Share your budget setups

[britain4]

Having spent a few weeks now working on my own mega-budget setup I thought it’d be fun finding out what other people have managed on a very tight budget. (Relatively speaking in the world of Hi-Fi)

My own setup consists of everything in my signature - NAD 533 (Rega Planar 2) - £80 including a new stylus

Marantz CD63KI (£80)

Pioneer A400 (£70)

Mordaunt Short Pageant 2 speakers (£30)

Atlas Elektra interconnects and a Clearer Audio Copper Line power block (£free - maybe cheating a little there), plus an Isotek Isoplug sniped for £7 on eBay

Upgraded the caps in the speakers, amp and various tweaks to the CD player - about £60 so far

(if you want to include the Dragonfly that was £40 off eBay, plus one free Jitterbug with the WHF subscription and the other was a present)

Its turning into a very capable little setup for less than the price of a new Planar 2, super smooth, detailed and balanced, bass is tight as a drum with sweet treble and the soundstaging is just opening up more and more with each mod.

What’s anyone else managed to put together for less than the price of a new turntable?

 

[drummerman]

Sony STR DB930 ... 30 quid or so. CCA ... 10-20. Hifime Sabre DAC ... 40. Mission 2 ways 20.

 

[insider9]

Sony STR DB930 ... 30 quid or so. CCA ... 10-20. Hifime Sabre DAC ... 40. Mission 2 ways 20.

Come on I just sold both my STR-DB930 at £40 each. I think yours with mods is easily worth £80.

Superb amps!

 

[drummerman]

Sony STR DB930 ... 30 quid or so. CCA ... 10-20. Hifime Sabre DAC ... 40. Mission 2 ways 20.

Come on I just sold both my STR-DB930 at £40 each. I think yours with mods is easily worth £80.

Superb amps!

Yup. Whole shebang can be had for under a ton.

Probably would make some folks wonder why they spent all that cash.

 

[knaithrover]

My garage set up:-

Nad C320BEE (£100)

Marantz CD48 (£45)

Monitor Audio RX1 (£150)

QED Uplay Puck (£30)

Various cast off cables and some old Atacama Stands.

Sounds wonderful and If God forbid I ever had to completely downsize I wouldn't hesitate to have it as my no1 system.

 

[britain4]

My garage set up:-

Nad C320BEE (£100)

Marantz CD48 (£45)

Monitor Audio RX1 (£150)

QED Uplay Puck (£30)

Various cast off cables and some old Atacama Stands.

Sounds wonderful and If God forbid I ever had to completely downsize I wouldn't hesitate to have it as my no1 system.

Sounds like a nice setup, I’d love to give one of those NAD amps a listen. Spotted a C320BEE in smack converters for £60 (£54 with my student discount) a few months back but stupidly decided I didn’t need two amps...

Sony STR DB930 ... 30 quid or so. CCA ... 10-20. Hifime Sabre DAC ... 40. Mission 2 ways 20.

Goodness what a nice amp for the cash. How would you rate the DAC?

 

[grimharry]

Having spent a few weeks now working on my own mega-budget setup I thought it’d be fun finding out what other people have managed on a very tight budget. (Relatively speaking in the world of Hi-Fi)

My own setup consists of everything in my signature - NAD 533 (Rega Planar 2) - £80 including a new stylus

Marantz CD63KI (£80)

Pioneer A400 (£70)

Mordaunt Short Pageant 2 speakers (£30)

Atlas Elektra interconnects and a Clearer Audio Copper Line power block (£free - maybe cheating a little there), plus an Isotek Isoplug sniped for £7 on eBay

Upgraded the caps in the speakers, amp and various tweaks to the CD player - about £60 so far

(if you want to include the Dragonfly that was £40 off eBay, plus one free Jitterbug with the WHF subscription and the other was a present)

Its turning into a very capable little setup for less than the price of a new Planar 2, super smooth, detailed and balanced, bass is tight as a drum with sweet treble and the soundstaging is just opening up more and more with each mod.

What’s anyone else managed to put together for less than the price of a new turntable?

just as a matter of interest with the a400 did you do smoothing, coupling and decoupling caps ?

 

[davedotco]

Secondhand is always hit and miss, you may find something very good and very cheap, then again you might not, some well regarded product goes for silly money but as pointed out above, there are still bargains to be had.

