Wanted - Cheap micro/mini system

[kendun]

Hi folks,

I am interested in getting a cheap mini/micro system for my kitchen.Would want a CD player(MP3 compatible) + FM.(DAB not essential). I have had a look at the Denon/Yamaha/Onkyo models and not too keen on getting a new unit with DAB + Ipod dock etc. I'm planning to use a pair of Mordaunt Short speakers with this system.

Probably £50 delivered is the amount I was considering. Any systems available at this price?

[Ali Tait]

How about this?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PHILIPS-MC147-Micro-Hi-Fi-System-CD-FM-MW-Radio-Remote-/270684501669?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f060db6a5

[Ali Tait]

Or this?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SONY-CD-MICRO-HIFI-SYSTEM-CMTEH15-WARRANTY-/130464348743?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item1e6047fa47

[Ali Tait]

Or this might be a better bet for Sony-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SONY-CMT-EH15-CD-MICRO-SYSTEM-CASSETTE-/270682874474?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item3f05f4e26a

[The Grand Wazoo]

I'd do it a different way myself.
Get yerself on Ebay & track down a beautiful old early seventies receiver (I've bought Sansui's & Marantz's for under £15 and a Pioneer for 99p!). Add a bargain CD player of your choice & Bob's yer aunty's live-in-lover.

[MartinT]

My partner's son just bought one of these with Wharfedale Diamond speakers and it sounds very nice:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/mini-hifi-systems/denon/dm38dab/deno-dm38dab-blk

Oops - sorry - I didn't fully clock the price you wanted to pay.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Sony EH15 is SHITE!

How about a mini t amp or similar tripath type amp and a portable cd player of some sort ... Keep things nice and small that way...

I have a mini t on the way from the missis for Xmas to go with a little iPod dock and some tiny tannoy speakers I have for in the kitchen ... That with my Spotify app and I have millions of tracks available to me in the kitchen in perfectly passable quality ...

[Spectral Morn]

One of the older JVC top loading systems were very nice and reliability was very good. They came with speakers...which were of reasonable quality.

I used to work in a brown goods independent about 8 years ago (i had to think about that for a minute to remember how long ago it was :doh::eek:)

Here's a JVC on Ebay http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/JVC-Mini-Disc-CD-and-radio-/320633631832?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4aa740f458#ht_500wt_1156 I think this one just came out before I left the Brown Goods trade.

Another option is The Sony DHC-md373 is a nice little system that works well and is reliable too. we have two in the S/H bookshop I work in (got one recently off GumTree for our new pound shop)

It too dates back to when I worked in the independent electrical shop (part of the Euronics group)

It has a Mini Dsic/FM radio, CD player and speakers and sounds okay for what it is.

Heres two of the Sony's http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SONY-DHC-MD373-stereo-system-speakers-stand-/160520662234?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item255fc6ecda#ht_500wt_1156

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SONY-DHC-MD373-MINI-HI-FI-SYSTEM-MD-CD-TU-TD-Ipod-/320632945764?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item4aa7367c64#ht_608wt_1139 This one even has a Tape Deck option with it. I am listening to one as I type this from work.

Both are a bit more than what you want to spend i.e about £50 more but I think you will be hard placed to find better for £50 S/H. These Sony systems were about £400 new.


Regards D S D L

[kendun]

Thank you all for your replies.
I have been on Ebay,there are a few Vintage receivers for sale.Is there any particular make/s you would recommend and what is a reasonable price for these receivers? With most of these receivers being around 30 years old,there is a strong chance that they may fail anytime,so would like your views.Quite fancy trying the approach suggested by Chris.
Regards
Sen

[Techno Commander]

Heres a nice Denon (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Denon-D70-Hi-Fi-System-/290514471308?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item43a403098c) mini system at £53 with 2 hours to go.

[kendun]

Thank you Andy.

[Ali Tait]

I have one of these in GWO if you're interested-

http://cgi.ebay.com/Pioneer-SX-650-Beautiful-fully-restored-70s-receiver-/150536310779?pt=Receivers_Tuners&hash=item230ca9cffb

It's in good nick apart from a little flaking of the wood trim on the side. The fascia is unmarked. Sounds great with a warm meaty bassy '70's sound.

