Best of value-based systems

Not much on yugo's, but i do drive a geo metro and save about $600.00 a month on gas, when i used to go out selling on the road.Sluggo, transparent cables introduced a new line of speaker cables at the cedia show. There a bargin! you can get an 8' pair for $23,500.00 enjoy!

I have a great little system that is a set of Spica TC-60's driven by a Denon 1025 receiver and a conrad-johnson SD1 CD player. Wonderful soundstaging, very musical, and easy to listen to. Worth about $800-900 on the used market. I love the fact that we can buy used gear to try out different things and find out what we like. It's a big adventure to me. I find that my tastes change as I learn and experience different characteristics of equipment. Another recent 'find' is old tube amps. I just bought an old tube amp, and I find that it does some things that more modern equipment cannot match. It has more distortion, but also a sense of harmonic texture that is unbelievable. Electric guitars have a presence that I've never heard before. I notice it uses the same family of tubes that my guitar amp has. Lastly, to beat a dead slug: It's really obnoxious how some people try to portray themselves as 'better than others' by bragging about their economic power. Why don't you go hang out at a 'new' equipment site.

Thank you to all the thoughtful members for their time in sharing opinions. Sd, I'll bet you still listen to the music, as well as your system, and what an experience that is! To be transformed by the melody, each and every one unique. A great thread idea, and I learned something from it. I'm sorry it got slightly derailed by one of the materialistic punks on the site. Charlie

Hi SD. I am new to this forum, Sluggo also ticked me off a while back. I got over it and have to admit that I find his slash and burn posts pretty funny most of the time. I am also a die hard potlicker whether it be the purchase of a car, a bottle of shampoo or stereo equipment (art is my only soft spot, though I have sold a couple of paintings to fund our current system). Fifteen years ago I was using tube gear and the best bangs then were Eico (HF81), Dynaco (Stero 70's and the Pas3x) and McIntosh (Mac 30's). Currently this equipment is a lot more expensive and considering that most of it needs a good overhaul plus the expense of quality tubes it does not represent the value that it once did (for example I picked up a pair of Mac 30's for $140.00 in 1974). I feel that I have achieved a lot of "bang" in my new system. I went with a Musical Fidelity X-A1 for the amp and find that it has the kind of midrange that I am most comfortable with plus grainless highs and a linear bass, and for not a lot of money either. I finally found a pair of the Musical Fidelity X-A50 monoblocks and will soon be able to bi-amp our little Castle Acoustic Isis speakers. I am so pleased with both the sound and the style (it's a living room system and I like being married to my wife) of the MF gear that it is going to stay around for a long time. I picked up the Castle speakers as a kind of low cost replacement for my old Harbeth BBC moniters. I like them more in the high and low end and they are pretty close in the midrange, closer than most that I have auditioned. They do sound brighter even in a well damped room which could be due to using CD's instead of vinyl as a source. I have not made up my mind yet on the speakers. Now that I have added Vibrapods, cheap power conditioning (Monster 2000) and a Harmonic Tech power cord to my Cal Ikon MKII, it sounds very musical. I like it more than the expensive Arcams that I auditioned. My favorite reasonably priced player (for the quality of sound) so far has been the Theta Miles and the CAL (with these little extras) is close enough for me to wait until the future format of CD's is decided before I replace it. By the way, before the tweaks I was not satisfied with the sound. I purchased a used Audio Refinement CD Complete that I also liked (it was a toss up between it and the CAL) but I ended up giving it to my stepson to replace a cheap changer that we gave him when he was still in highschool. The biggest bang that I have run across so far are the Homegrown Audio Super Silver interconnects at $60.00 to $70.00 a pair or less if you want to solder them up yourselves. I recently purchased a pair of used Harmonic Tech. Truthlink interconnects for older/tinny CD's and a change of pace. Something that I am also looking forward to is putting together a small tube system for the spare bedroom which will also become an office if I end up going the self employment route. I was able to listen to one of the Decware Zen amps on a pair of Klipsch Chorus's. These were the only high efficiency speakers that I had access to and we used the preamp section in my MF integrated for the front end. I thought that the amp sounded super. I just have not been able to figure out a "small" highly efficient speaker for this setup. Maybe an old pair of ADS 500's or the little Gallo Micro system? Anyway has anyone heard this little SET? That is all.

Dekay: I listened to the Isis speakers and found them very bright. they were fine when listening to classical and jazz, but as soon as I played some good old rock and roll, it became evident the highs were etched. I think even if you listen only to classical that these speakers would be very fatiguing. In other words, I don;t think it's your source, IMO.