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What was your best (and worst) audio purchase for the dollar?

MaxBuck

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Best: Bluesound Node

Worst: Adcom GFP-750 (only because I didn't really use it for many years, and now that I do there are far better components available for less money)
 

Doodski

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The best purchase was a set of KEF Constructor Series large and very heavy transmission line speakers that I turned into a tri-amplified system and enjoyed for many years. I swapped out the tweeters for KEF 107.2 tweeters and added some large Altec Lansing horns with the less durable but better sounding Altec Lansing Tangerine diaphragms on top of each speaker and it slammed hard and had midrange to die for. :D

The worst purchase was a set of ear buds with a extremely microphonic cable. They where so bad that I threw them away one day out of frustration while I was out and about. :facepalm:
 

stevenswall

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Best:
-$660 Kali Audio IN-8 v2 pair, I have yet to find a valid recommendation for the price that doesn't either lack bass extension, vertical dispersion, hiss, port chuffing, and work as a package for both nearfield, balanced, unbalanced, and living room use.

-$30 Koss PortaPro, which is what got me into the audio hobby. The first time that I heard details in music that I hadn't heard before was with these headphones.

Worst:

-$500 Cowon Plenue R (Doesn't really make a difference having excellent measurments with a DAC and amp. You can't hear the difference. I tried a blind test with a friend switching between it and my phone too.)

-$2500 Genelec 7271 ***But this is from the standpoint of me paying for convenience, and the difference being small relative to the price, as it's just covering things under 60hz, and the integration with GLM and the 8260 monitors in my living room is what I'm paying for. Not the best value for output and such, but worth it to me because with how it integrates, it's the best subwoofer I've heard, and I didn't have to spend a week tweaking it only to return it and fail at getting it to sound perfectly cohesive with the speakers.
 

ctakim

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Wow. And I thought I hung on to my Outlaw 950 forever. It almost made my list of best purchases. Wish I could've kept it, but had to get something with HDMI inputs.
I've been planning a replacement purchase for sometime. But found ASR and I have been disappointed with how the dedicated Pre/Pros have tested. So may ultimately switch to a Denon AVR and just use the Pre-outs but still undecided. The Outlaw lacks a lot of modern bells and whistles but my TV has enough HDMI inputs and the optical input to the Outlaw can handle 5.1 Dolby and DTS which is sufficient for now. But an eventual upgrade is planned.
 

THW

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Your audio interface doesn't have the DAC built in? :)

Well it does, but the point is that it isn’t just a DAC and I do make use of its other functions ;)
 
D

Deleted member 30699

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Best:
MOTU 624 (and 8A), ~$700: distributes 128 channels of audio in my home over standard Ethernet cables (uses AVB - hard real time synchronized), routing/filtering/EQ over web interface. This is of course a studio device but can be used for multichannel and multiroom audio (and hometheater as long as the audio decoding can be done in software)

Worst:
Audioquest Dragonfly Cobalt
 

stevenswall

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Best:
MOTU 624 (and 8A), ~$700: distributes 128 channels of audio in my home over standard Ethernet cables (uses AVB - hard real time synchronized), routing/filtering/EQ over web interface. This is of course a studio device but can be used for multichannel and multiroom audio (and hometheater as long as the audio decoding can be done in software)

Worst:
Audioquest Dragonfly Cobalt

Is it as easy to control room by room like a Chromecast? Does it work on both iOS and Android to control it easily with a web interface.
 

Angsty

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Best: Bluesound Node

Worst: Adcom GFP-750 (only because I didn't really use it for many years, and now that I do there are far better components available for less money)
I’d bet if you put that Adcom in the hands of the right modder, it would come out singing as pretty as a lark.
 

Sombreuil

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Fiio M3: I never listen to music with a smartphone so no idea how it'd compare, but I've never been impressed by this DAP.
Horrendous firmware that is extremely slow. It takes me more than 5 minutes to fast forward a song/podcast. I'd be stuck with Chinese as the default langage without some instruction found on the Internet.
It has litteraly zero features, not even a clock...

Battery lasts forever though, that's the good part.
Fiio3-1024x655.jpg
 

escksu

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My best purchase ever? An old Krell 300IL. After coverting to USD, its around 960. Just need to recap it, I also change the crappy stock speaker terminals to better ones and bypass the speaker fuse. 200W into 8ohms and 400W on 4ohms for less than USD 1K, you will be hard pressed to find such a deal anywhere.

300IL is not as famous as the 400XI and hence cost alot less. However, not many pple know that they are actually the same thing other than volume control (rotating knob vs up/down button) and speaker terminals.
 

Aerith Gainsborough

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Hmm... thankfully I stumbled upon this forum before my Audio journey really took off. So I guess one could say that this community saved my walled a lot of heartache and enabled me to buy well performing products at attractive (partly insane) price points.