£70 plus postage,which is what I paid.

[Reid Malenfant]

I have one of these in GWO if you're interested-
Has it got a waveguide? :eek:

:lolsign:

[Ali Tait]

Tube thing on the back? Yes!

[kendun]

Hi Ali,
Will have a think and let you know.

[Jac Hawk]

I'd do it a different way myself.
Get yerself on Ebay & track down a beautiful old early seventies receiver (I've bought Sansui's & Marantz's for under £15 and a Pioneer for 99p!). Add a bargain CD player of your choice & Bob's yer aunty's live-in-lover.

i would agree, go for seperates maybe not as shiney as a 70's model, but on ebay you could get yourself an amp or receiver for about £25 to £30 a set of speakers such as my old wharfedale linton xp3's for less than a tenner and if you're not bothered about which cd player you have you've got the lot for about £50. i guarantee it will sound a lot better than a cheap micro, plus you can upgrade over time if you want to.

[DSJR]

But they're not midi or micro are they - the very reason why they were probably sold in the first place..

The little Denon DM3 series is genuine HiFi quality, if a little under powered - it does have preamp outputs, and there was a little Onkyo in the mid 90's that sounded fantastic but only had around 12Watts per channel. At a higher used price, the TEAC 300 system was always good value..

[Rare Bird]

Sen
Why not pipe your main system into the kitchen?

[Jac Hawk]

But they're not midi or micro are they - the very reason why they were probably sold in the first place..

The little Denon DM3 series is genuine HiFi quality, if a little under powered - it does have preamp outputs, and there was a little Onkyo in the mid 90's that sounded fantastic but only had around 12Watts per channel. At a higher used price, the TEAC 300 system was always good value..

Very true they aren't, but the kit you are proposing is way over budget, £50 isn't very much even on eBay nowadays, if getting sound into another room is important, but so is size as well, i think £50 isn't really going to get anything that you could bare listening to for any length of time. Maybe run a second set of speakers from your main amp if you can.

[The Grand Wazoo]

Just to clarify, I think the brief excludes speakers - there are some Mourdant Shorts in the frame. But the 50 quid has to fund an amp, FM tuner, CD player and needs to include P+P. That's a pretty tough nut to crack & still get a half decent sound, which is why I suggested an old receiver.

[Jac Hawk]

Just to clarify, I think the brief excludes speakers - there are some Mourdant Shorts in the frame. But the 50 quid has to fund an amp, FM tuner, CD player and needs to include P+P. That's a pretty tough nut to crack & still get a half decent sound, which is why I suggested an old receiver.

Tough, almost impossible i would say, especially if sound quality is anywhere in the mix.

And if it has to be a system in the kitchen, then i think it more a case of what you can get rather than what you would like. Tell you what though you could go for an all in one boom box, i picked up a pioneer nav-1 on eBay for under £50, it has ipod dock, tuner, cd / dvd and a pre out, plus the speakers are built in too, it doesn't have a wave guide though, but it does have bass radiators, which is why i bought it, you see my house is very cold especially in the kitchen so i thought another set of radiators could only help:scratch:

[Spectral Morn]

The second Sony on Ebay I listed is still available.

It is more than suitable for a kitchen and these Sony's sound pretty good.....not separates good but still very good,,,,, sins of omission rather than commission.

As I say I have to listen to them (exact same model) everyday I am in work and trust me they sound good.

If you add better speakers there will be an improvement.

Regards D S D L

[Jac Hawk]

The second Sony on Ebay I listed is still available.

It is more than suitable for a kitchen and these Sony's sound pretty good.....not separates good but still very good,,,,, sins of omission rather than commission.

As I say I have to listen to them (exact same model) everyday I am in work and trust me they sound good.

If you add better speakers there will be an improvement.

Regards D S D L

It's £100 though

[SteveW]

I have a mini t on the way from the missis for Xmas to go with a little iPod dock and some tiny tannoy speakers I have for in the kitchen ... That with my Spotify app and I have millions of tracks available to me in the kitchen in perfectly passable quality ...

