50 Greatest Bargains in High-End Audio

[jules68leo]

Buy second hand high quality British gear from a hifi geek?

Still an area of engineering that we excel in, and hifi geeks look after their gear very well, mostly. The only thing I have ever bought new was a pair of Harbeth SHL5s. You can put together amazing systems with used gear at a fraction of the cost of new.

I think you hit the nail on the head, there must be thousands of us out there that wouldn't own anything if we had to buy it new.
There's so much stuff that is just so far out of my league and price range I find it quite funny just looking at the mind boggling prices wondering who actually buys any of it apart from Russian drug dealers and footballers.

I've only ever bought a few things new the most expensive being a pair of speakers however my last purchase an Isis is worth 5 times the value of my car!!

Good sound is just magic, synergy of kit and room acoustics not necessarily hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars worth of kit. Plus you need to know when to stop upgrading and actually be happy with what you have.

Spend less on kit and more on music I say.

 

[JTC]

After a month of owning them, and without even getting round to setting them up optimally, I’m now convinced that Quad ESL57s may be one of the biggest bargains in high-end audio. They won’t suit everyone, but used sensibly - within their performance envelope, shall we say - they are perhaps the best speakers I have heard. You can get louder, bassier, easier-to-live with speakers, for sure, but nothing I’ve yet tried in my room can quite approach that midrange and high-frequency realism. They are stunning value, if you can live with them.

Hope you don’t mind my butting in like this

 

[radamel]

Biggest ommission imho

The Chromecast Audio would surely be listed as one of the 50 biggest bargains in Low-End Audio.

 

[beammeup]

I think you hit the nail on the head, there must be thousands of us out there that wouldn't own anything if we had to buy it new.
There's so much stuff that is just so far out of my league and price range I find it quite funny just looking at the mind boggling prices wondering who actually buys any of it apart from Russian drug dealers and footballers.

I've only ever bought a few things new the most expensive being a pair of speakers however my last purchase an Isis is worth 5 times the value of my car!!

Good sound is just magic, synergy of kit and room acoustics not necessarily hundreds of thousands of pounds/dollars worth of kit. Plus you need to know when to stop upgrading and actually be happy with what you have.

Spend less on kit and more on music I say.

I mostly agree with this - however with my recent experience of buying an sMS-200 Ultra I would say that modern digitial tech has come a long way when it comes to delivering better and better SQ. Sure go buy vintage amps and speakers - but I would say keep up-to-date with digital.

And yes the Chromecast Audio should be listed as one of the biggest bargains in Low-End Audio - for those that want Low-End audio and that's not me.