Lets go dumpster diving!!!!

hello friends, stereo rob here about to go on my normal sunday night trash run, as a audiophile collector trash digging is a must!! last sunday i found a realistic sta-52 receiver in a dumpster. a few weeks back i found an old pair of ar-2 speakers, with an old garrard turntable, i target older middle class neighborhoods with old people in them when grandma dies the old dusty hi-fi goes to the curb and i have found some real tresures over the years in the trash including a marantz 2270 and a fisher 400 tube receiver. how bout you? i go every weekend. im a avid dumpster diver! by the way wish me luck for tonight!!!!!!!

You better hurry tonight! You don't give a location in Florida, but it's raining in Tampa.

Hell, if you're close....

always check the dump

I got all my speakers at the dump. Large advents, bose, polks, amazing what people will throw away. a couple weeks ago I found a sansui au-517 in the metal bin....ok, so it didnt work....but did I RESCUE it....hoping someday to get it fixed? YES!

thumbs up to you dumpster divers! recycle, reuse!

I keep my eyes open when I'm out on an errand, but I don't make a special trip. I've found a nice complete Heathkit mono setup - W5-M, preamp and tuner; a beautiful 1930s Gretsch tenor guitar that needs major restoration, an old Textronix tube oscilloscope; and various other odds and ends.

Hey! I'm in the 561 also. Good luck!

I prefer "e-cycling" to "dumpster diving"! At least this gives me dignity when I'm sifting through the garbage!!

I just dive into my wallet

Curb finds...

Marantz 2230*
Yamaha SX 780#
Yamaha SX 950#
Sony CDP-311*
Some generic-ish VHS/DVD combo*
Several pairs of speakers, but nothing of note
no-name copy of a Les Paul (needed a new pickup toggle switch)
Dell computer - P4 2.2g (swapped the power supply, now it works great)
Compaq computer - AMD Athlon 1.8g (virus, ran great for 3 years so far after OS clean install)
Sony PS2*

* = fully functional
# = works in progress

I have another list almost as long of ridiculous thrift store finds.

allright local stereo hunter! been out to the farm lately?

Man, you guys are lucky to find anything at all. Around here people (seemingly anyway) never throw away their stuff they sell it and want too much. You'll see people selling Fisher and Sony rack systems from the 80's asking for $100. Like a fool I saw someone selling an old silver Sansui - I forgot what the model was but it was a nice one for $20 - nothing wrong with it. I didn't need it at the time and just ignored it but I thought about it more and thought - why not for $20? But it's gone now...my local thrift stores never have ANYTHING. It's all the cheapest crap on the planet and never anything good.

Out of several years of looking at thrift stores I have found only a FEW good items which I will list:

-Luxman L-480 integrated amplifier for $40 - there was a TON of stuff here like a B&O turntable for $30 and some other stuff I forgot. I only had enough to buy the Luxman and when I came back the rest was all gone. Thing worked PERFECT, no idea why they sold so cheap. I ended up cleaning it and using it for a few months and had a guy a few states away buy it for $100.

-Pioneer PL-71 direct drive turntable in near perfect condition save for a bent needle (had a cartridge and everything though and I fixed the needle) and the plastic cover is cracked but still works fine - $5. Not hooked up right now but it works great, I really want to get it hooked up again!

-Technics dual cassette deck that was PERFECT for $5 at a Goodwill - just missing the power cable which I had a spare. Not a great find on this one but it is a Made in Japan model.

-Massive old Pioneer SX-939 receiver which ended up having a problem with one of the speaker outs not working right or something, I forget - $5.

Sadly all my lucky finds aren't anything I'm using in my main system though, they're all laying around here and there. I had to track down all my components and buy from individuals but I got good deals anyway. I have a friend who I swear has THE MOST ridiculous luck. He walks into a goodwill and finds a pair of McIntosh tube amps and McIntosh tube pre-amps plus some really valuable electrovoice drivers all in a basket and bought the lot for $200...sometimes it makes me ill the luck he has finding this stuff.

I'll never go through trash to find this stuff, but in our nicer part of town nice equipment usually ends up at the Goodwill or something. Probably lots of this stuff in yard sales too but that's way too time consuming for me. We're bad though...we occasionally throw away stuff that's just total junk or that we already robbed all the parts out of at the end of our driveway and without fail someone comes by and takes it lol...like a computer with nothing left but a fried mobo and a shot PSU and nothing else in it...or an old cheapo TV from the 80's that was rained on for two days...

I'm not brave enough to dive into dumpsters. However, here in Alaska we've got a bunch of free dumpsites in many communities. The theory is, if you charge for dumping trash, folks will just go dump it in the woods (since there's so much wild land). Anyways, in Fairbanks, dumpsites would often have "transfer" stations attatched-- or covered areas where folks could leave stuff that they think someone else could use. It's an awesome system.

My friend scored a bunch of free bananas that way once.

You'd get arrested in a heart beat here Or shot at. But I seriously doubt you would find a damn thing around here

You will also be arrested for removing anything from the recycling center/transfer station. They have security people watching you. You would have to catch it before it left the other guys truck.

To many people here are from somewhere else they have the big sale before they move here.

SoCal Sam said:

I prefer "e-cycling" to "dumpster diving"! At least this gives me dignity when I'm sifting through the garbage!!

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:lmao::lmao::lmao:

Sucks that people throw this stuff away... sometime try posting to CL looking for old broken stereo gear. That's how I got my first two pieces (Yam. CR-220 and HK 680i) Of course I got totally lucky. Normally one would probably get buried under an avalanche of all in one crap.

im happy to know there are others out there besides me..
my best find ever.. is a yamaha m-4 poweramp and c-4 preamp..
although i go once every week i dont always find great stuff..
i just about always find something worth dragging home though..
tonight i found alot of stuff.. the best of it is a mini ipod,, and 2 older computers..
the other stuff is somewhat goofy..
bran new can of oven cleaner, dog shampoo, abunch of cool looking candels, bran new bottle of gorilla glue, a really nice skrewdriver..

there was other stuff i didnt bring home.. abunch of x-mas lights, 2 computer monitors, a printer.. some furnature.. im thinking about now is the best time to go.. people are about to get their tax moolah back.. out with the old.. in with the new.

Someone tossed a 2270. Ugh.

SBEEZ said:

I'm not brave enough to dive into dumpsters.

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I've never been in a dumpster in my life. I work a job where I drive around the city all day and all of my finds (see above) were right out in the open. In many cases I'm sue that the "trasher" wanted someone to pick it up.

and still to this day, i still continue to find cool stuff.

I found my KLH 6 speakers at the recycle area of our dump. That was where folks would leave stuff that they didn't want any longer, but still worked. Got them home and they are still working, after nine years with me. Possibly could use a capacitor upgrade. They don't take electronic equipment any longer for handing out because the area is now in the open.

All of my other vintage gear came from EBay, tag sales, estate sales, or garage sales or was gear that I just have owned for 40 years or more.