Buying new is a bit different, some time ago I converted a desktop system to 'main hifi' use. My speakers were a pair of Seiwin SN4 actives, which cost me £100pr (now around £130-140) plus an Apple AEX from the refurb store for £54.

The bigger and better SN5s would be a good choice, around £165pr just add a Bluetooth or Airplay adaptor of choice.

 

[steve_1979]

SqueezeBox Touch - £100 second hand

AVI DM5 - £500 second hand

 

[gasolin]

Nad 3020i just above 100€

Maranatz CD5005 new 200€ (i think you can get it cheaper)

Mission LX-2 new under 200€ for a pair some foam under the speakers20-20€

God decent cables like inakustisk and for speaker cable supra classic 2.5

Dac for pc Behringer uca 202 (have one but don't use it, for the price it's good)

 

[britain4]

just as a matter of interest with the a400 did you do smoothing, coupling and decoupling caps ?

So far, just the smoothing and coupling caps and bias but I’ve got a big list of more mods to do this month including the decoupling caps. I have about £90 total in the amp so far and it already sounds like it could have cost 10 times that.

I agree second hand can be a huge risk, but buy the seller and stick to well known components (unless you know exactly what you’re looking at) and you can minimise it. At least with eBay, CEX and crack converters etc you have some sort of protection if you get a dud so that’s not so bad.

Few of the NAD amps turning up in here, I’d love to see for myself what they can do, by all accounts a different sound to the A400?

 

[drummerman]

My garage set up:-

Nad C320BEE (£100)

Marantz CD48 (£45)

Monitor Audio RX1 (£150)

QED Uplay Puck (£30)

Various cast off cables and some old Atacama Stands.

Sounds wonderful and If God forbid I ever had to completely downsize I wouldn't hesitate to have it as my no1 system.

Sounds like a nice setup, I’d love to give one of those NAD amps a listen. Spotted a C320BEE in smack converters for £60 (£54 with my student discount) a few months back but stupidly decided I didn’t need two amps...

Sony STR DB930 ... 30 quid or so. CCA ... 10-20. Hifime Sabre DAC ... 40. Mission 2 ways 20.

Goodness what a nice amp for the cash. How would you rate the DAC?

Built in DAC is ok and will get most folks by. The Hifime Sabre is naturally more revealing but you pay for it when listening to lesser quality stuff.

 

[Nelis87]

Not an entire system but.. While I upgraded almost everything in my setup at least once, I still use a Pioneer A30. I have never stumbled upon a better amp that don't cost at least 3-4x the price of the A30. Wonderfull sounding class AB amp.

 

[britain4]

Not an entire system but.. While I upgraded almost everything in my setup at least once, I still use a Pioneer A30. I have never stumbled upon a better amp that don't cost at least 3-4x the price of the A30. Wonderfull sounding class AB amp.

Thanks for the recommendation - may be something to look at if my A400 ever gives up the ghost.

My garage set up:-

Nad C320BEE (£100)

Marantz CD48 (£45)

Monitor Audio RX1 (£150)

QED Uplay Puck (£30)

Various cast off cables and some old Atacama Stands.

Sounds wonderful and If God forbid I ever had to completely downsize I wouldn't hesitate to have it as my no1 system.

Sounds like a nice setup, I’d love to give one of those NAD amps a listen. Spotted a C320BEE in smack converters for £60 (£54 with my student discount) a few months back but stupidly decided I didn’t need two amps...

Built in DAC is ok and will get most folks by. The Hifime Sabre is naturally more revealing but you pay for it when listening to lesser quality stuff.

I’ll have a look into it then. Currently using the Dragonfly 1.0 as a DAC for the A400 as well as a headphone amp and while it is fine (better with a Jitterbug, possibly marginally better with 2) it’s the only part of my setup I feel isn’t really doing it for me at the moment. Been looking at the Dragonfly Red to use with my phone too but only if it’s a big improvement from my 1.0. Not sure if I would be better off with a stand-alone non-portable one.

 

[Deleted member 116933]

I have a nice little Rotel 931mk2 (£60) Kef Cresta 2's (£50) (which seem to have gone up in price on the big E just recently) and a Nad c540 (£40) which needs a new belt for the draw. And currently, I have a little Rel q150 it for a little grunt. It makes for a surprisingly well-balanced system. I could quite happily live with this as my main system by just adding Sonos connect.

