Really Inexpensive Systems That Sounded Great?

@vinylguy2016 

Sounds like a great system! Vintage gear sounds so good once recapped. Even with new speakers sounds special compared to new stuff. 

I've tried new equipment and I aways go back to vintage. :)

We got Focal's 816 little towers for the living room, wife approved and they sound very good with marantz gear or HK. $900 a pair.  

We have so many systems that they’re doubled up in several rooms.  Best bang for the buck is Dynaco ST70, PAT5, BMR Philharmonitors.  Under $2000 for entire system.  Second contender is Luxman 5C50 pre, Elekit TU8600S, and Heathkit AS-101 speakers (Altec Valencias in Heath livery) for about $2K again.  All systems are linked together with Bluesound.  

For work, we spend one or two nights a week at another place outside of Dallas.  It’s an old frame farmhouse that we remodeled/rebuilt.  It’s mostly just to have a place to eat supper, relax and sleep, then leave for work at sunrise.  Rooms are smallish - 12 x 14 bedroom and 10 x 22 sun porch.  Systems are Luxman R114 receiver with AR 4x speakers ($700 total) and McIntosh Mac1700 receiver with BMR Philharmonitor speakers ($2300).  Both are excellent sounding, if limited, systems.  We stream Qobuz from a smartphone to either system.  Really, the more we play our smaller systems, the more we appreciate how much quality can be had for so little.

iFi Aurora

Best inexpensive combo I had was NAD326BEE driving Monitor Audio GR10’s - amazingly good sound.