Audiophile, Budgetphile, and Dontgiveaphile thread.

[jp1]

Today, I picked up a pair of Teledyne AR18B speakers at a yard sale. Man, these things sound great. I paid $5 for the pair, would be happy if I'd paid $200 or more.

They are an acoustic suspension set, with heavy duty cabinets, no real crossover just a capacitor for the tweeter, spring clips, paper and foam drivers, etc...

They have no business sounding as good as they do. Incredibly detailed and not the least bit harsh. They sound twice their actual size, and present the biggest soundstage of any speaker I own. They image remarkably well. Really, I have no complaints. They even look great with a nice retro style.

If you pass by a pair of these at a thrift or yard sale, grab them. You would need to spend at least $300 a pair IME to come even close to besting them. Even then you wouldn't be getting a cabinet built like a tank, these things feel like they could stop a bullet.

I almost left them, because I own far too many speakers. These will be staying when I purge though. While I get rid of sets I paid hundreds for at a significant loss.

Best part, they can still be found relatively affordable on ebay. Looks like they need refoaming most times, but that's not a big deal. Mine look to have been refoamed recently or kept in a really ideal environment.

The one downside is they are power hungry. They need an honest 50 watts rms to power them comfortably. My Denon is midrange and it got pretty warm just pushing these with a cutoff at 80hz. In comparison I have pumped reference levels from floor standing definitive technology speakers without even heating it up.

[fastbilly1]

Coworker was cleaning out a house he was selling and got me some new gear:
Onkyo TX15 and EQ18.

Rocking it 1985 style. They need a deep cleaning and a small set of speakers, but they will be boss in my workshop.

[Ziggy]

Awesome! If I had more room in my retro man cave, I'd love a killer 80's audio set up.

I have some old decks. One of them being an 8-track player and another I think is just AM/FM. I thought about setting that up, but then I'd have to start collecting 8-tracks. I'd much rather start a compact cassette collection.

[jp1]

I've been toying with getting into vinyl a bit. However, I don't want to spend a lot on it.

It looks like a vintage Technics deck might be the route to go, but I've got nothing when it comes to affordable cartridges.

Any suggestions?

On a side note, I purchased yet another set of speakers. This time it is Energy RC line consisting of (4) RC-50 towers, and an RC-LCR. Paid $350 on CL for the set that has an original msrp of somewhere around $4200. They sound fantastic. I grabbed a set of RC-10 to go along with them at the not as attractive price of $150, but if they are even close to the speakers I have...still a bargain.

I highly suggest if you see some of these locally you check them out. Especially the towers, even though the unique design of the LCR allows it to be places horizontally or vertically without any real loss of sound quality. This would make it great for the entire front stage, because it really is an excellent speaker, but it is more expensive than the bookshelves or towers due to rarity I guess.

If you run across these or the Veritas line by Energy for good prices check them out. They should have kevlar cones, aluminum phase plugs, aluminum tweeters, and real wood veneers.

Anyway, back to the vinyl. If you have a wonderful, somewhat affordable, deck and/or cartridge that you love please let me know. Thanks.

[Ziggy]

I've been toying with getting into vinyl a bit. However, I don't want to spend a lot on it.

It looks like a vintage Technics deck might be the route to go, but I've got nothing when it comes to affordable cartridges.

Any suggestions?

Anyway, back to the vinyl. If you have a wonderful, somewhat affordable, deck and/or cartridge that you love please let me know. Thanks.

You don't have to go vintage. Check this guy out:

https://www.amazon.com/Technica-AT-LP60 ... B002GYTPAE

http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-AUD-ATLP60-LIST

That model has a built in pre-amp, which can be useful depending on your setup. You can switch the built in pre-amp off if you wanna use your own. Tons of Q&A's, reviews and customer images on Amazon. $100 new, so I'm sure you could score one used for a good price.

I haven't ever used one, but it seems great for a first time table.

[jp1]

I've been toying with getting into vinyl a bit. However, I don't want to spend a lot on it.

It looks like a vintage Technics deck might be the route to go, but I've got nothing when it comes to affordable cartridges.

Any suggestions?

Anyway, back to the vinyl. If you have a wonderful, somewhat affordable, deck and/or cartridge that you love please let me know. Thanks.

You don't have to go vintage. Check this guy out:

https://www.amazon.com/Technica-AT-LP60 ... B002GYTPAE

http://www.americanmusical.com/Item--i-AUD-ATLP60-LIST

That model has a built in pre-amp, which can be useful depending on your setup. You can switch the built in pre-amp off if you wanna use your own. Tons of Q&A's, reviews and customer images on Amazon. $100 new, so I'm sure you could score one used for a good price.

