As I related in previous posts, I had sold off my old system before we moved away from Lubbock, partially to keep from having to move it, and partially to generate some cash for the move. Let me start by giving a general description of that system.
It was built around Yamaha's flagship DSP-A1, which (unusual for me) I bought new. It had everything I needed and sounded great. Attached to it was the Yamaha PF-800 turntable with a Grado Gold cartridge (which I still use) mounted.
Of course, there was the usual other inputs, such as cassette deck, compact disc, DVD, as well as some unusual ones such as minidisc deck, and SVHS video cassette deck (which replaced Super Beta). But the main component was a pair of a/d/s/ L1290 full-range speakers which were bought in bad cosmetic condition, but I managed to refinish with black Aniline dye.
This was the big three and the components that I sold before the big move, along with some others, but I kept most of the source pieces. The reason? Big-time, "flag-ship" pieces tend to sell well, for a good price, even when they are older as long as they are in nice shape. Run-of-the-mill source pieces however won't return much if anything and therefore not worthwhile to sell and re-buy. Don't believe me? Get online and see how much cd players and plain-Jane cassette decks sell for, even nice ones. At the time, even minidisc desks were down, price-wise (but has rebounded significantly since the supply has dried up).
So for 3-4 years my system limped along with a cobbled together assortment of pieces.....that is until a couple of years ago when the time was right to piece my system back together.
Let's be clear here; I'd have been more than happy to do it with "higher-end" pieces, such as Rotel separates, but again, father-of-two-school-teacher-husband-of-no-nonsense-wife pretty much dictated otherwise! So what to do when trying to put together the heart of a nice sounding system? So here are the parameters, other than "cheap as possible":
- Needed to be able to do bother home theater as well as audio.
- Needed to have a "Phono Stage" since I still had my records and fully intended to make vinyl the center-piece of this system.
- Enough expansion flexibility to handle external zones in the future.
- Enough "oomph" to drive good full-range speakers.
- Enough inputs to handle all my various source components, both on-hand as well as planned.
- My budget dictated that I'd have to go with a receiver, vs. separates.
- I needed a "high-end" or at least a higher-end component. The inclusion of a "Phono-stage" virtually guaranteed this.
- The desire to own a nicer piece built to a higher standard pretty much left me with Sony ES, Pioneer Elite, or Integra (by Onkyo). I'll tell you a secret: I never cared for the sound of Denon pieces anyway.
- The easily observable basics is that it has a "Phono stage", plus plenty enough other inputs even for me.
- It had plenty enough power at 100wpc (real ones vs. the phantom ones you get from the amp-on-chip ones) x 6 channels that would not only do home theater, but enough head-room to handle full-range speakers run at high volume.
- Most importantly, it's well-built, enough so that Onkyo Corp. felt secure in backing it at a warrantee period twice as long as there regular line of components.
The other main piece in my system is the turntable. Its a Dual 510 belt-drive model from the late 70's. Again, I'd so rather of had a Rega Planar 2 (maybe 3), or the Rotel clone, but...... What the Dual (almost any Dual) gives you is "bang-for-the-buck". Although, they are generally associated with their "idler"-"rim-drive", record changers (which are very good, I own one), Dual made some excellent belt-drive turntables as well. They even had some well-thought-of "direct-drive" models too. The trick is to do enough research to find the models that perform very well, but are not well known (and thus more sought after). For me, I wanted belt-drive (I'm not going to get into the belt vs. direct debate here), one of their later arm suspension systems (of which they had several), on a decent plinth (base) that wasn't one of the cheap plastic ones. If it had markings and light for speed adjustment/tuning, that would be a bonus. However, the single most important part is that its in good working condition. To cut to the chase; I bought mine for less than $50 after shipping and then spent a few more dollars for a new belt. One of the reasons for the low price was that there were major cracks on the dust cover, but that wasn't relevant to me, and it didn't have cartridge which also wasn't relevant since I still had my Grado Gold from the PF-800.
The rest was easy. I checked Newegg when I was looking at a Blu-ray player and found the $250 Sony to be a $128 special! Picked up an Integra CDC3.4, 6 Disc CD Changer (missing remote), AND Integra DVD player locally from Craig's List for less than $50 total. Remember what I said about source components being cheap? Of course the remote codes for those components are built into both my CHAD remote and the Integra receiver remote that I found later on eBay (found the remote for the CDC3.4 as well).
Oh yeah, I got my KEF IQ7s on eBay as well. I ended up getting them for cheap (less than $300) since the guy specified "local Pickup only" and they were in Arlington (Texas, not Virginia). Good for me! Later found a matching IQ center channel on eBay for $90 or so in B.C.
So, life is pretty good. No, I don't have the Uber-System built on Rotel separates driving B&W speakers that I always dreamed about, but what I have works pretty darned well. AND, I'm "all-in" at well less than $1000 (not including the TV and sub of course). I'm able to sit here blogging about it on a Sunday morning, listening to Steely Dan: Aja with pretty much a clear conscience.
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