What is your favorite budget audio component?

Grado headphones.  PS Audio Sprout.  Spatial Audio M2 Turbos.  McCormack Headphone amp.  Spendor s3/5s.

Yamaha A-S500 Integrated: bought on closeout for $250, can compete with some $2K integrateds I’ve owned, all while doing it with a much lower noise floor.

Kef LS50s: recently bought a pair for the holiday price of $999. The reviews basically mirror my experience with these speakers so far.

Topping D20 DAC: a $120 Chi-Fi unit with a fluid, low glare sound. Not much different from my Line Magnetic 502CA.

Shure M97xe w/Jico SAS stylus (approximately $350): an all-around great performer with effortless tracking and very low distortion. Beats my $1000 cart that now resides in a closet.

Lounge LCR MK III phono preamp ($300): another component deserving of its widespread accolades.

Sonore ultraRendu network streamer is my favorite budget audio component.

I'm 99% into digital audio for almost 10 years now. Started with iTunes and Airport Express. Upgraded my amplifier and used several dacs. Sonneteer Alabaster with Metrum Octave and now Goldmund Job INTegrated. Differences were rather marginal however. 

Never thought a digital thing like a streamer would matter much. When I upgraded from Pioneer N-30 to Aries Mini stereo image opened up. Upgrading to microRendu with LPS-1 again was a big improvement. Blacker background and even more detailed imaging. 

A few weeks ago I received the Sonore ultraRendu. Before it was hard to imagine how microRendu could be bettered. But ultraRendu is a big improvement again. Micro details are more tangible. 

So when streaming get yourself a high quality streamer! It's definitely worth it.

Rotel RCD-1072 CD player: bought used for $350. Look, build and especially sound quality can compete with other used players costing 3 to 5 times. 

Sennheiser HD600's $300. Paired with a Schiit Valhalla 2 I am more impressed than with my $5000 speaker based system.