This in effect is what I have in the kitchen and dining room, except that the signal comes from Apple Airport Expresses. (Expressi?:))
The beauty of using these is that whilst they have a built in DAC, you can also take an optical feed from them into an external DAC (Beresfords in my case).

I've just updated the software in my ipod touch, and also at the same time upgraded to premium spotify.. somehow or other, Spotify is now received in both systems wirelessly, and also appears/controlled by the ipod. Brilliant.

[WAD62]

If you've got a computer and a network in the house why not stream FLAC into the Kitchen, via a relatively inexpensive squeezebox receiver...

My kitchen setup;

SB Receiver - £50 ebay
Squeezecommander - £2.50 for android phone
Mini-T - £65 (in the photo it's a bantam gold but that was only temporary, mini T is 1/2 the size)
Mission 780SEs - £28 ebay (I've spent a little more upgrading them)
Marble Slab - 1 pint of Bass for my mate who's in the building trade.
2 used squash balls, and some cables

...a nice compact system, with a more than passable sound

N.B. Batman speaker damping accessory supplied by the missus! ;)

[Spectral Morn]

It's £100 though

The other one was less (didn't sell) This one comes with a tapedeck.

I think £100 is a very good price for it.



Regards D S D L

[Jac Hawk]

The other one was less (didn't sell) This one comes with a tapedeck.

I think £100 is a very good price for it.



Regards D S D L

i would agree, but you need to add delivery into the mix, personally i think it's a big ask for 50 quid

[kendun]

Thank you all for your input and suggestions. My reasoning behind the £50 pound mark was that I had seen a Yamaha unit around £120 odd a couple of years ago and I thought with newer models of Yamaha/Denon/Onkyo etc there may be sub £50 units on offer - obviously I was mistaken.

Some of the suggestions regarding haing a receiver + cd player etc made me think about other options.The message about a SB receiver has made me think -maybe I could look at upping my budge and get something different for decent audio quality maybe.

Thank you everyone.

[Seth=L]

My partner's son just bought one of these with Wharfedale Diamond speakers and it sounds very nice:

http://www.richersounds.com/product/mini-hifi-systems/denon/dm38dab/deno-dm38dab-blk

Oops - sorry - I didn't fully clock the price you wanted to pay.
I believe that chap also prepared a video and hosted it on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXtgth_xPG0&feature=related

I'm late to this thread, but I thought I would assert my opinion.

The Onkyo, Denon, Teac, Yamaha midi components retain their value quite well. In the Euro crowd it seems the more convenient the item is (regardless of power, as long as it is quality) the better it will hold its value. I don't live in Europe, so I have to fight, claw, maim etc... in order to attain quality midi components. Teac had four major lines of midi gear, 100, 200, 300, and 500. The 100 series isn't dramatically popular because of market saturation with 3 disc integrated CD/receivers with reliability issues, it was probably phased out because of that. The 200 series seems widely popular and still has production models. The 300 series has maintained some integrity and is rather popular since they they share the same width as the 200 series (half width of standard size components). The 500 series is not as popular and it's a shame because this is where you'll find some of the best midi gear for your coin. For example, the A-H500 integrated amplifier is a real jewel and incredibly robust. I also find the PD-H570 marvelous for its size. It operates very smoothly for a mechanical 7 disc CD changer. I have seen the A-H500 integrated amplifiers go for very little on ebay in the UK, much lower than they would in the states.

[TBL]

Denon UD-M30 with remote? Perfect nick apart from the power on button occasional sticks in, but a quick flick always releases it.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130480995449

I've got one you can have for £50 delivered.

[kendun]

Hi Ian,
Are there any other problems with the unit? No problems with playing CDs etc?
Will be it be expensive to repair the power button?

[TBL]

No other problems, cd plays fine, tuner only has the wire Ariel which you might want to change. As for repair not really sure why you would bother its not really a big deal.

[kendun]

Thank you Ian,will get back to you later.