what are your top "audio bargins" in your system history?

Little Feat Time Loves a Hero test pressing with white label. 50 cents at a thrift store. I have over 2500 LPs and this is still the SQ champ. Runner-up is a set of Bowers & Wilkins DM 110i. $50 thrift store. These were cheap speakers to begin with so there's no way they should sound as good as they do. I think it has to do with the synergy I run them with Quicksilver and Prima Luna monoblocks

I was stationed in Germany where we could buy audio equipment at a substantial discount.  I bought a pair of Infinity RSIIb speakers that were simply superb.  Sadly, on a subsequent move in Germany—a decade later, they were destroyed when the  mover’s truck had a hole in the roof and they were soaked to the core.  I wanted another pair, but my lovely and very supportive of my audio addiction wife wanted something less dominating in the room, so I went for the Infinity Modulus satellite subwoofer system in 1992.  Just replaced them last year with Fyne F702s.

A Gustard R26 I paid full retail for ($1600) last year was the best bang for buck I've yet experienced in my system.

About 5 years ago I had a search bot app for Craigslist.

I had it watching for Magnepans.

After about 6 months the right deal came along... a pair of mint, SMG's with magnariser stands for $250.

Although the app had done it's job, I left it to continue searching. 2 months later a pair of mint 1.7's had popped up, so I grabbed them for $500. The owner had gotten a promotion that required he move to Chicago immediately. He was selling a spacious house and moving into a tiny, expensive condo in downtown Chicago.... no place to put the Maggies.

Mine wasn’t a component at all, it was the about the $98 or so I spent buying a fiber transmitter receiver and cable to install in the Ethernet line just before my bluesound node. Wow what a difference! If I’d spent 5 times that much it’d still be a bargain. Now I’ve upgraded to an Esoteric Network Player and still use the fiber. Still wow, just a bigger wow!