonderkid]

I've just bought a gloss black Audio Technica LP-120 turntable, a copy of the famous Technics SL-1200.

It sounds very good, although my set up is nothing special, Yamaha CRX-M170 amp/CD/DAB and Eltex floorstanders. But the main reason I bought it is because it looks so fking cool. I probably lose hi fi geek points for that.

[K50 DEL]

So many of the models mentioned in this thread are familiar from my days of being a What HiFi subscriber...
Like many I never had the budget for brand new, so built my system up based around second hand, but well reviewed gear.

Rotel Turntable
Sony STS370rds Tuner
Kenwood KA-3020SE Amp
Aiwa ADWX999 Twin cassette deck
Marantz CD63se CD player

Wharfedale Diamond 5 speakers

Target stands and quality interconnects.

I don't actually use the system often but am happy enough with the sound when I do.

Next upgrade will be an AudioLab 8000 combo, had a hankering for them for 20 years!

[Crackie]

K50 DEL said:

So many of the models mentioned in this thread are familiar from my days of being a What HiFi subscriber...
Like many I never had the budget for brand new, so built my system up based around second hand, but well reviewed gear.

Rotel Turntable
Sony STS370rds Tuner
Kenwood KA-3020SE Amp
Aiwa ADWX999 Twin cassette deck
Marantz CD63se CD player

Wharfedale Diamond 5 speakers

Target stands and quality interconnects.

I don't actually use the system often but am happy enough with the sound when I do.

Next upgrade will be an AudioLab 8000 combo, had a hankering for them for 20 years!

Some magazine reviews are much more thorough than others. I used What Hi-Fi reviews when I first got interested in music / Hi-Fi in the very early 80s but favoured the Hi-Fi Choice approach. i.e multiple products, auditioned blind by multiple reviewers. This blind testing method uncovered some real stars that punched way above their price points.

I recall the listening panel often included people from companies such as Arcam, Technics, Pioneer, Rotel etc as well as the magazine's journalists. I always felt it was healthy and brave to submit your own products for review; it would be easy to heap praise on the competition or alternatively be critical of your own company's equipment. Choice always published comprehensive measurements too.

[Crackie]

graphene said:

Have you got any old copies? It would fun to read about some of these bargains. I wonder if the publishers would dare put the old reviews online.

Apart from some funny bagain (chinese?) cd players from Richer Sounds, I recall a CD-amp-speaker system put together by some guest-guru where the interconnect (or was it the speaker cable?) was more expensive than the sources. Marantz CD, Pioneer amp perhaps? I am struggling to remember it clearly, but fairly sure the speakers were a reasonably cheap bookshelf, may be a Tannoy or Mordaunt Short model.

Any old speaker measurements made by Hi-Fi Choice, Hi-Fi News, Hi-Fi World and Stereophile are still a valuable resource to me so I've kept 100s of old mags over the years.

Here are some comments from a 26 player CD group test; the reviewers were staff from Pioneer, Marantz, Rotel, Yamaha, Audio Innovations and Hi-Fi Choice.

"Our listeners' spirited reception was prompted by the open, fresh and melodic character of the player." "Less like listening to CD and more like listening to music they suggested" " Almost as if new performers had taken to the instruments, huge in scale without blowing things out of proportion. The team were utterly bowled over by the sound of this player which had a sense of expression, drama and scale which put far costlier products in the shade. It has all the hallmarks of a fine audio product : big, powerful, seductive yet never forceful. All the hallmarks of the 'high end', that is, except the price."

I bought one of the players concerned, £200 back in 1992, on the strength of the comments above, mainly because I wasn't able to audition players easily and also because the review team's opinion was that it sounded better than any other player in the test. The test group included several machines in the £800 - £1000 range and having compared this relatively inexpensive player directly to more recent and much more expensive machines such as Wadias, I think the Hi-Fi Choice team's comments were spot on.

Edited by Crackie on Wednesday 18th March 21:48

[K50 DEL]

Glad I'm not the only one, I have almost all issues of What HiFi between about 1990 and 1996 or so piled in the cupboard... still pull them out to read the reviews of any kit I'm thinking of buying from Ebay or similar.

[Crackie]

K50 DEL said:

Glad I'm not the only one, I have almost all issues of What HiFi between about 1990 and 1996 or so piled in the cupboard... still pull them out to read the reviews of any kit I'm thinking of buying from Ebay or similar.

Sound quality is very subjective and I think anecdotal reviews, like What Hi-Fi's, should only be used to help generate a shortlist to use for auditions.
I've been involved in commercial loudspeaker design for many years and use measurements, published by the better magazines, as a reference. John Atkinson's technical reviews at Stereophile magazine are very good; impulse, step, amplitude delayed resonance responses are published. Hi-Fi News' speaker reviews were very good for a long time, courtesy of Martin Colloms, but sadly they, and Hi-Fi Choice, have stopped publishing the comprehensive test measurement information that they used to

Edited by Crackie on Thursday 9th April 21:30

[StuntmanMike]

What a great thread, so many familiar names, who remembers spending weekend after weekend, agonising over copies of what hifi and spending Saturday's visiting hifi shops.
Bliss.
I have;
Marantz CD52 SE.
Cambridge Audio Dacmagic 2.
Arcam Delta 290.
Mission 773 I . ( soon to be replaced, because they are crap).

[Jon1967x]

philv said:

Kef reference 104/2 speakers
Ruark equinoxe speakers - very rare

Both absolutely superb

Kef reference are great. Owned a pair of 105/3 which filled the room with sound.

The guy that bought them off me still sends me a christmas email!