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Thread: Hifi on A Shoestring

  1. #21
    Join Date: Jul 2009

    Location: Hampshire, UK

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    I'm Adam.

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    I was challenged to do this for a magazine article a few years ago. I came up with:

    - Dual CS-505-3 (£32 from ebay)
    - Yamaha A-300 amplifier (£12 from car boot sale)
    - Wharfedale Diamonds (£5 from the dump!)

    It all sounded depressingly good for £49, frankly!
    Engineers: fixing problems you didn't know you had in ways you don't understand.

  2. #22
    Join Date: Apr 2011

    Location: Kingston, Surrey, UK

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    I'm Alex.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Beobloke View Post
    I was challenged to do this for a magazine article a few years ago. I came up with:

    - Dual CS-505-3 (£32 from ebay)
    - Yamaha A-300 amplifier (£12 from car boot sale)
    - Wharfedale Diamonds (£5 from the dump!)

    It all sounded depressingly good for £49, frankly!
    That's a quality system for < £50. I think dumpster diving for the speakers is cheating slightly, but the Yammy and the Dual are great buys!
    Technics SL1210| Jelco SA-750| Benz Micro ACE SM MC| Squeezebox Touch/MCRU linear PSU | Cambridge Audio 851C | High Resolution Music Streamer II+ / Linestreamer+ | Raspberry Pi 2/IQ-Audio DAC+ / Max2Play | Conrad-Johnson ET3 Control Amplifier| Conrad-Johnson LP125sa KT120 Power Amplifier| Avalon NP Evo 2.0 Speakers| Cardas Audio Quadlink-5C Speaker Cables and Interconnects| Finite Elemente Pagode Signature E-14 equipment support

  3. #23
    Join Date: Jul 2009

    Location: Hampshire, UK

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    I'm Adam.

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    Quote Originally Posted by AlexM View Post
    That's a quality system for < £50. I think dumpster diving for the speakers is cheating slightly, but the Yammy and the Dual are great buys!
    No dumpster diving involved - they were sat in the 'for sale' area, waiting for me to come and rescue them!

    Of course, this doesn't happen now, due to WEEE regulations.
    Engineers: fixing problems you didn't know you had in ways you don't understand.

  4. #24
    Join Date: May 2016

    Location: Notts

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    I'm Geoff.

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    Quote Originally Posted by walpurgis View Post
    If the system has to travel, what about a solar powered one? DC powered equipment fed via compact NIMH batteries, charged by a folding solar panel or two. There much DC powered gear, including obviously ICE stuff, which is necessarily compact and can be very good.
    I actually ran the system I mentioned as a battery powered system when I was working in Vietnam. I was based in Cao Bang Province just a short distance from the China border. There was very rapid growth taking place but this was outstripping generating capacity so there would be frequent and long power cuts, most often at the weekend. Sometimes I would only have power for a few hours from Friday to Monday. One of my early purchases was a high capacity 12v SLA motorcycle battery and a high quality trickle charger. This allowed me to power the 12v Nuforce Icon amplifier which was highly efficient. Amazingly, Vietnam was an early adopter of 4G somobile broadband was pretty good quality: it just didn't make commercial sense to lay land lines in highly mountainous sparsely populated areas. In fact, many people had traditional looking telephones with cradle and handset but running from a sim card.

    The capacity of the battery was sufficient to play music the whole weekend either from my phone or tablet, or from my mp3 portable player. In fact, I could even run my high efficiency full range driver Omega 3xr floorstanders. I guess, I could have charged the battery with some solar panels, but the battery was usually able to see out the outages with some reserve juice left over!

    Geoff

  5. #25
    Join Date: Apr 2015

    Location: Central Virginia

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    I'm Russell.

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    A small system with a T class amp, or perhaps powered speakers, should be easy to run from one of those power inverters that plug into your cigarette lighter in the car. Or one of those pocket jump start batteries. Have you seen these? Lithium batteries that fit in your shirt pocket that can jump start a car! I've been wanting one.


