90's/00's Mini/Micro/Separates Hifi - Worth a buy?

[Mont Blanc]

I have Bose and Sonos AirPlay speakers all round my house, and they work fine for whole house audio, streamed from my phone or iPad.

But there are a couple of rooms where I spend a lot of time, such as my home office (8 hours a day) and I would appreciate an upgrade in sound quality and some actual stereo separation.

What are your thoughts on the old mini-separates or mini-hifi systems as made in the 90's and 00's from the likes of Technics, Panasonic, Denon, Sony, etc.

I'm considering buying a couple of these as they can be bought in good condition, with speakers, for next to nothing: £50-150 ish. I'll need to add a bluetooth receiver of reasonable quality.

Are these mini systems actually any good or were they a compromise? Any brands to that are considered to be better than the others? Am I just better off buying a full size 80's/90's separates amp?

Thanks

[tonyg58]

The only one (series) that I am familiar with are the Denon DM series - they sounded pretty good and were also really reliable (sold a heap of them over the years and I'm pretty sure none of them failed).
DM41 had Bluetooth built in.

[Mont Blanc]

Or, if all I really want is to stream bluetooth audio from my phone, to some passive bookshelf speakers, would I be better off with something like this:

https://www.richersounds.com/fosi-audio-mc351-blac...

[anonymous-user]

In your shoes I think I’d be looking at a pair of active speakers, especially if you’re just going to be streaming. Nice and simple.

[Deranged Rover]

Most of them weren't all that great.

They'd be an improvement on Bose, though, obviously...

[808 Estate]

The Teac Mini systems 300 & 500 series were definitely at the better end of the scale.

[jimmytheone]

I dont know how you got on with this but FWIW, i got the Denon RCD M41DAB as a discreet kitchen unit and i've been very impressed. Better than the Marantz MCR612 it replaced.

£299 at RS, or £269 as member price
https://www.richersounds.com/denon-dm41-dab-black/ also available in silver

[Mont Blanc]

Done absolutely nothing about it at the moment! Too many other things on!

But thanks to all for the suggestions so far! They are all noted.

[T1berious]

Dependant on your budget (and of course the rooms) but at a guess the Office is going to be nearfield listening?

Depending on your space, I'd go with a decent set of Active Streaming Speakers. I use the Ruark MR1's in my office.

RuarkMRIII

I've also got an old system in the study that I stream with but honestly, a set of KEF LSX would have been perfectly adequate had I not been re using old kit.

Audiolab 8000S (Now a Rega Elex Mk IV)
Castle Severn II
Raspberry PI streamer (Sonos really hacked me off)

I do 90% of my listening on the Ruark's very happy with them, so happy I got a second pair for the lab \ gym!

Hope this helps,

T1b

[danb79]

I had a Marantz MCR603 as my main system in the 2000s paired with numerous speakers (B&W 602S3s, CM1s and CM5s, MA BR5s and BX5s, Neat Motive 2s etc) and it was a belting all in one.

Can be found for c£150 on ebay now. That was some Wharfedale 9.1s or similar would be very hard to beat

But as said above as well, active speakers now for similar money are very good. Edifier speakers via Amazon are excellent

I run JBL 308P MkIIs as my office system with an SMSL DAC and they're absolutely superb.

For smaller speakers the 305s are excellent also and not expensive at all. The Focusrite Scarlet Solo USB interface is all that's needed, you can connect anything to that then (phone, iPad, tablet etc)