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Low budget, just for fun

So I'm lookong to buy my girlfriend a stereo for christmas. Here's the catch: I'm trying to piece together a receiver, cd player and speakers, all used for a little more than the price of a boom box from say, best buy or whetever, but it has to sound way better than said boom box. I found an onkyo receiver ($45), sony dvd / cd player ($45), and some infinity sm 122 floorstanding speakers ($75 with crappy rca receiver, going to offer $50 for just the speakers). Anyways, this is actually pretty fun trying to piece together the best system you can for the least amount of money possible. Anyone else out there do something similar? It would be interesting to have an audio show with a $200 system limit and see who could come up with the best sound!
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jedinite24's avatar
jedinite24
1,503 posts
 
She must be a keeper if she is willing to accept an old vintage system comprised of separates. Unless you got really lucky the gear you are buying will not have the most WAF or GAF. $200 may not get you far.

From perusing my local Craigslist for $200 you can get.

$60 Sony 3 way towers model #: SSU530
$50 Kenwood stereo receiver KR-V6070
$20 Panasonic DTS DVD player DVD-A120
$50 Used Bang & Olufsen B&O Beogram 1800 Turntable

No idea where your ICs and SCs will come from.

I think you should follow Tpreaves advice.
harri009
100 posts
 
I vote buy her the audiophile dream system then marry her. Thus now your dream system. :)
mt10425
1,138 posts
 
Elizabeth is right, second hand stores. Maybe you can find a ring there. 8-)
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,838 posts
 
You can save on the CD player by ripping CDs to a computer if you have one with some disk storage available. Then play the ripped CDs (or other sources like internet Radio) on the computer and run a stereo to dual RCA phono Y connector from PC headphone output to a receiver input.

Bigger bang for the buck if you already have the computer.
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,838 posts
 
Or, you might even consider finding an inexpensive pair of powered speakers and hooking that up to the computer, assuming that digital including internet radio will be your only source, not uncommon in this day and age.
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