For the friend or relative who just wants to listen to music, and have somebody else get it all together for them, I heartily recommend a look ( internet direct seller ), and a listen ( money back guarantee ) at odysseyaudio.com, the most value oriented system integrator at the Show.
Klaus Bunge manufactures, tweaks, integrates, and keeps the prices low. Also, a real gentleman, who values a customer choosing his $1500 package system just as much as the slightly higher rollers who go for his more elevated systems. He sells components separately, too.
Another gentleman, a Southerner, and I guess you could call him a legend in his own time, Lloyd Walker, showed off his best turntable, with its astronomical $27,000 price tag ( worth it, too ) and in the twinkling of an eye, returned to earth, and politely sold me his new SST Contact enhancer for a Show bargain price of $55 ( regular retail is still quite reasonable ). I am finding that this may be one of those universal tweak ideas that keeps improving a system's performance, as you apply, step by step, to power cords, interconnects, speaker cables, and, even the pins on tubes.
It actually inspires you to call up an audio buddy, to quickly come listen. And, then he wants to "borrow" your remaining supply; fair enough because he always lets me hear his best CD's.
Another impressive tweak, which was being applied on some of my interconnects from home, while I was at the Show, and to which I returned home for a thrilling listen, is offered by cableburner.com. I entrusted two pairs of recently "retired" Marigo interconnects to the burn-in gadgets of George Saubon, who delivered back to me an enhanced interconnect performance which would have been priced in the stratosphere if I had elected to purchase this IC quality from other wire vendors at the Show.
Luckily, I have a number of systems, allowing for separate evaluation of different upgrade efforts. It gets very complicated when a tweak lets an item "leapfrog" in performance over its competition. Then the competition may be able to re-gain the lead, when the same tweak is applied to it. I plan to send some more wires for burn-in, and will gladly be paying for this service that I was fortunate to first try out as an introductory free offer (yes, it was a public ad right here on Audiogon :>)
Hope this review of some inexpensive ways to get great sound, by taking advantage of ideas from conscientious vendors, may be of help to someone who values a bargain.
