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Cost of Living Hifi

Minio

Minio

Kind of Sort of Not really...
Anyone got a system for the Cost of living crisis?
Mine is currently :

Denon DCD-860. £55

Denon PMA-350SE £60

JPW P1 speakers £150

Wireworld Mini Eclipse speaker cable. £25


Sounds brilliant.

You can get cheaper speakers but my P1's have been expertly refoamed and look and sound better than a lot of similar types I've tried.

The amp is perfect for the speakers and the Denon CDP has a natural and involving character; if not quite the depth and dynamics of more expensive models.





Oh and...MJA Pro 50 subwoofer £95.
Creates a bigger soundstage particularly good with jazz recordings.
 
No but my Wiim Mini + AVI ADM9t log cabin system sounds epic and cost £525.

I expect I could put together something pretty darn good for £150 but have no need. 😃
 
My system 2
Wiim Pro £149
CA DacMagic Plus £95
Cambridge Audio C50/A50 £0
Manticore Mantra £0
(bought tt in 1987 for £329 & CA amps in 88 for £400 so they owe me nothing)
Kef 104ab £102
 
Colin L said:
For cost of living read dirt cheap… why not say so? Frugal brag nonsense.
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No more nonsense than babbling on about the latest multi-thousand pound turntable or exotically-cased electronic wonder box. Perhaps it makes the buyers of such a little uncomfortable to hear of those in more straightened circumstances who get as much (maybe more?) pleasure from less exalted kit?
 
Pink Triangle PT1 / Mission 774 original - had both for 15 years.
Audio Technica VM740ML £198
Beomaster 5000 £70 bought for its flexibility.
Arylic mini module for streaming £50
Mission 700 £50
Beolab 6000 £100 + refoaming
plus my selection of headphones - AKG K702 £70 - Beoplay H2 £55 - AKG Y500 £70 - Stax 202 + SRM-252 £110

Snobbery has no part in musical appreciation😛
 
I don't have it now, as it was an office system, and just not getting enough use, so I sold it off for others to enjoy. But for the cash it was stupidly good...

Amptastic Mini One micro amp £130
Q Acoustic Concept 20 £145
Chromecast Audio £30
Van Damme cables c£20

All together just over £300 and sounded absolutely fantastic.

Careful shopping can produce excellent results and doesn't have to cost the earth.
 
Colin L said:
For cost of living read dirt cheap… why not say so? Frugal brag nonsense.
Click to expand...
I admit "Cost of Living crisis" is a bit of a tired click bait tag.
But hey.

We're here to chat about music and hifi.
I love my system no matter the cost, so just sharing the experience of stuff that sounds good to me. And I have heard some pretty high end kit on my travels.

It may help or inform the readers about what's out there. As do other posts in this thread.
 
Last October I lost my job. I'm a single parent with two kids under 14 and the insurance policy I took out to cover me in event of redundancy didn't pay out because my employer opted to just sack me rather than make me redundant, largely because they could (I'd only been there seven months so had no protection and you don't need a reason to fire someone with less than two years service).

My situation was pretty dire and at one point I called on HiFi Emporium to quote me for me entire system, which was at that point only three years old. The money would have covered me for about three months but in the end, rather than lose the thing that brings me so much joy, I sold my car and bought a cheap and utterly dull but very reliable Nissan and kept the hifi.

Cost of living crisis is very real but something anyone with an ounce of economics understanding knew was an inevitable consequence of paying people to stay home and do nothing.
 
I remember reading years ago that a (male) audiophile was someone whose system cost more than his car, which seemed about right at the time.
No doubt because I qualified. You obviously have no regrets: hopefully things have improved since then.
 
geetee1972 said:
Last October I lost my job. I'm a single parent with two kids under 14 and the insurance policy I took out to cover me in event of redundancy didn't pay out because my employer opted to just sack me rather than make me redundant, largely because they could (I'd only been there seven months so had no protection and you don't need a reason to fire someone with less than two years service).

My situation was pretty dire and at one point I called on HiFi Emporium to quote me for me entire system, which was at that point only three years old. The money would have covered me for about three months but in the end, rather than lose the thing that brings me so much joy, I sold my car and bought a cheap and utterly dull but very reliable Nissan and kept the hifi.

Cost of living crisis is very real but something anyone with an ounce of economics understanding knew was an inevitable consequence of paying people to stay home and do nothing.
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I do sympathise and it sounds like you have made it through with your sound system. However I don’t think our dire economic state is down to the recent ‘free money’ doled out by the Tories. I fear it has more to do with a systematic underinvestment in the UK and the appalling low interest rates which have distorted the economic environment for the last ten years. Furlough and its cousins were just the icing on the cake.
 
Arylic A50.

Streamer, dac & amp for £136.
Wharfdale Diamond mk1.

My wife wanted a radio. This is a surprisingly good sounding solution.
 
I've put together a little system for my neighbour:

Rega Eco deck (£199 - I looked at s/h P2s and 3s, but they weren't as cheap as I'd hoped)
Replaced Rega carbon cart with a new AT95E I had lying around
Rega Brio-R (£225, absolute cracker, had to buy another for myself)
Mordaunt Short MS10s (£25, not run of the mill 90s budgets, very swish looking drivers).
 
We don’t have a cost of living crisis. That’s language adopted to suggest that factors behind the control of any politician are at play. What we have is a long standing low income crisis. Certainly zilch to do with money distributed during lockdowns.
 
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Retaining the stuff I bought years ago, and buying used; Revox B77 from 1978, Linn LP12 from late 1980s, cassette decks from 1980s, DAT machines from 1990s, Audiolab 8000C pre from early 2000s, as are the Meridian power amp, and the speakers. One new Squeezebox Touch, one used. Reconditioned slim client fanless PCs to feed the SBTs
 
Snufkin said:
I do sympathise and it sounds like you have made it through with your sound system. However I don’t think our dire economic state is down to the recent ‘free money’ doled out by the Tories. I fear it has more to do with a systematic underinvestment in the UK and the appalling low interest rates which have distorted the economic environment for the last ten years. Furlough and its cousins were just the icing on the cake.
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You simply cannot pump free money into a system without causing inflation. That's the choice we made and the result we got. All governments around the world did this and the result was the same the world over. Every country that had a furlough scheme ended up with high inflation. Low interest rates have caused damage yes but our interest rates are not set by government and the fiscal crisis we ended up in that started this low interest rate period came off the back of the Labour government, so we can't really blame to Tories for it; there's plenty we might blame them for but this high inflation environment is not one of them.

For referene, I take most of my lead in economics from my best friend who is a macro-economist for a living.
 
davidjt said:
I remember reading years ago that a (male) audiophile was someone whose system cost more than his car, which seemed about right at the time.
No doubt because I qualified. You obviously have no regrets: hopefully things have improved since then.
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My hifi cost a lot more than my car
 
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