What would you recommend to a young person interested in a new stereo?

[70'sMusic]

a young person,who was gifted about 50 LPs,wanted a very small footprint system & didn't want vintage...had to be new & under $500,also she didn't need to play her LPs loud...just enjoyable...when we put together this system for $400...it has the ability to copy LPs to a computer & has BT...sound quality blew me away & she is happy with it for about 6 months now...Music Hall USB 1 TT...$200...AudioEngine 2A+ powered speakers...TT has built in Phono stage & comes with AT 3600L cart. .total $400 AudioEngine 2A+ $200 sale price no BT...I meant DAC

Excellent!

 

[70'sMusic]

You know, it is funny. I hear so much about how unreliable vintage gear is, but the majority of problems I find is crackly controls, one side that is out, or blown fuses. I fix the majority of what I get myself, and most of the time, deoxit or a replacement fuse fixes them up. I clean all the dust out of the unit, clean the cabinet, front panel, and knobs, and they look 8/10 or higher! You just have to be smart about what you pick. Make sure it works, and no bizarre problem that jumps out at you as not being fixed by a good cleaning, deoxit, and fuses. A person should be able to get decent sound for under $100 if you aren’t picky about cosmetics. And then, you can upgrade components as your interest grows. You should be able to get a good sounding setup if you shop carefully for about $250! At $400 and up, you should be able to get great sound. Pick good reliable speakers with rubber surrounds, unknown name brands that you can hear, but sell for much lower prices of the brand name. Sears, MCS, older Lafayette, Yamaha, Kenwood, Sony, Tamon, Speakers made locally using quality components, Realistic, Radio Shack, Hitachi, Toshiba, Nikko, Sharp, Fisher, especially mid 80s and newer! This is great entry level gear that won’t cause you to shed tears when it fails. Just beware of gear affected by those failure prone caps from the 90s. Easy fix if you are handy and you got it for free.

I have turned on many kids to stereo systems, and I saw many younger people last year when I was selling a collection. I am constantly surprised at their knowledge of music from my years. And there are a bunch that are into boom boxes! Imagine the cool factor of making their own tapes from a decent vintage system! (Edited) For cassette decks, I would recommend a newer Denon or Yamaha deck.

LOL - love making my own tapes.

 

[FB night]

"What would you recommend to a young person interested in a new stereo?" If it is about seeking higher fidelity, better find a few mentors. For me it was the writers of all the audio magazines, the stereo stores I visited, the friends with new stereo systems I listened to. Large speakers tend to overpower small rooms, and need room to breath, as they say, though smaller high quality speakers can be excellent in large rooms. Stereo receivers are cost effective and can sound wonderful. Vintage gear (I have lots of) is great, but generally needs serviced before put into a system. Decide on a price point, and what is most important must haves about the new stereo. Whatever you buy, it should fit your lifestyle (if you move when changing jobs, does your stereo get stacked in the back of a pickup, or carefully boxed and handled with care). I would generally recommend buying new, leave all the vintage gear out there for ME to pick up

 

[JoeESP9]

I recently replaced an older Yamaha AVR in my bedroom with a refurbished Yamaha RX-V497 (80WPC) from Accessories4Less. It was $209 with a full factory warranty. It has plenty of inputs HDMI(6), coax(2), optical(1) analog(3) with a USB port and aux (3.5mm) on the front panel. Unlike many budget priced AVR's all of the inputs are usable. Most others have a total of four or five inputs that can be assigned to either HDMI, coax/optical or analog. It also has WiFi and Bluetooth. The only thing it doesn't have is a phono input.

An appropriate phono preamp isn't expensive. A Rolls VP29($49) or an Art DJPreII($48) would work quite well.

The app for iPhones and Android is very nice. It makes it very easy to control the receiver. It even turns it on and off.

 

[Ken Boyd]

I know what I would pick, but it might not be what you like. New, I would probably go buy a new pair of Maggie speakers, a tube preamp, and an amp to hook it up to, and go on ebay and find a clean Pioneer CD player that plays those high end CD's and call it a day.

 

[bluesky]

On the super cheap, all functioning...

1989 Sony amp. Get the mid-line or TOTL. They sound great.

Technics TT with original headshell - $150 to $200 cart (on sale - eBay, Ortofon sounds nice) & new headshell-cartridge lead wires.

1970 Sansui AS-100 speakers - adjustable 'sweet' tweet & 10" AlNiCo magneted woofer (no sub required). Or... other nice sounding speakers & maybe a Sony sub.

Cables - speaker and interconnects: quality 'used' from eBay.

CD player - new NAD.

 

[musichal]

A Yamaha R-S202 receiver from Accessories for Less at $99 is a good budget start. One can also find a pair of Polk RTi-A1 bookshelf speakers in real cherry veneer which are currently $149 from the same place. Unless one already has a fair selection of vinyl in excellent condition, I'd just go with streaming. Chromecast Audio is very affordable at $35, controlled by a free app, I understand. A Polk PSW-10 subwoofer, $90 from Amazon. Sounds very nice for $373, all in.

 

[bluesky]

Sansui

 

[Guest126]

I would first find out is what type of music media the young guy/gal is interested in. No sense in jamming a dusty ol' turntable or tape deck down their throat if they don't listen to records or tapes (or cds), or if they don't have an interest in certain media. What I would do, however, is share my interest in my chosen media types to generate interest and discussion, which could lead to one deciding what music media type they would like to own or try. It may seem hard to believe, but technology in music reproduction has grown significantly, and there is merit in the newer types of hi fidelity equipment. In fact, what could happen is that you as a music listener may develop a new interest in a music media reproduction unit.

