With the growing entity that is ebay and the second hand hifi market showing no sign of strain, I have come to wonder how much it would actually cost the budding audiophile to put together a decent system these days.
So much so that I have decided to put some systems together from the small ads and ebay for different budgets. This will include a source, amplification and speakers.
I will work off the completed sale price obviously, unfortunately I am not sure how to provide a link so you will have to trust me! I will start with £100 and work my way up until I get bored or die or both!
For the first system I will include a cd player, an amplifier and some speakers. Unfortunately I can't include things like speaker stands and cable, you will have to use bell wire to wire it and just stick the system on top of the side board for now!
Maranatz cd 67mk2
Cd player. My first thought was either Marantz, Nad, Arcam or sony. After scouring the second hand market I found a Marantz cd 67 mk2 that sold on eBay for £10!
What a bargain. These cd players still sound really good and this certainly gives me plenty of money left over for the rest.
Incidentally I will not be including postage costs in the final fee as lets get real! Even if you took a trip to your local hifi shop you would pay petrol, buy a cup of coffee or splurge some money on lunch. Postage costs are inevitable. Anyway back to the hifi traul!
Next up is an amplifier to match up nicely with my cd player. The cd 67 is definitely on the lively side and has quite a lot of treble! So I was thinking about Nad, Yamaha, Sony or Rotel. Something warm and forgiving and hopefully with a bit of power.
Rotel 931 mk2
I finally found a Rotel 931 mk11 in mint condition with the box (also mint!) and the instructions, all for the great price of £41 This should match really well with the Marantz cd player. The Rotel is quite dark sounding (the treble is not all that extended) so should tame the cd players brightness. This is easy!
Now for the speakers and arguably the most difficult task. The Rotel is not the last word in refinement. The treble is orderly but it certainly does not miss any leading edge attack so something smooth will be best.
Wharfdale springs to mind, early Kef, Celestion, anything smooth and warm. Anyway back to the hunt and wow what a find this was!
Acoustic energy aegis 1 (five years old)
I managed to find some acoustic energy aegis ones for thirty eight quid. I used to sell these speakers a few years ago and I always thought they where excellent.
Very clean, easy to drive and for a budget speaker extremely well behaved and smooth. So there we have it and there is even some money left over for a half decent interconnect.
The total price of this system is £89. To buy this equipment new would have cost roughly £600 and I honestly do not believe that you could better it today for any thing less than £500. That's progress for you!
Next time I will see what it is possible to buy for £200. I am hoping to get some real audio exotica!
