I recently put together a system for 500.00 used. After getting all the pieces here, I decided to set it up to see that everything was working and how it sounded. I was amazed at how good it sounded.
I myself am spoiled by a 40k plus system, so I was expecting to be really let down by what I heard. My opinion is that if you can't sit in the sweet spot (or if you would even) you aren't going to notice a termendous diffrence between a budget system and an expensive one. Granted the expensive system will sound better from the other room, but to most would hardly justify the price.
I have really enjoyed having a little system like this available to CDs on for casual listening. No warm up time, no tweeking, no worry of leaving your system on for fear of buring up expensive tubes.
The system I've put together is-
Creek 4330 integrated amp (250.00 used)
NAD 502 CD player (90.00 used)
Mission 731i speakers (100.00 used)
Homegrown Audio Super Silver interconnect kit (50.00 new)
MIT Terminator 2 speaker cable (70.00 used)
I substituted a set of Meadowlark Kestrel speakers and a Rega Planet CD player to the sytem and that improved things quite a bit, but would add about 1000.00 to the price. With speakers and the CD player upgraded the system becomes much more enjoyable for critical listening.
If you were only going to play music and aren't concerned with soundstage and imaging, you would probably be perfectly happy with the 500.00 system.
I myself am spoiled by a 40k plus system, so I was expecting to be really let down by what I heard. My opinion is that if you can't sit in the sweet spot (or if you would even) you aren't going to notice a termendous diffrence between a budget system and an expensive one. Granted the expensive system will sound better from the other room, but to most would hardly justify the price.
I have really enjoyed having a little system like this available to CDs on for casual listening. No warm up time, no tweeking, no worry of leaving your system on for fear of buring up expensive tubes.
The system I've put together is-
Creek 4330 integrated amp (250.00 used)
NAD 502 CD player (90.00 used)
Mission 731i speakers (100.00 used)
Homegrown Audio Super Silver interconnect kit (50.00 new)
MIT Terminator 2 speaker cable (70.00 used)
I substituted a set of Meadowlark Kestrel speakers and a Rega Planet CD player to the sytem and that improved things quite a bit, but would add about 1000.00 to the price. With speakers and the CD player upgraded the system becomes much more enjoyable for critical listening.
If you were only going to play music and aren't concerned with soundstage and imaging, you would probably be perfectly happy with the 500.00 system.