What are/were the best sounding cheap components you have ever had?


It is easy to like the best of the best, so to say.  However it is always satifying and memorable when an inexpensive product turns out to be very good to great. 

Some that come to mind from personal experience"

Large Advents (original)

Early Nakamichi SR receivers

Original Monster interconnects and speaker wire

Pioneer Pl-12 turntable

Shure M-95

Early Stax and Audio Technica headphones

MoFi "special" pressings

Magnum Dynalab Etude.  Yes some were better, but a real value

The Absolute Sound mag in the beginning 

Early Conrad-Johnson and Audio Research tube electronics

Early Classe integrated amps.

The original Sony Trinitrons

And there are others....but part of this hobby is enjoying the journey.

Have you had cost effective items that were successful for your enjoyment?

jusam

The first that comes to my mind is the Schiit Mani phono pre. I still have it boxed as an emergency back-up, too inexpensive to sell and then be without should I need it.

Besides that? My two B&K amps I bought used. Great bargain, and sound great. Still have one in my bedroom system

And not necessarily ‘cheap’ for their day, more mid-fi by todays standards, but I really liked my Polk 5 Jr speakers bought in the early 80’s. Still have them, not in use, but keep them as they have a sentimental value.

"Cheap" is a relative term.

What I now see as cheap I probably didn’t then. I am sure that many here would consider the stuff I now see in my system as higher dollar to be "cheap."

But the first pair of 2 way speakers I bought back in ’93 or ’94 were NHTs for probably $300 & change from Crutchfield, and I thought that they sounded quite nice, up until the time I bought a pair of B&Ws.

Later on in the mid 90s I bought a Muse Model 2 Dac for around $1500 which I thought had a significant positive effect on my system.

A few years after that, the CD player I was using for a transport started doing goofy things on occasion, so I boughtt a Rega Jupiter for under 1k that I thought was a good value & performer.

My first tube amp (in ’94) was a Cary SLA 70, and I seem to remember it being around 1500. I still have it & fell back on it while I was working on my bigger tube amp and I still like the sound.

In ’99 I bought a second hand Cary SLP90 for 1k and I absolutely loved that preamp.

I can't remember exactly what they cost, but my NOLA Boxer speakers have essentially taken me out of the speaker market for a modest fee.

I only buy cheap. Just got a new 5 year warranteed SVS Micro delivered (Sunday), FedEx for $766 including 7% sales tax.

It's pretty good with the app on an old phone.

 

I dislike the word cheap, inexpensive works best for me. Purchased a mint Technics SL-P500 CD player(1986) for the price of a pizza at a thrift store several years ago