 

[grimharry]

Not mine, well some of it was, but my 17 yr old sons

tecnics sl30d with new AT cart less £100

chromecast £30

pioneer a400 £70-80 recap £70

kef q100 £300

 

[Gaz37]

Marantz CD63KI £90
Pioneer A656 Reference £76
B&W DM603 £60
Atacama stands £20
Maplins speaker cable
Cambridge Audio interconnects

Nobody who's heard it can believe it cost under £300.
Equally those who haven't heard it can't believe anything so cheap can sound good lol

 

[britain4]

Some cracking budget setups here, hopefully my system is starting to do the trick of sounding much more expensive than it was lol. The setup with the REL sub sounds like the bargain of the century!

Nice to see some more A400s and CD63s in here too

 

[CnoEvil]

My second system (made up from past kit):

Sony CD Car Discman + A&R A60 + MA R852MD (Heybrook Stands)

I also have some Celestion SL6 kicking about.

 

[MUSICRAFT]

Nice to see some more A400s

Hi britain4

The truly great Pioneer A-400 *smile*

All the best

Rick @ Musicraft

 

[insider9]

Marantz CD63KI £90
Pioneer A656 Reference £76
B&W DM603 £60
Atacama stands £20
Maplins speaker cable
Cambridge Audio interconnects

Nobody who's heard it can believe it cost under £300.
Equally those who haven't heard it can't believe anything so cheap can sound good lol

It's because most people would pay well over £300 for these. When CD player and speakers alone usually go for £250+

Only thing you can usually get at the prices above are the stands. The rest usually goes for more.

You've managed to get some great bargains there Gaz.

 

[chris_bates1974]

For my kids bedrooms.

Daughter:

NAD 5330 CD player (free - very kind donation by a forum member)
Sony TA-AX220 Amp (£15)
Technics ST-Z450L Tuner(£10)
Wharfedale Diamond III (£10)

Son:

Technics SL-PG500A Cd player (£15)
Sherwood AI-2210 Amp (£10)
Wharfedale Denton (£1 - yes £1)

I also have a paid of JPW Mini Monitor in my home office waiting for another suitably budget amp. They were 99p

So that's two pretty decent bedroom hifis for the kids, and spare pair of speakers for £61.99

Not bad...

 

[Muddywaterstones]

What kind of small tweaks did you perform on the A400? Are they model specific tweaks or would any amp benefit?

 

[britain4]

It’s quite easy these days to go and spend £££ on a top drawer system and have it sound amazing but to do so for a fraction of the cost is half of the fun of the hobby for me, and also being on a student budget means I can afford something in a totally different league to new budget kit

I do love my A400. Well designed amp using some cheap-o parts so easy to make decent improvements.

I do think the CD63 is as good as they say it is but if you’re planning on modifying it - (HDAM bypass and replacing caps) you can pick up a much cheaper CD53, damp the chassis and add a brace for the same end result.

For my kids bedrooms.

Daughter:

NAD 5330 CD player (free - very kind donation by a forum member)Sony TA-AX220 Amp (£15)Technics ST-Z450L Tuner(£10)Wharfedale Diamond III (£10)

Son:

Technics SL-PG500A Cd player (£15)Sherwood AI-2210 Amp (£10)Wharfedale Denton (£1 - yes £1)

I also have a paid of JPW Mini Monitor in my home office waiting for another suitably budget amp. They were 99p

So that's two pretty decent bedroom hifis for the kids, and spare pair of speakers for £61.99

Not bad...

Goodness I think we have a thread winner, I bet those systems sound fantastic for less than the price of a “high end” fuse!

 

[britain4]

What kind of small tweaks did you perform on the A400? Are they model specific tweaks or would any amp benefit?

I think you could apply the basic principles to any amp (or most) if you knew what you were doing, but I’ve been loosely following this list in the second post down http://theartofsound.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-31950.html

So far I’ve done the coupling caps, bias, reservoir caps and a new mains lead (not 100% convinced on the mains lead but it didn’t cost me anything) and plan to do the rest of the mods there too, net results being a bigger soundstage, more airy and open (for want of better terms), greater detail and better bass extension