I haven't ever used one, but it seems great for a first time table.

Thanks. I'll read about that one. I do not believe vinyl has superior sound to cd, it's going to come down to a vintage experience for me and whichever turntable can provide the best sound for the buck.

I've seen cartridges sell for $400-$500 and that is certainly out of my league for the casual collecting I'll be doing.

I should have mentioned I have a Marantz belt drive unit that sounds terrible, and that I really need an assisted needle drop mechanism available for whatever unit I consider.

[Ziggy]

I decided to pull out those two units I mentioned. One is a Panasonic dual 8-track AM/FM receiver. It has phono and tape inputs. It weighs a ton. I'll have to Google the model number, but it seems well built. The other unit is just an AM/FM receiver with phono and tape inputs. The brand is... Sears! It weighs hardly anything, feels a little cheap, so I'm not sure how good it is. Both units have silver faces with wood grain sides and pretty neat looking displays. I'll have to clean them up and post pics. I have no idea if they work or not though.

I've been thinking about getting a cassette deck for a while now, and I think I just decided I definitely want to. I don't have a massive cassette collection, but any time I look at a lot on eBay for a couple dozen 70's or 80's rock albums it's pretty cheap. Decks on eBay aren't too much either.

Thing is, I might want to hold out for a deck with all the features I want. I'd prefer a dual deck (hey, like I'm not gonna make mixed tapes). I want it to have at least Dolby B noise reduction, although it'd be cool if it had Dolby C as well. I'd really like to get one that has auto reverse. And as shallow as it is, I want the display to look cool and the button layout to be something I like.

I have an older Panasonic 5.1 surround receiver that I could use as a stereo if both of the above mentioned receivers are broken and beyond me to repair. The thing that sucks is my speaker situation (this will be a separate setup from my main unit). I have a pair of old Panasonic wood grain speakers that match the aesthetics of the above mentioned receivers, however, they're not the best sounding speakers in the world. I have another pair of newer Sanyo speakers that might be a tad better, but still nothing special.

[Ziggy]

Well, I did it, I pulled the trigger on a tape deck!

Right-click > view image

Yamaha, with pretty much all the features I was looking for, $50 shipped.

[jp1]

Well, I did it, I pulled the trigger on a tape deck!

Right-click > view image

Yamaha, with pretty much all the features I was looking for, $50 shipped.

Nice deck Ziggy. I haven't considered adding a cassette deck to my system yet, but I love the 80s look of it.

[Ziggy]

Thanks, I'm pretty stoked about it.

I think the most important feature I wanted was auto reverse. This Yamaha deck has auto reverse, but it also has continuous play back. You can put a tape in each deck, it'll play through both sides of deck A then switch to deck B and play both sides. You can set it to play back and forth between both decks continuously as well, for a total of 8 times then it'll auto shut off. I'm definitely gonna have to make some mixed tapes and do that for the next time I entertain friends in the man cave.

When I got rid of my last stereo that had a tape deck (in favor of using my AVR with a DVD player for CDs and the turntable) I never thought I would miss having one. I never had many store-bought cassettes. When I really started listening to "my own" music in middle school, I was buying CDs. Most of the tapes I owned were CDs that I recorded to tape so I could use them in my Walkman (I couldn't afford a Discman) or mixed tapes. I figured if I ever REALLY needed to play a cassette tape, I could just plug one of my Walkmans into my AVR's aux input and do it that way.

But I guess I have more nostalgia for cassettes than I realized. My brother's first car only had a tape deck, so he went to the record store and bought a couple albums on tape. My first car had a CD/tape combo deck, and when the CD player broke I was listening to tapes for a few months until I got a replacement deck. I also had a Tascam 4-track tape recorder which I used a lot.

Once I got to middle school, it was all about CDs. What with their being able to instantly skip to tracks and never having to rewind. Cassettes were inferior, and just something I had to deal with because I didn't have a Discman and CDs were like $15-25 each. I eventually got a Discman as a gift, and once I had a computer fast enough to use recording software I stopped using the Tascam tape recorder. I guess I never realized just how much I used cassettes back then because I was just trying to make lemonade.

I've been thinking about getting a tape deck for a while, but this video pushed me over the edge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVoSQP2yUYA

/trip down memory lane

I picked up a bunch of cassettes off eBay last night, I love how dirt cheap they are! I also grabbed a couple of 8-track tapes. I was born after the death of the 8-track, so I have no nostalgia for it. But I have an 8-track player, and I've never actually used one before, so it's more just a curiosity than anything else. I'll most likely be using the 8-track player as the receiver/amp, so I might as well own a couple 8-track tapes for it!