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  6. #26
    Join Date: Apr 2015

    Location: Central Virginia

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    I'm Russell.

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    https://www.revzilla.com/motorcycle/...1-power-supply

    Here's one I've seen demonstrated, they started a truck with it! So it should power a portable stereo for a good while.


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  7. #27
    Join Date: May 2016

    Location: Notts

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    I'm Geoff.

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    Quote Originally Posted by alphaGT View Post
    A small system with a T class amp, or perhaps powered speakers, should be easy to run from one of those power inverters that plug into your cigarette lighter in the car. Or one of those pocket jump start batteries. Have you seen these? Lithium batteries that fit in your shirt pocket that can jump start a car! I've been wanting one.


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    I've since bought a couple of 20000mAh lithium polymer batteries (Anker). I have a USB to 12v power cable adapter that allows me to power 12v equipment from these batteries for ages.

    Geoff

  8. #28
    Join Date: Apr 2015

    Location: Central Virginia

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    I'm Russell.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sherwood View Post
    I've since bought a couple of 20000mAh lithium polymer batteries (Anker). I have a USB to 12v power cable adapter that allows me to power 12v equipment from these batteries for ages.

    Geoff
    Very cool! I recall a camping trip many years ago where we had small house speakers driven by a nice 12 volt stereo, it was capable of real bass and volume! It may not be, "Outdoorsy", but we had a great time rocking the campsite! Today's equipment is so much more economical and small in size, good sound anywhere is very possible. And affordable!


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  9. #29
    Join Date: May 2016

    Location: Notts

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    I'm Geoff.

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    Quote Originally Posted by alphaGT View Post
    Very cool! I recall a camping trip many years ago where we had small house speakers driven by a nice 12 volt stereo, it was capable of real bass and volume! It may not be, "Outdoorsy", but we had a great time rocking the campsite! Today's equipment is so much more economical and small in size, good sound anywhere is very possible. And affordable!


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    In fact, I've used one of the Anker batteries with my Beresford Caiman SEG DAC. Although the Anker battery outputs 5v through the USB port, the cable I bought converts this to 12v. The SEG definitely sounds better on battery power but it is just a bit of a faf to keep it recharged between uses.

    Geoff

  10. #30
    Join Date: Oct 2012

    Location: NE England

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    I'm Jez.

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    Quote Originally Posted by alphaGT View Post
    Very cool! I recall a camping trip many years ago where we had small house speakers driven by a nice 12 volt stereo, it was capable of real bass and volume! It may not be, "Outdoorsy", but we had a great time rocking the campsite! Today's equipment is so much more economical and small in size, good sound anywhere is very possible. And affordable!


    Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
    Many years ago when I was a "new age traveller" (we never used that term... and I guess our friends from over the pond will need to google that...) I rigged up a couple of old disco type speakers, 12" dual cone things, to an amp I built using a 12V soldering iron which gave about 40WPC from 24V from two lorry batteries. Sources were a cassette deck and FM tuner both with their PSU's bypassed to run straight from 12V. The speakers were more about quantity than quality but would certainly go loud as they were probably around 97dB/W. We rocked the forest

    On some bigger sites there would often be someone with a generator and probably a reasonable PA system but we were a small enclave "over wintering" and had nothing more than a ghetto blaster before this!
    Arkless Electronics-Engineered to be better. Tel. 01670 530674 (after 1pm)

    Modded Thorens TD150, Audio Technica AT-1005 MkII, Technics EPC-300MC, Arkless Hybrid MC phono stage, Arkless passive pre, Arkless 50WPC Class A SS power amp, (or) Arkless modded Leak Stereo 20, Modded Kef Reference 105/3's
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    Cables- free interconnects that come with CD players, mains leads from B&Q, dead kettles etc, extension leads from Tesco

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