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Low budget, just for fun

So I'm lookong to buy my girlfriend a stereo for christmas. Here's the catch: I'm trying to piece together a receiver, cd player and speakers, all used for a little more than the price of a boom box from say, best buy or whetever, but it has to sound way better than said boom box. I found an onkyo receiver ($45), sony dvd / cd player ($45), and some infinity sm 122 floorstanding speakers ($75 with crappy rca receiver, going to offer $50 for just the speakers). Anyways, this is actually pretty fun trying to piece together the best system you can for the least amount of money possible. Anyone else out there do something similar? It would be interesting to have an audio show with a $200 system limit and see who could come up with the best sound!
128x128b_limo
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,475 posts
 
You can save on the CD player by ripping CDs to a computer if you have one with some disk storage available. Then play the ripped CDs (or other sources like internet Radio) on the computer and run a stereo to dual RCA phono Y connector from PC headphone output to a receiver input.

Bigger bang for the buck if you already have the computer.
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,475 posts
 
Or, you might even consider finding an inexpensive pair of powered speakers and hooking that up to the computer, assuming that digital including internet radio will be your only source, not uncommon in this day and age.
b_limo's avatar
b_limo OP
2,288 posts
 
I was considering powered speakers also since you can just get a headphone to rca cord and plug in a discman. There was a pair of audioengine m5's for $100 on craigslist but I missed it. They sold in two days :-( At this point it might be some cheap boombox type stereo that I can charge on the best buy card since I'm blowing $500 on some cullen power cords for my system tommorrow.
b_limo's avatar
b_limo OP
2,288 posts
 
Just got back from best and scratch that idea. Might as well flush $100 down the toilet as I'm sure it would sound better than any of that crap!! You can absolutely annihilate that junk with used gear off craigslist for the same money.

I'm gonna buy those "really big and loud, brown speakers" that I saw listed! ;-)
rok2id's avatar
rok2id
7,859 posts
 
"Anyways, this is actually pretty fun trying to piece together the best system you can for the least amount of money possible"

What a novel idea! A lot of folks this for real. Even when they are not slumming. Fancy that!!
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