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How cheap can you go and still be happy with the sound?

I would think many guys on this forum are spoilt by the gear they have and never listen anymore on cheap rigs.

I was listening recently on my younger daughter’s PC audio rig and got reminded again of how good it sounds. There is a fairly high level of clarity, detail, tonal balance and great bass in this rig.

 

- Yamaha HS8 powered monitors: $700 to $800

- Yamaha WXC-50 MusicCast streamer+dac+preamp: $450, often found on A4L for around $300

- Audioquest Powerquest PQ3 (was around $200 or so)

 

IMO, this would qualify as a high quality (sonically) charity price hifi rig for any younger or older person w.r.t small room nearfield or midfield listening.

 

What is the cheapest rig that has brought you happiness these days?

 

deep_333
jetter
3,022 posts
 

I think you would be surprised at the incredible systems that some people can put together at a reasonable price.  Systems that can sound rather magical.  

immatthewj
1,766 posts
 

I think you would be surprised at the incredible systems that some people can put together at a reasonable price. 

"Incredible" and "reasonable" are both relative terms.  

 

passet02's avatar
passet02
267 posts
 

The best speakers I bought and enjoy are the JBL J216 speakers paid 40 bucks for them . At a Antique shop . I had speakers over 2 Grand could not compete with those. There efficient and sound fantastic tubes or solid state . Ant cheap tube intergraded amp will be fine . And a Rotel make excellent CD players for the money .

secretguy
1,680 posts
 

LOL@ the snobs.

immatthewj
1,766 posts
 

I’ve owned three tube amps (I still own my first one) and the best sounding I ever owned were a pair of monoblocks that could be a bit unreliable so I replaced them, but they were the amps with the highest MSRP.

I own three preamps, and each successive preamp cost more than the last one and each one had sonic characteristics that were distinctly better than the one it replaced.

YMMV, but my experience has been that every increase in sonic performance that I have ever experienced has required an increase in expenditure. To me, that does not seem all that unreasonable.

 

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