Best bang-for-buck purchase you have made?

1. Magnepan speakers -- I'm a convert for life
2. Nordost cables (Red Dawn and Blue Heaven)-- Made my other cables sound defective and so improved the sound that I still have trouble believing how good they are.

Oris 150 horns bought used on the gon

Pair of brand-new, still sealed in the box JMLabs Mezzo Utopias for $3,000. Not hot, either (called JMLabs and confirmed serial numbers, etc. from original bill of sale).

will

Telefunken 12AX7's $100 for my Encore preamp 0h my God what a incredible improvement. Also EVS attenuaters will put many much much more expensive preamps too shame.

Not too long ago, a 'friend' of mine sold me his Adcom GFP-750 for the remarkable price of $200. He was being kind, of course, and he sooo much wanted me to pitch the old, crappy, Yamaha preamp that I had at the time. In retrospect, it was probably more important to him than it was to me.

I was entirely unprepared for the demo. I just knew that there was NO WAY that a preamp would make more than a minor improvement in the sound of my modest stereo. Naturally, I couldn't have been more wrong - and I still have that preamp.