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Audiophile & Student checking in here. Most people don't realize that there is gold on craigslist that older crowd is throwing out due to their wives nagging ("

Audiophile & Student checking in here. Most people don't realize that there is gold on craigslist that older crowd is throwing out due to their wives nagging ("These speakers are too big.." etc) I've put together an amazing system using Polk SDA-2b's, Parasound HCA-1200, & Onkyo TS-DX787(as a preamp)(donated) and behringer uca-202 DAC for under 300 dollars. Cables are all monoprice and it blows my mind that people pay more for snake-oil cables. Being an audiophile is rather cheap once you gather the knowledge on forums (audiokarma.org) and patience at craigslist/thriftstores/ebay.

te_chris 14y ago
Yep, some of that gear from the 70's and 80's is still very very excellent, pair it with a good DAC (nuforce say) and you've got great sound for small $$'s.
joevandyk 14y ago
How do you know which of the older stuff is good?
- syassami 14y ago
  In this day and age, you can just look up the model number and read a review on it, and find plenty of reviews on forums. After a short while you find out what makes a quality model and not (construction quality, driver quality etc). Best way imo is to start looking stuff up and reading.
gte910h 14y ago
I question the long term survival and accuracy of the capacitors in electronics that old. You often have non-fatal (to the device) but defective caps in say, filters, etc. http://www.antiqueradio.org/recap.htm http://www.antiqueradio.org/recap.htm for some things on checking old caps.
kruipen 14y ago
I built my system in a similar way (e.g. a great Threshold S200 amplifier from the 80's cost me $700). One frustration I had was never being sure what is a good price. In part to scratch that itch (as well as the "learn Haskell" itch), I've built http://kruipen.com http://kruipen.com to track used audio equipment prices.
rdl 14y ago
I rescued a set of Klipsch La Scalas in college (from reuse@) -- one had a busted single woofer, which I replaced for $100, and then win.

te_chris 14y ago

Yep, some of that gear from the 70's and 80's is still very very excellent, pair it with a good DAC (nuforce say) and you've got great sound for small $$'s.

joevandyk 14y ago

How do you know which of the older stuff is good?

syassami 14y ago
In this day and age, you can just look up the model number and read a review on it, and find plenty of reviews on forums. After a short while you find out what makes a quality model and not (construction quality, driver quality etc). Best way imo is to start looking stuff up and reading.

gte910h 14y ago

I question the long term survival and accuracy of the capacitors in electronics that old. You often have non-fatal (to the device) but defective caps in say, filters, etc. http://www.antiqueradio.org/recap.htm http://www.antiqueradio.org/recap.htm for some things on checking old caps.

kruipen 14y ago

I built my system in a similar way (e.g. a great Threshold S200 amplifier from the 80's cost me $700). One frustration I had was never being sure what is a good price. In part to scratch that itch (as well as the "learn Haskell" itch), I've built http://kruipen.com http://kruipen.com to track used audio equipment prices.

rdl 14y ago

I rescued a set of Klipsch La Scalas in college (from reuse@) -- one had a busted single woofer, which I replaced for $100, and then win.