Giant Killers

[Lawrence001]

My Nobsound NS-08P Bluetooth pre-amp, which I bought for the princely sum of £55 from Lawrence001 of this very manor.

I love it.
It's got enough inputs of various different types - five in total - and the bluetooth work flawlessly, meaning I can stream from anything that will connect.
The tone controls are excellent too and really make a difference, when you need to brighten or beef something up, or just reduce a touch of boom, depending on the source, the song and the volume.

Most of the rest of my kit is decades old but this little unit ties it all together and I couldn't be happier.

Glad you're happy with it Paul. I actually bought it from @jandl100 I think so I don't want to take all the credit for finding it

[Macca]

going to chuck a spanner in the works here and say with very few exceptions the real giant killer is to buy what used to be very expensive but is still heavily engineered equipment on the second-hand market for a fraction of what it would cost if still made today.

If you really want maximum sound quality for the spend, that's the way to go, at least for non-digital equipment.

I've had a few bits of kit here over the years that were surprisingly good considering their low retail price, but that's all it amounted to. In absolute terms they were still way down the scale.

[Pigmy Pony]

This was a "giant killer" alright.



I paid £139 for mine back in 1984. Only thing I could fault was that like the one pictured, all the paint fell off the knobs.

Hifi press at the time were calling it the hot hatch of amplifiers, most of the performance of high end stuff, but a fraction of the price. But that £139 in today's money would go a long way, and it'd be interesting to see how equivalent-priced kit compares...

[Macca]

About £470 in today's money. Would get you summat like a Marantz PM600 these days:



Don't know if it's better or if the paint will stay on it, but it looks okay.

[Pigmy Pony]

Well you're certainly getting more for your £470 there, at least in terms of features.

So my question is: if that Cyrus 1, with its attendant feature set, build quality, component quality and measured SQ was being made and sold today, would the sellers be getting £470 for one? Not sure about that. I think this applies to other iconic pieces of kit, which while being head and shoulders above their contemporaries might not stack up so well against similarly-price stuff today. Things have moved on, consumers expect (and get) more for their money nowadays in terms of SQ and (hopefully) reliability.

Although I reckon they mostly look way cooler, no denying that