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What are/were the best sounding cheap components you have ever had?

It is easy to like the best of the best, so to say.  However it is always satifying and memorable when an inexpensive product turns out to be very good to great. 

Some that come to mind from personal experience"

Large Advents (original)

Early Nakamichi SR receivers

Original Monster interconnects and speaker wire

Pioneer Pl-12 turntable

Shure M-95

Early Stax and Audio Technica headphones

MoFi "special" pressings

Magnum Dynalab Etude.  Yes some were better, but a real value

The Absolute Sound mag in the beginning 

Early Conrad-Johnson and Audio Research tube electronics

Early Classe integrated amps.

The original Sony Trinitrons

And there are others....but part of this hobby is enjoying the journey.

Have you had cost effective items that were successful for your enjoyment?

jusam

Showing 4 responses by edcyn

edcyn
1,876 posts
 

I can't remember exactly what they cost, but my NOLA Boxer speakers have essentially taken me out of the speaker market for a modest fee.

edcyn
1,876 posts
 

My Quicksilver Mono Amps were reasonably inexpensive and offered up luscious tone and imaging. The thing is, its all-important 8417 power tubes eventually became scarce and costly. Worse, the tubes didn't hold their tone past about six months. The tubes were also prone to failure, especially if the pairs weren't truly matched.  Even when they were assiduously matched I could never quite trust them.

edcyn
1,876 posts
 

Yeah -- of course my NAD 3020.

edcyn
1,876 posts
 

KEF Corelli speakers knocked me out of the park when I wandered into a high end joint and listened to them after auditioning mediocre speakers at a Pacific Stereo. Was it at Northridge Audio? Anyway, it re-lit the high-end spark I got from my father when I was a kid. The spark hasn't faded since.

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