Best purchase
It's tough to beat the UMIK-1's value per currency unit. Starting the measurement journey was a revelation in many ways for me.

Runner-up: ADI-2 DAC. People fawn over this little gem for a reason. :D

Worst purchase
If I am brutally honest, from a value/currency unit point of view: that would be my Focal Clear. I don't regret the purchase and love it's sound/look but ever since I got my ADI-2 DAC, it's eerie how close my DT-880 gets in terms of performance (EQ'd to Oratory-preset with less bass shelf gain). If you are on a budget, "cheap", well measuring can + EQ is definitely the way to go.

Runner-up: my old Creative I-Trigue 3400 set. Well, what can I say. I was a kiddo that didn't have a lot of funds. Didn't sound half bad if you kept the volume down, just never got the sub integration right. Virtually no mids to speak of. *chuckles*
 

highender

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Oct 15, 2020
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Best
Dirac Live software + UMIK-1
miniDSP C-DSP 12 channel DSP

Worst
I can´t remember really bad buys, maybe an old Yamaha subwoofer, but it was cheap.
 

sq225917

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Worst muse model 200 amp, £1500, piece of crap. Best stax lambda sr7 Pro and energiser- for free..
 

Nabussan

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Mar 25, 2020
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Location
Bonn, Germany
Best:
- Qobuz
- Ca. $ 2000 + taxes and shipping for a Smyth Realiser A8 (pre-HDMI, including Stax headphones) to emulate 5 Geithain RL901K + 2 subwoofer Geithain Basis 14K installed and calibrated in the Großer Seminarraum at the Erich Thienhaus Institute, Detmold (= 7 x ca. € 5k + room treatment).
See https://www.eti.hfm-detmold.de/de/institut/studios-labore/grosser-seminarraum/
img_0013.jpg


A8Sqaure2.jpg

Worst:
- In terms of usability: A Sherwood P656 receiver with 8 analog output channels to drive the Realiser.
- In terms of mechanical noise: an Oppo BDP83
 
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antcollinet

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Best - my recently purchased Dali Oberon 5 floorstanders. At least 3x the price of any previous speaker purchase and I love them. I am listening to music again for hours a day, sometimes at low volume late evening, and I am continually stunned at how good it sounds - even after 2+ months.

Worst - a Technics separates twin cassette deck - just as cassettes were becoming redundant. Purchased late 90's (probably), nothing wrong with it, but I doubt I listened to a cassette on it 10 times.

I still have it - only keeping in case I ever find my case of cassettes, and want to digitise them for old times sake.
 

JRS

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Sep 22, 2021
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Albuquerque, NM USA
Best: DEQX PDP 2.6
Bohlender-Grabener 75" Ribbons The two together got me off a revolving multikilobuck speaker spending habit. The DEQX is still in servce, and haven't bought a commercial speaker since (2003)

Honorable mention: Marantz 160 x 5 HT amp off Ebay for a few hundred

Worst: Lafayette 4 channel 8-track recorder/player (worked a few days and not that well--15 at the time is my excuse)

Dishonorable mention: Pair of Classe M500 monoblocks (paid 1/2 price) that failed repeatedly, including transformer!





 
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RickSanchez

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Sep 4, 2019
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Location
Austin, TX
Best:
- Qobuz
- Ca. $ 2000 + taxes and shipping for a Smyth Realiser A8 (pre-HDMI, including Stax headphones) to emulate 5 Geithain RL901K + 2 subwoofer Geithain Basis 14K installed and calibrated in the Großer Seminarraum at the Erich Thienhaus Institute, Detmold (= 7 x ca. € 5k + room treatment).
See https://www.eti.hfm-detmold.de/de/institut/studios-labore/grosser-seminarraum/

I sure hope you don't leave that turntable on top of the sub while playing albums! ;)

1633647527513.png
 

Rip City Dave

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Mar 11, 2021
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Location
Portland, OR
BEST: 2020 Ford Shelby GT350R ------ Oh, the sound!

All kidding aside,

Best: Magnepan 1.7 for $800 paired with a $60 vintage Carver C9 for a monster soundstage.

Worst: Bertagni Electroacoustic Systems SM300 planar speakers. Basically, they are open-baffle styrofoam flat panels driven by a voice coil. Good sensitivity, OK sound, but these behemoths are way too big, look rather ugly and the wife hated them.

Also, bought a Parasound 5250V2 250W x 5 channel amp thinking I would build a hot 5.2 setup. Well, it never happened and is used in a stereo only setup, so three channels never get used. Great amp, though.
 

tom1040

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Jul 12, 2021
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Best: Marantz MA-9S2 monoblocks. Keepers.

Worst: Yamaha M-80 bought used. Blew up in about a week.
 
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