Cheapest System You Have Bits For?

[walpurgis]

I was having a poke through all the Hi-Fi I have knocking about and wondered what the least costly to me system I could put together was.

There's a mint Pioneer PL-15S up in the loft that cost me £6 from a boot sale.

I've a very sweet Goldring Eroica LX MC with a cracked lug that I nabbed for £20. It works just fine!.

The superb sounding JVC AX-A441 integrated amp stands me in at £20 as well, it has an amazingly good MC input and bags of power.

As for speakers, I think a couple of my Canon 5" full range drivers on open baffles could do the job nicely, they are lovely sounding units, but cost me a mere £3 a pair. I know how good they are, as I've used them before. The baffles I can make from materials grabbed from skips, so free!

I can 'upgrade' the TT a bit with a better headshell that was given to me and a heavier mat that came with a load of other stuff for nothing.

Cables? I've loads that came with other gear.

I make that £49.

Can you do better? (with proper Hi-Fi gear :))

[Barry]

No I can't improve on that. The closest I can offer is:

Collaro 2020 rim drive TT (a poor man's Garrard 301), £5 bought in a junk shop in 1969
Neat G30 (?) arm, £0 given to me for free
B&O SP6 cartridge, £5 ebay

Cambridge P50 integrated amp, £20 ebay

B&W DM4 speakers, £20 from a charity shop

So £50 in total.

I haven't considered speaker cables, because as far as I'm concerned 5A flex is quite sufficient. And no DIY either. ;)

[Puffin]

Philips CD610 MkII Free
Rotel 810 Free
Heybrook HB3's Free, but spent £10 on new mid-range surrounds.

I can't remember what I paid for most of my cables, so say £20 for cables?

To you Sir......£30

[walpurgis]

To you Sir......£30

Thirty quid? That'll take some beating! :)

[bearair]

Pair of Celestion Ditton 15s bought from a charity shop around 2000. Bought with Thorens 160 and Leek receiver for £20, I had these in my office in London and it sounded great. The Thorens and Leek are long gone.

Original Rega Planer 3 given to me buy a neighbour who would not accept any money for it, so I bought him a bottle of Blair Athol Single malt. £35

A 3 button Nitech CA 202 I saw in a skip on the way home from the pub one night. I consider this to be a gift from the gods, since my original was stolen from my house in Bristol 30 odd years ago. It was sat right on top of everything in the skip with a streetlight shinning on it!

So about £45 all in I guess.

[Barry]

Hitachi mini-system, found in a skip in near perfect condition. So £0, but is it hi-fi? Within the context of equipment discussed here probably not, but if properly set up can sound surprisingly good.

[Spectral Morn]

Teac 300 series amp, tuner, tape + Mission 70s, Raspberry Pi + PSU

Or a Onkyo CR315 DAB all in one + Proac Super Tablets. The Onkyo speakers are ok but Proac better.

That's my budget systems.

[sumday]

NAD T744 av receiver purchased from ebay for 70 quid. sold as working but one rear channel was iffy and the remote had leaking batteries.
I advised the seller of these problems and she told me to keep the unit and sent me a cheque for the cash.....top lady.

eltax floorstanding speakers (stop sniggering at the back), carbooted for a tenner.
Cambridge CD4 player (ohh, tuned by pink triangle...it proudly says on the back) 5 pounds same car booter, now spinning discs in the bedroom.

connected to the bedroom tv via poundshop optical lead and bits of lighting flex, freebe phono's etc.

sum total 16 pounds and in use every night, the amp is configured for stereo and delivers many watts in this configuration...after stripping and cleaning the NAD remote I can now drive the amp from the comfort of my wife!!!

NIGE.