Really Inexpensive Systems That Sounded Great?

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.

Get a book on vacuum tube design and go for SET in the preamplifier and amplifier. They are easy to design and to build. You can do the same with open baffle speaker designs using full range speakers that require very little power. 2A3 or 45 triodes can be heated with AC that is center tapped for the cathode to ground through a dropping resistor and polypropylene capacitors. Use polypropylene capacitors in a vacuum tube rectified power supply with Hammond chokes and transformers. 

There are $10,000 tube amplifiers that use the inferior electrolytic capacitors in the power supply and what you build will probably sound better.