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

[MrPeabody]

I'm in with this even though most people on this forum were probably not even out of grade school when I bought a pair of Advent 5012 speakers in the early 1980s, shortly before the change of ownership to Jensen. The 5012 was the last iteration of the "large Advent" prior to the change of ownership (Jensen bought the Advent speaker business right around that same time, in the early '80s). I don't recall exactly what I paid for them, but I don't think it was more than $300 for the pair. I loved them and kept them for more than 25 years. I wish I hadn't sold them. Other people had issues with foam rot, but even after twenty-five years of daily, rigorous use, there was no evidence of foam rot on the pair that I had. I sometimes wonder if this was related to my not being a smoker. (This hypothesis was motivated partly by observing that in the pair of HD414 headphones that I got for my Dad, the foam would rot away and have to be replaced every few years.) Anyhow, I can't imagine how there could be a better speaker bargain, or any bargain in audio. They weren't audiophile speakers for sure, but the bass was strong and clean and didn't have the "single note" bass exaggeration that most all ported speakers had back in those days.

In the mid-80s I also bought a stereo, audio-only Carver receiver, and I don't recall what it cost, and I do recall that hiss was audible a foot or so from the speaker, but even with the hiss, I loved that receiver and I wish that I still had it. The FM receiver section developed a problem, and eventually one of the main amplifier channels developed a problem, and at that time I wanted an A/V receiver so I sold the Carver for a few cents on eBay. I'll admit that I loved it partly for the visual style, which was seriously '80s, but it was lovely. And the loudness control seemed to perfectly complement the slow bass rolloff of the big Advent speakers.

 

[LightninBoy]

However, when it comes to gear I had to buy for my job, I can be much more objective, so here it goes:
Best: Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd gen. € 95.
Worst: Motu M2 € 199.

You must have an interesting job. That's the kinda gear I buy for my other hobby.

 

[Chrispy]

Can't think of a particularly worst purchase. Usually researched hard before buying. Some of the bullshit from the reviewers didn't help, tho. Most stuff I've bought I still have, too....

 

[richard12511]

In order
Best:
1. UMIK-1(and 2)
2. JTR RS2s - amazing end game subs that will last through many speaker upgrades
3. Genelec 8030c - replaced Revel M105 and I was surprised how much more I liked it.

HM:
JBL 308p and Infinity R263 - at 60-70% off, easily the best value speakers I've ever purchased, but I just have too many speakers and not enough rooms to get good use out of them.

Worst:
1. JBL EON 615 - not a bad speaker, but I never used it. Hiss is too loud(and I'm super insensitive to hiss) for near or mid field in room use.
2. Emotiva T2+ - again not a bad speaker, but I had no place for it and it just ended up in storage
3. Genelec 7370as - I knew they were overpriced going in, but bought it anyway to have something that worked with GLM and my new 8351bs. They ended up being inadequate for my main room and no where near the RS2(despite costing more than the RS2). I will say they work excellent in my office now, so they've redeemed themselves somewhat. Unfortunately my office speakers(8030c) don't support GLM. Maybe someday I'll upgrade to 8330.

 

[Cider]

Best: miniDSP SHD Studio
Worst: Bought some boutique cables a long time ago. Not really expensive, but still more than I should have paid.

 

[paolomo]

You must have an interesting job. That's the kinda gear I buy for my other hobby.

It’s not as interesting as it seems, unfortunately . I need an audio interface for the constant online meetings, presentations and lectures that have become the norm over the last year of lockdown. That’s why an entry level interface is more than enough for my needs.

Now, since we are talking hobbies and interfaces, let me mention the RME ADI-2 DAC FS, which is probably my second best purchase.

 

[Alexanderc]

Most of my stereo gear is stuff other people were getting rid of. Not much money spent there so far, but hopefully soon…
Best: I’m proud of my first real home theater (about 12 years ago) for under $1200—Mordaunt Short sub/sat system on clearance for $400-500, a refurb Denon 1708 for $225, an LG Blu-ray player for $50ish and a Samsung 32” flatscreen for $400. I still use everything in some way except the LG which stopped reading blurays last summer. The HDMI inputs on the Denon crapped out so I use it for my office stereo. The tv is in the kitchen as it was replaced long ago with a 65” Vizio in the living room.
Worst: I asked for and received an Audioquest rca cable as a gift (bottom of the line, but still $25-30). I feel sort of like I cheated the person who bought it for me.

 

[dougi]

Best: Lyngdorf DPA-1 digital preamp with RoomPerfect. Demo or lightly used, can't quite remember.

Worst: Some locally made "Monitor Acoustics" tower speakers around 1988 while at Uni, using KEF drivers. They had an awful resonance on male voices. I chopped them up with an axe.

