Years ago my boss had a system I had chance to hear at his town house in downtown Richmond. It was an Adcom preamp with Adcom 535 amp. 65 watts per channel? Somewhere around that. A Caimbridge CD player, and I wish I could remember what his speakers were, some Di'Appilito style bookshelf speakers on nice stands. Proper setup, and he had a very nice sound that didn't bother the neighbors. Forgive me but that was 15 years ago and details escape me. He was proud of it and rightfully so, I was impressed with the sound quality he was getting, while it wasn't my $15K system, it was very livable. He still owes me about 3 CD's I loaned him! It's probably over $500, but used you may come close.
Ideas for budget audiophiles
I recently rented an apartment closer to work to save myself a long drive. A big system, like I have at home, is out of the question. So, a headphone system would be perfect. The system I put together is inexpensive and it is a very nice system. The thought occurred to me that people on a budget, or for gifts for the holidays, might appreciate "reasonably priced" ideas. I put together a Pure i-20 ($90) which outputs Toslink to a Maverick Audio TubeMagic D1 pre-amp/DAC/Headphone unit ($199). If someone on your list has an iPod or iPhone or ipod Touch, the i-20 pulls the digital stream and can output to analog audio, Toslink optical, Digital coax, and has a USB input from their computer. Pretty good for $89. The Maverick has USB/Toslink/SPDIF coax/analog input so their computer can stream from the hard drive or Mog/Pandora/etc. I have my music stored on a classic ipod in lossless apple and I have tried my Sennheiser 600s and the sound is amazingly good, although there are remarkably good $99 headphones out there. So, $400 gets you outstanding sound. Now, what other systems out there would you recommend for the budget audiophile? Can we keep it under $500? My rig could add self-powered speakers for an additional $300-400 and make a complete system. I am interested in your ideas. Maybe we can make this holiday something special for those who love great music and sound but have limited resources.