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Biggest "pleasant surprise" components you have owned?

When I have owned ARC, Magnepan, Conrad Johnson and most of the "big names" you can think of...all of that ownership came with expectations and mostly those expectations were met.  
From my journey the somewhat surprising components,...and thankfully there have been a few... were the Nakamichi SoundSpace 5 I bought for my youngest son,  a Mitsubishi tuner, an old NOS ADC-XLM cartridge, an early Winegard (sp?) outdoor FM antenna,  some "mainstream" units from Sony and Pioneer that were better than expected...  And isn't it nice when a product surprises you?,.....kind of an audiophile present. 
I would enjoy hearing of your surprise components. 
In our overpopulated, overpriced and problem filled world it is always good to hear of humans that have experienced pleasant surprises.     Thanks for your input.   Also, I apologize for, perhaps, doing a few too many posts...with this Covid lockdown, boredom has found me.  I am also extremely concerned of how many great small businesses will not survive this time in history, especially some of the best locally owned restaurants in most towns.
As always, I apologize for any typos and/or spelling errors. 






whatjd
roxy54's avatar
roxy54
7,974 posts
 
Nestorovic 5As Speakers, and my current Klipsch Epic CF4. I was surprised by the performance of each of them.
whatjd OP
1,139 posts
 
Not that it matters, but I have had some of the same experiences with cars.  I expected some of the expensive exotics to be fast and fun, but there were a few value cars that were darn good.
williewonka
3,075 posts
 
My DIY Helix Power, Interconnect and Speaker Cables.

YES - I consider them just as important as components

My DIY journey started around 10 years ago with some pretty standard cables using bulk wire and pricey connectors.

Then after reading many articles I experimented with a more complex Helix Geometry design.

Despite comments that often ridiculed my knowledge (or lack thereof) - "My Ears" told me different, so I kept pushing on, ignoring the pretentious rhetoric of others, that my DIY cables should not be taken seriously.

Over the past 4 years I have been fortunate to have lots of very positive feedback from others that tried them and experimented with different wires and insulations, each time improving on their surprising levels of performance.

More recently - I have been told (many times) that the DIY Helix design, using the current formula of metals and insulation choices has elevated the Helix line of cables to a level of performance that rivals many of today’s top brands costing much much more.

Pleasantly Surprised? - yep - every time I update my cables ! :-)
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