 

[617]

Two CSS SDX10 Subwoofer drivers for $200, when CSS was reorganizing. Normally these drivers would be $224 each. Monstrous bass in a 10" driver. Amazing units.

 

[RickSanchez]

Best

• Sabaj D5 ($375 new)
• vintage Harman Kardon HK670 ($225 including shipping, used but in pristine condition)

Worst
An old Sony 5.1 surround sound speaker package. It wasn't even that expensive, but it was terrible.

 

[Daverz]

Best:

Radio Shack Analog Sound Level Meter. Original one from the 90s. Still works fine.

Bryston 3B-SST. Bought this from Audiogon for $1500 (it's sad there now; I don't think people are buying new stuff, so they're not selling old stuff). I've already used the 20-year warranty once (it had about 15 years left at the time) to have a turn-off thump fixed. They fixed it and sent it back within 1 day of receiving it. I should have bought two at the time.

My Umik-1 developed a crackling noise, so I'm kind of sour on them now.

Worst: I've spent some silly money on tube and analog gear, but I also used the hell out of it.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Some of my best bargain purchases:

JRiver MC 21: For $62 it plays all legacy digital formats, transcodes to any sampling rate, functions as library, cd ripper, crossover, PEQ, LFE and digital crossover, platform for VST plugins and digital convolution files, receiver of digital audio and video streams, DLNA endpoint, and does manicures and eyebrowscaping.

miniDSP 2 x 4 HD: Another versatile tool, just wish it had a better DAC. $207.

Hafler DH 200: I paid like $299 for this in the late 1970's and it was clean and powerful, literally comparing favorably to the absolute best in amplification sold at that time. Powered my LS 3/5as for over a decade.

My worst:

A kit supplied by the "Mod Squad" which promised to update and perfect LS 3/5as by modifying the cabinet by cutting off the front lip, and rebuilding the crossover to eliminate the famous midbass bump. Yeah, I butchered an absolute classic thanks to these guys. The mother******ers!

 

[Hilltop]

Best.

Audiolab 6000a.
Rega P6.


Worst.

Klipsch system 6 late 90s for $1200 (home theater).

Klipsch RB-35 reference bookshelf speakers. $500 (2003)

Uturn audio orbit plus W Grado black. IGD machine.

Schitt Mani. <----crap. First and last Schitt product. Bought into the hype of "punching above its price". Sounds like all other 99 dollar phono preamps except with more noise.

 

[pjug]

Best: Maybe Usher V601 for $400/pr, or Umik-1, or maybe Outlaw M2200, the latter 2 because of ASR

Worst: a vacuum type record cleaner (forget the maker or model). It worked great but was awful to use, too loud! It suddenly disappeared, I think my wife chucked it.

 

[peanuts]

several mentions of minidsp here. my unit started failing after e few months, first 2 channels got reduced volume by 2db or so for no reason. suddenly the same happened to the third channel months later while simply playing music. now i am waiting for the last channel to fail so i can play with normal balanced stereo without matching and adjusting by ear.
also usb stream cuts out several times a week. have to remove power to make it work again.
minidsp ofcourse had no idea about any of this, so the same will happen if i buy a new unit im thinking.. so im sorta stuck.
piece of crap.

 

[majingotan]

Here's my list (subjective of course)
Best
1. Campfire Andromeda CK, ~$1100 Subjectively speaking the best sounding IEM I've ever enjoyed. Heard IEMs more than 3x its price and none of them made me convinced that they're better than this. Gave me countless of goosebumps since I bought it in 2018. I can subjectively describe it as HD650/HD6XX tonality with HD800 soundstage.
2. AK SP2000 Copper, ~$3500. Swiss army of DAPs IMO. Roon certified DAP with DAC mode only/preamp mode/headphone amp/digital transport(USB/Optical)/parametric EQ all in one and plays whatever hi-res format is available currently. Sound quality with the Andromeda is perfectly flawless to my subjective opinion with absolutely zero hissing whatsoever. No issues with EFI/RFI bleed whatsoever even if I put my smartphone on top of it while making a phone call, yes it better be noise/EFI/RFI free for its asking price.
3. Yamaha HS7+HS8S 2.1 setup, ~$900. Impressive sounding nearfield, but becomes boomy far field. Does not distort nor crackle at 100+ dB SPL two feet away from tweeter on axis.
4. Bifrost 2 + Saga OG, ~$900. Subjectively, it doesn't sound bad or distorted despite horrible grass distortions on the 1KHz FFT graph. In combination with HS7+HS8S, the sound from this system NEVER felt lacking in "sound quality" whatsoever to my subjective opinion.

