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Best Beer Budget Bang for your Buck?

I had some MA R252's I bought new when they first came out.... I hated them! Treble could drill holes through teeth! I believe they made some adjustments to tone it down after a short while but there was no "MkII" designation....

Bargains? My Leak St20 was free! I was given it as two chassis with different missing parts etc plus a set of output transformers (at different times over about 4 years but from the same friend) and made one good one out of it all:)
 
MA R252's I bought new when they first came out.... I hated them!
The later version, with an all over grill and 'M' badge have no such problems that I could hear.
Nice and balanced.

Similar sized sealed box speakers I would include Wharfedale 505.2 (about £50 now) and Rogers LS4a (around £100). These seemed to be competing for the same spot in the market as there is not a lot to differentiate them, driven by a good quality amp.
8" woofers in a sealed box seem a bit out of fashion nowadays but are still my preference.
 
I’d be tempted by a second hand Monitor Audio A100 Airstream amp with a souped up Pi.Probably get it for £100 or so altogether which leaves plenty for streaming subs and perhaps a TT
 
I always really liked my daughter’s system. A pair of Wharfdale Diamonds driven by an A&R A60 fronted by her iPhone. As she had the phone it cost just over £100.
 
From today offer on eBay my choice would be:
Amp: Akai AM-U02 £69 delivered
Speakers: Genexxa GX-600 £80 (collection only)
Marantz CD6002 £100 delivered
Or
Amp: Rotel RA-1060 £150 delivered
CD player Marantz CD5000/Philips CD753 £72-75 delivered

This budget system would sound great based on my past experiences, Rotel amp would be an upgrade over old Akai, stretching the price over £300, which could be compensated by price of the CD player. The speakers are hard to beat by anything for that price.
 
I always really liked my daughter’s system. A pair of Wharfdale Diamonds driven by an A&R A60 fronted by her iPhone.

Diamonds are a bit weird as they don't sound like typical budget speakers. They need a bit of shove to open up but when they do they can sound great. The original Diamonds I'm talking about, not the rubbish they put out after that with the Diamond name tag.
 
From today offer on eBay my choice would be:
Amp: Akai AM-U02 £69 delivered
Speakers: Genexxa GX-600 £80 (collection only)

I've had those Genexa 600s in my watch list, they are not far from me, but I have just bought some old Goodmans Mezzo for £20. Totally different I know, but I reckon they will make some decent sounds in my office.
 
I had some MA R252's I bought new when they first came out.... I hated them! Treble could drill holes through teeth! I believe they made some adjustments to tone it down after a short while but there was no "MkII" designation....

Bargains? My Leak St20 was free! I was given it as two chassis with different missing parts etc plus a set of output transformers (at different times over about 4 years but from the same friend) and made one good one out of it all:)
Off subject Arkless, in the 70s I had a pair of Leak 2030s. The treble could have drilled holes in concrete, they were awful. As I was a student I couldn’t afford replacements so I stuck several sheets of bog roll over the tweeters!
 
Off subject Arkless, in the 70s I had a pair of Leak 2030s. The treble could have drilled holes in concrete, they were awful. As I was a student I couldn’t afford replacements so I stuck several sheets of bog roll over the tweeters!

I put some thin bits of foam from the soft side of a pan scrubber thing over the tweeters in the R252's!
 
Ha ha, I put rather a lot of bog roll over the 2030s tweeters. It did help, a bit. Perhaps cutting the wires to them might have helped more!
 
Delighted with my current system considering what I paid for it. Quad 10L speakers (designed and built for Quad by Spendor), Rega Io, Rotel RCD 965 BX Limited Edition. £200 for the speakers, £250 for the amp and £50 for the player. I’m moving soon and the system will go into a bigger room. I’m hoping the Quads will cope but I think their little drivers may be too small :(
 
My current system Audiolab 8000a £100 quid Acoustic Energy AE109s £75 Pioneer DV717 £20 beresford bushmaster 2 dac £65 chromecast audio £20 total £280 and i love it.

My daughter's system is similar to that - she's got an Audiolab 8000A, a pair of AE standmounters (not sure what they are - they were the rears from our home cinema set-up. She could have had the fronts from that - which might be AE109's - but didn't have the space), a Rega Planar 1 (although that was new so would have blown the £300 budget!) and a chromecast audio feeding one of the very cheap Argos DAC's. She didn't want a CD-player (although if she did it'd have been an ancient Arcam Alpha 1 that is in the spares pile). It sounds pretty good.
 


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