Who's up for a "Cheap as Chips" Challenge?

[Alex_UK]

It was indeed a great day and the room was packed most of the time. As Mike says, It was great to see people's reactions or hear their comments, a few suggested they were off to sulk or cry, occasional "off to shoot themselves" and one chap was very grateful he didn't have his wife with him to see that you could do so well only spending that little!

It certainly made a lot of people take notice of what you can do for zilch, and so was definitely a success on that score. I was hoping we would have had more systems but after lugging them up all those stairs it was fine to have just 3, actually!

All good fun!

[Rare Bird]

Aye those RAM's are great speakers...

[The Grand Wazoo]

Excellent!
I'm really glad it was a success. It's stuff like that this keeps me smiling about hi-fi.
So let's see a list of what was on display & some more photos.

[Alex_UK]

Excellent!
I'm really glad it was a success. It's stuff like that this keeps me smiling about hi-fi.
So let's see a list of what was on display & some more photos.

Chris - I was so busy I never got the camera out of the car! I think Martin took some though - I'll go into a bit more detail then on the "tiddler" system, but my main entry was a Pioneer PD-5010 CD Player (£18) Cambridge P50 Amplifier (£20) and the RAM 150 speakers (£58) - £96 in total.

I've just read comments from ronc over on the wam who hopefully won't mind me quoting what he said about this system "Cheap as Chips et al in the Fernie Room: great sound for a system costing less than the price of an Eichmann Bullet! I mean, £96! You're having a laugh, guys. Literally. At the rest of us spending fortunes and getting about 5% of the Sound per Pound. (Note to self: do not risk going in their room again next year)."

That kind of sums up the reactions all 3 setups got really!

[The Grand Wazoo]

....great sound for a system costing less than the price of an Eichmann Bullet!

Fan - bleedin - tastic!

[Jac Hawk]

to be honest Chris people were giving us praise like that all day, the opening post on the WAM "Biggest sunrises of 2012" by Mr Ian, mentioned a C.a.C system

" But for me to there were some real surprises - systems that sounded far far better than I ever imagined they would or could, so in no particular these really surprised me and brought a smile to my face. The:

• Linn Kans being powered by low end Naim integrated
• Behringer based set up
• £74 second hand system using JBL speakers (wish some one would give me a pair like that for free)

Not saying these were the best sounding of the day but surely proved that great music can be reproduced in many different ways and need not take a lot of cash or space."

Then there were these 2 guys they must have been back 2 or 3 times for a listen, they reckoned it was the best room in the show, and the shocking thing was, they were deadly serious, all day people were asking how we chose the individual items that made up the systems, and saying "what is it you guys know that I don't" as if we were making gold out of lead.

[Jac Hawk]

Just for the record my system was

• Aiwa AP2600 TT , Nagaoka MP15 MM cart
• Yamaha dvd2500 DVD-A CD
• Aiwa series 50 pre/power amp
• JBL LX500 Speakers

[Macca]

I didn't hear Steve's system but the RAm/Cambridge/pioneer system was amazingly good, and I don't mean 'amazingly good for the money' - it was just good, irrespective. I agree the system with the Behringer amps was amongst the best if not the best. The active ATC were also very memorable. Rage Against The Machine played very loud - no breakup whatsoever, very impressive.

[Jac Hawk]

I liked the ATC's a lot too Martin, mark's aka dingdong B&W DM2a's were another high point for me

[Macca]

I liked the ATC's a lot too Martin, mark's aka dingdong B&W DM2a's were another high point for me

I think I might have missed those Freefall Robs sytem with the Heybrook TT was very good, the best of the nearfield set ups.