Worst

1. Audioquest Evergreen 3.5mm to RCA cable, ~$45. It couldn't handle 3V line out from my Chord Mojo resulting in crackling sound on tracks with close to 0.1-0.0 dBFS peaks. Resolved the issue with Mogami Gold RCA to 3.5mm cables.
2. Chord Mojo, ~$500. Never had a device that's extremely sensitive to EMI/RFI that is worse than this. Unusable as USB DAC on phones with 5G/LTE enabled. Noisy amp section too with CA Andromeda hissing quite loudly at any volume level. It sounds good subjectively though but hampered with EFI/RFI issue by just putting your smartphone within 2 feet of it which is a deal breaker for me. Optical input does NOT do anything to prevent that issue as the analog section acts like an antenna due to lack of shielding

 

[nimar]

I've taken hifi seriously for about 8 years, at the time I bought a pair of AudioEngine A5s, Adam A7x's and an audiolab m-dac. Before that time I had some decent Shure IEM's but had never contemplated spending more than ~$150 on anything hifi related. Then durning the pandemic I discovered ASR and the passion (wallet) was rekindled and I splurged on far too much topping gear. It all sounds amazing, though the UX could be better and I want to see how they last before preaching about them.

Best.
- Umik 1
- Pi (Streamers are now an essential part of peoples setup and this can compete with the most expensive for ~$50)
- Audioengine A5, still going strong, and they even measure pretty well.
- Adam A7x, love them like the first day I got them.
- Roon (controversial, but its a powerhouse and does so much)

Worst.
- I bought two DSD albums before I knew better, the one time so far in hifi where I kicked myself for being daft.

Uncertain.
- Topping D90/A90. I was tempted by the RME ADI 2 FS but it seemed too expensive, so got a D90 instead, and a month later bought an A90, ends up being a similar price to the RME, but the RME has far better UX / remote / other features. The topping stack has better numbers, and a balanced HP out. If the topping firmware could be reprogrammed it could be so much better.

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

Best

Hifiman HE-400i Headphones
Elac DBR-62 Speakers
Topping E30 Dac
Schiit Heresy HP Amp

All of the above basically because they more or less all sit at what I think is the pinnacle of what my ears are probably capable of hearing in terms of audio quality and they didn't kill the bank account to get me there.

Worst

Pioneer SP-fs52 floor standers. They are actually OK speakers for the $, I just found them pretty boring in every way. Luckily they weren't expensive...

 

[WickedInsignia]

Best:
Audio Technica M50x (yes, I know): I got 6 years use out of these before the pleather fell apart. Used them for everything....listening to music, tracking guitar and drums, conference calls with the ATGM2 mic, and gaming on consoles and PC. Just ticked all the boxes for a great price.
Sennheiser PXC550: Was my daily driver for 3 years. Supreme comfort and the best sound out of all ANC wireless headphones I've heard. I miss them quite dearly since they sounded good with everything.

Worst:
PSB M4U 2: This is a hard one because they are still my favourite headphones sonically. That being said they were badly designed and eventually broke in every way that a headphone possibly could over 4 years (with very very light and rare use, one of those years I didn't use them at all). To list the issues:

• The ANC/built in amp would make an audible hiss when on
• The circuitry would very often pick up wireless signals and make beep boop sounds like a dial-up!
• The headband gained hairline cracks on all essential joints very quickly
• The pleather on the headband and ear cushions started flaking before my M50s
• Eventually the left channel died due to a serious design flaw present in every unit
• They were not comfortable over long periods. Considerably heavy and the driver pushed on the ears.

For this reason I do not buy anything from PSB or NAD anymore, regardless of how wonderful they sound. They simply do not know how to build a functional and reliable headphone.

Sennheiser Momentum TW: Bought them on a whim since they fit my ears perfectly (in-ears NEVER fit me). They sound wonderful, if a little dark and bassy. However they suffer a major flaw present in some true wireless designs: the battery drains when idle. Over the course of 3-4 days without use both the case and earpieces will drain to 0. Also, the left earpiece doesn't actually use AAC codec: it uses SBC broadcast from the right earpiece (NOT advertised anywhere!!). Additionally, my left earpiece has died in under two years and now I have to ship it back to Sennheiser for a replacement!
I love Senny but they dropped the ball on this one.

 

[ahofer]

Worst:
IFI iDSD Pro. Too recent not to be humiliating.
Runner Up: VTL Deluxe 225 (still have it, with spare tubes, if anyone's interested)

Best:
I guess my old Thiel CS3.6. I loved them for more than 25 years.
Runner up: 1987 Bryston 3B, still using it in a second system

I do have some fairly expensive Cardas speaker cables I bought in the early 1990s, but that's just to obvious.