 

[70'sMusic]

Sansui

Of course, what was I thinking? LOL - ;-)

 

[70'sMusic]

Another option I forgot about was a powered speaker setup tied to their computer. If all of their music are digital files you could grab a pair of these and connect them to a laptop and create a nice big sound.

Mackie MR524's:
https://express.google.com/u/0/prod...Y0cHZqZHPDCfPmI4QawXa05CqKoITy9EaAon8EALw_wcB

Mackie MR824's:
https://express.google.com/u/0/prod...sru4nDpz0F9guxPbxIZXYKCihbEl7Xk0aAgvBEALw_wcB

 

[Nixxuz]

Plenty of used gear selling on eBay are offered with a warranty so that's a non starter in my book.

That said I just recently helped a young friend getting into vinyl so I know exactly what I would recommend.

A mixture of new and used
A) TT was a pristine Technics SL1200 MKII / Shure Me95ED with a new stylus, all in $360
B) Speakers were Dayton Audio T652Air towers new from Parts Express $99
C) Sherwood RX4109 new stereo receiver with phono through Amazon $125

$584 All in, not chump change but a real TT, full size amplifier, and tower speakers. Not a final destination for most here but a great starter system and possibly the bees knees for many without our sickness lol, I know Cooper was happy with his new rig.

If this is over budget, there are a plethora of schveet vintage Sony direct drive turntables available on eBay in the $100 range, with this the bill of fare would be a whopping $324 all in. I originally suggested a nice Sony to Cooper but his criteria included a "WOW" factor so I showed him the Technics. It was over his original budget but he got a great deal on it so.........

View attachment 1298913 View attachment 1298914 View attachment 1298915

I wanna know where everyone is finding these SL1200 MK2's for under $500. I've seen exactly one on my local CL for $375. I mean, I'm pretty happy with my QD33, but it'd be nice to have the option...

 

[Nixxuz]

My approach would be different. If the goal is to get them interested in better sound, vinyl isn't going to do it. They only want vinyl purely for the 'cool' factor- not the fidelity and they certainly aren't interested in analog tuners and FM in general. My boys don't ever listen to the 'radio'. Most of the teenager friends of our oldest haven't even seen a record, and if they have, they simply believe they are for old people. They look at my chit with bemusement, until I put on a 'demo' CD and you should see the look on their faces.

It reminds me of the first time I heard CD in 1983. You need to wow people, not play them an ancient format if you want to get them into a new system or hobby. It's like demonstrating a 60" 4K TV with a VHS tape.

I'd focus on a really good late 80s/early 90s system. Probably an SL1200mk2 TT (if you really want vinyl), a high quality CD player and integrated, high powered Japanese amplifier, along with a nice pair of medium sized bookshelf speakers that can be standmounted. Hook a decent D/A into it and they can stream whatever other stuff they want into their 'vintage' rig.

I just recently "wow'd" a fairly successful late 20's local musician when he stopped by to check out my main system. We are co-workers in another field, and I happened to mention something about tubes once. He wanted to know what I was doing with them. Anyway, he came over and drooled a bit, and I put on my vinyl MCA Audiophile pressing of Steely Dan's "Gold". It gave him more of a "wow" than any high bitrate file I could play off my digital player. (And I have a 3000kbps Flac version of Hey Nineteen). He was under the assumption that vinyl was inherently worse sounding than digital. I assured him that, as a straight measurement it certainly is. But good sound isn't totally about measurements.

 

[Grenadeslio]

I wanna know where everyone is finding these SL1200 MK2's for under $500. I've seen exactly one on my local CL for $375. I mean, I'm pretty happy with my QD33, but it'd be nice to have the option...

Well first of all you mention seeing one for $375, I could be mistaken but I believe that's below $500 lol.

Second, right there in my post you quoted is the answer to your question.

 

[JoeESP9]

Of course, what was I thinking? LOL - ;-)

Most of us know that bluesky always suggests Sansui.

 

[jrtrent]

. . . I'll kick it off with my recommendations - everything depends on budget but if you can put these components together I think you will have a great start to a nice sounding system at a relatively reasonable investment. . . What do you think?

Your choices would likely make a nice-sounding system. I'd probably suggest an NAD C 558 turntable, Onkyo A-9150 integrated amplifier, and Bose 301 series V speakers with FS-01 stands.

 

[Nixxuz]

My go to system, dependent on price, would have been a pair of BIC DV62SI's, a Denon AVRS530BT, and a BIC F12 sub. About $500 with BT capability to start. Then, they could easily add a couple more 62SI's and a center for HT, or what have you. The Denon is very cheap, but I've got a previous model of the same thing and it sounds quite good for $150 5.1 with 4K passthrough. The 62's are, for only $129, pretty damn good, but I haven't had a chance to hear the T652 AIR towers from PE. The F12 is probably the best sub for under $500 I think you can get right now. You could sub in a pair of Klipsch RM? dependant on sales for some extra decibels.

 

[FONSguy]

I think that if the youngster was REALLY INTERESTED IN LEARNING BEFORE BUYING, you could mentor them, and spend as much time as needed to get them up to speed. You could start with separates/receivers/amps & tuners, then onto turntables and carts. then into speakers and finally budgeting and planning for the future. You might also accompany them on their first few purchases.

 

[Sandstrom]

Actually, believe it or not the Sprout is not a bad sounding little amp. I think it is a great suggestion for a Millenial. Had one in an office setup once and it is pretty flexible and sounds pretty good, had it together with some PSB speakers. With it's integrated phono stage, DAC and bluetooth, It would probably fulfill any needs the newcomer could want. Plus being so small it would appeal to the minimalism trend that seems to be common these days. On the used market they can be found pretty reasonably and I think Massdrop had them at one point.

 

[WaynerN]

What would I recommend? Their phone.