Cheapest system you could ever stand to listen to


... or, where have you encountered an amazingly cheap system that really surprised you?

My son is a college student and he and his house mates have put together a system for $67 that sounds ridiculously good. Here is the system along with where each piece came from:

-2007 Toshiba DVD player, $35, Discount box store
-late eighties Onkyo TX-26 Stereo Receiver, $25, pond shop
-unknown vintage Bose 401 floor standing speakers in excellent condition, FREE off the parking strip (the neighboring college kids couldn't "figure out how to hook them up to their TV" and abandoned them on moving out)
-18 gauge speaker wire, FREE from pond shop owner
-ICs came in box with DVD
-Powerstrip $7, Fred Meyers

When I first saw this system, the speakers were jammed against the wall in opposite corners of the room and the DVD player was hooked up to the receiver's phono section. The boys thought the amp must be really crappy or broken since the sound was thin, etched and flat. I told them that an Onkyo should sound pretty good and hooked the source up to the proper inputs. I also suggested moving the speakers along the same wall on either side of their TV, about a foot or more out in the room and about 7 ft. apart.

The first thing we listened to was the soundtrack for the DVD "House of Flying Daggers". Listening to the drum scene was more like listening to the "House of Flying Sound". We all had to laugh at how good the $67 system sounded. Later listening to red book recordings of Yo Yo Ma, Patricia Barber, The Blue Scholars, some well recorded instrumental jazz and some other stuff reinforced my thoughts that this system sounds pretty darn good, perhaps about 85% as good as a $25,000 system I had just listened to at a hi fi shop the same day. The bass from the Onkyo/Bose combo is full and fast but not up to true hi fi standards for tightness or depth (the receiver only pumps 38 watts), and the highs don't sparkle or shimmer with the same airiness associated with multi-thousand dollar systems. But the funky little Bose towers have decent midrange and throw sound around the room with uncanny realism.

In the final analysis, this cheap little system sounds good enough to listen to all day and not get fatigued or annoyed. It also works quite well when driven by a PC or Mac laptop computer. This experience makes me reevaluate what its possible to build on a tight budget with some persistence and a little (OK, maybe a lot) of luck.
Ag insider logo xs@2xknownothing
NAD 3020 integrated amp, yard sale, $20
Mission 700le speakers, yard sale, $15
Pioneer PL-12DII, flea market, $10
Audio Technica AT-15XE cartridge, eBay, $25

A very sweet system at many times the price.
Free: NAD 3200 amp and KEF 104 speakers: gift from A & M Studios
$15: Dynakit 70: neighbor
$200: Blue Sky Audio EXO from Guitar Center
My nephews non audiophile system of $45 NAD (hmmm seeing a trend here), tandberg receiver (literally a dumpster dive behind a radio station) hooked up to some JBL Century's (free to a good home and a 2 beer tinsel lead repair fee from his cool uncle)with 12 gauge solid core electrical cable has often made me wonder about my sanity, and lack of budget restraint.
Waffle35,

How do the Century's sound to your 2008 ears? These were considered by many people as THE standard reference monitor here in the US in the 70s, and I always considered them to be very very revealing in the treble, bordering on being overly bright. Wondering if they are tamed a bit by having the NAD in the loop. I would guess the Tandberg-JBL combination would be pretty good.

At $45 plus Romex, looks like your nephew's system takes top honors for lowest cost so far, perhaps for potential quality too.
A transistor radio under the pillow back in the '60s. The Beatles and the British invasion were happening. It was all about the music. F the equipment. It's about the music.