Equipment found at the dump


I work at a waste transfer station. We get some interesting things thrown away. Lots of older speakers most with bad foam surrounds. I've repaired 2 pairs of Advents, have a pair of Allison Eights, a pair of Bose 601's, ADS 620's, and some misc speaker drivers and componets. I missed out on a pair of DQ-10's. Lots of turntables mostly cheap stuff.I did find a Thorens and a Luxman. I keep the cartridges if they appear good. I've found componets and systems which are 5 to 15 years old and in good working condition, Kenwood, Yamaha, Denon stuff. Some of the more interesting things found are:Conrad Johnson Premier 3,The Fisher tube tuner KT-60 and integrated amp, Quad 22 system minus amps, SME SII tonearm with cable, Aragon 24k minus power supply(I found this one after pushing up the metal pile with a loader, the Tiffany connectors caught my eye), SAE preamp, Adcom GFA-1a, Pioneer SX-939, H/K 730, B&O mini speakers, NAD 4155 tuner. It amazes me what gets thrown. I,ve put systems together for my kids and have given systems and componets to the school to sell in yard sale fundraisers. My computers have all come home from work, all Pentium III's with great componets and memory. I hope to start an audio club with my son at the local Charter School and use the things I've found to get interested kids started in our hobby. Although this stuff isn't the best, we all started somewhere. All systems can be improved or tweeked and the fundamentals are important(phase, placement, alignment). This would be fun.
I'm interested in what equipment others have found or have been given. Thanks
rickmac
Yup, Lots of stuff gets put out to the trash, the other day my wife was driving not far from the house and she spotted a milk crate full of albums out to the road (52 albums). Most turned out to be near mint and a good many were even in audiophile jackets...go figure?

Dave
HEY, I WANT ALL THAT STUFF BACK! MY GIRLFRIEND KEEPS THROWING IT OUT! hhahaahhahaha
Nothing like visiting the dump. (Brings back memories of my little Nissan 1/2 ton pick-ups loaded down w/tons of stuff.) However, the dump where I
used to live was very stringent about not allowing anything taken out. Haven't been as fortunate as you but have been buying quite a few older relatively unknown "gems" on E-Bay lately for very reasonable $.
Rickmac: That is great that you want to get kids involved in audio. If you've got the time to do something like this, we may all thank you for it later. After all, the more "young un's" that we can recruite at that age, the more likely they are to spread the word about "lo-fi" recordings and recording formats. The more people ( regardless of age or size ) that we have on "our" side, the better off we'll be.

Keep up the good work and let me know if you find a pair of .... : ) Sean
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I have never found myself but have heard stories of older Tannoy speakers..reds..gold..being discovered at a land filled site.
Its enough to make a grown man cry!!!!
And the best thing is (besides costing $zilch), they all have that great 'fresh from the dump' aroma you just can't get with used gear bought on Audiogon...
Not quite the dump... a friend from work gave me his '70's Realistic STA-2270 when he bought his theatre in a box. I found out later (in an emergency) that the 2270 was one of those 'hidden gems'. The tuner is especially impressive as it replaced my bedroom 4155 easily!!! Poor, poor Donnie...
My father and brother-in-law brought me 14 milk crates of great mint albums when the towns they did business in had "dump day" in 1995. Just like the equipment that grows in my garage though, I've only played about a crate. They said about ten house each had left a crate or two. Considering they are ritzy towns, I knew I had it made before checking them out. 50's Jazz, 60's underground, and 70's classics mostly.

My music friend found two large Theils (4 1/2 ft) on the side of the road on "dump day" in her town a few years later. She ended up replacing one woofer and bought two more on ebay. Now she has an excellent SACD / DVD-A full-range surround set-up that's pretty mind blowing.
This summer, as I was coming back from the river on my bicycle, exhauted from the ride, I saw a very old looking corner type wooden box on the sidewalk among boxes and debris. It was obviously there for a while. It had rained on it and the top layer of the wood started to peel of at some places! Well, I couln't take it with me on my bike... So I came back later with my friend's Jeep. It was still there. When I got home, I removed the heavy protective grill. It was a 3 ways speaker by Electrovoice. A 12 inch woofer, a plastic horn midrange and a tweeter. The speakers looked not damaged by the water thanx to the ultra heavy protective grill. I plugged it in. Miracle... It worked AND sounded amazing... very natural. Among the best mid I have heard. The tweeter wasn't working. I am planning on using it as an extra speaker to put somewhere in the house. I will have to fix the crossover. The tweeter has already been fixed by a friend of mine. It looks terrible but sounds fabulous... Now, I need to find another one...
Its amazing what some folks throw out,when i was a kid i always had a bicycle built from parts that i rescued from the trashpiles! Also found a nice sounding Fender Champ tube guitar amp ! I found a pr of speakers and and old reciever that sounded nice that my ex girlfriends daughter still uses,,
it's amazing the things people throw out...i got my son at the dump, and excellent additions to my tin can collection...