blue72
Active Member
Well, for me it was at least. I know this doesn’t compare to a number of other acquisition stories that I’ve seen around here.
So there I was, just calmly browsing on the local Craigslist seven minutes before the end of work on Thursday while waiting for a file to render before I had to go home. I clicked on a couple of links for unremarkable items in the Electronics section, but then again, my local Craigslist never really has anything remarkable. The best stuff I’ve ever seen in the year that I’ve been looking daily were some Martin Logan electrostat panels for $1,000, a pair of K-horns for mega money, and more recently, a pair of Altec Model 14s for more than I could afford. My budget is usually limited to whatever is cheap at the local thrift stores, and $100 is the most I’d ever spent for a pair of speakers (Klipsch KG 5.5 in perfect condition). Anyway, the Craigslist ad was for “home theatre speakers and amplifier” so I was thinking that it was some kind of HTIB or other low-end equipment until I read the full listing and had to double-check the asking price. I emailed the seller right away because there was no phone number listed. That whole evening I kept checking my email every half-hour, but no reply came until 9:00 at night when he sent me a name and a phone number to call the next day.
After work on Friday I called and confirmed that I was the ‘chosen one’ then we set up a time to meet. I was going to be watching my daughter all evening while my wife was playing a couple of gigs, so it’d have to wait until Saturday. I distracted myself reading the owner’s manuals for the equipment online, perusing specs, and reading other people’s reviews.
Saturday finally came and I drove the 45 minutes down the freeway at our lovely, legal 80 mph limit. At last, I came face to face with the equipment and their original owner.
I bought a sequential pair of Martin & Kreisel Satellite-1B speakers, a Velodyne ULD-15 subwoofer with matching serial # controller, an Energy EAC active crossover, and a Harman Kardon 7.1 AVR for $200. All of the original owners manuals and cables were included. As an added bonus, both the sub and the sats are finished in genuine walnut veneer.
The seller was a wonderful older gentleman who said that he hadn’t used the equipment now for a few years. His story was that he had originally purchased the speakers and subwoofer because he loved listening to 78 RPM recordings of pipe organs, and the subwoofer was what was available at the time to reproduce the extreme low notes. Sometime in the latter part of the mid-eighties he had dropped 3 grand on this system. Nowadays he looked to be using a large soundbar with a giant LCD panel. He had picked up the Energy active crossover somewhere along the line in order to keep male vocals from creeping into the subwoofer. I reassured him that I was not planning to flip the speakers and subwoofer, but to keep them and listen as often as possible for many a year to come. In fact, I didn’t even audition the equipment at his house. I accepted his word that it had worked the last time he’d used it and I was on my merry way back home.
Once everything was unpacked in the living room, I hooked it all up for testing. The speakers are working exquisitely and sound great so far, but I’ll have to move them into the family room where the space is better suited for listening (everything sounds way too bright in my living room with wood floors and no drapes) and then play with the midrange and tweeter controls. I exercised the subwoofer with some test tones on an iPod hooked up directly to the amplifier/servo control. I got to hear what it could do for all of about 60 seconds before I went too low and ripped the 30 year old, original woofer surround with 16 Hz. I don't think the gain knob was even close to 30% at the time. I pretty much fully expected to replace the surround myself at some point anyway and was kinda surprised that it was still intact in the first place. I know that it works though, so I am more than happy to finally own one of these Velodyne servo control subwoofers.
This is the most ‘high end’ equipment that I’ve ever owned, at least based on the original MSRP and there is no way that I’d ever have been able to afford such a nice setup any other way.
Next comes the process of figuring out which of my current amps/receivers to pair with the M&K and Velodyne. Eventually there will be a showdown between them, the Epicure 20+, the Bose 10.2 towers, and the Klipsch KG 5.5 towers for prominent placement in the listening space. The only separates that I own at the moment are an Onkyo P-3300 preamp and M-5300 power amplifier, so I might just continue using them with this setup until one day I can afford (or stumble upon) something slightly more powerful.
Now to just sell some other equipment to make up this sudden deficit in our budget before the end of the month.
I wonder how much plasma donation pays?
So there I was, just calmly browsing on the local Craigslist seven minutes before the end of work on Thursday while waiting for a file to render before I had to go home. I clicked on a couple of links for unremarkable items in the Electronics section, but then again, my local Craigslist never really has anything remarkable. The best stuff I’ve ever seen in the year that I’ve been looking daily were some Martin Logan electrostat panels for $1,000, a pair of K-horns for mega money, and more recently, a pair of Altec Model 14s for more than I could afford. My budget is usually limited to whatever is cheap at the local thrift stores, and $100 is the most I’d ever spent for a pair of speakers (Klipsch KG 5.5 in perfect condition). Anyway, the Craigslist ad was for “home theatre speakers and amplifier” so I was thinking that it was some kind of HTIB or other low-end equipment until I read the full listing and had to double-check the asking price. I emailed the seller right away because there was no phone number listed. That whole evening I kept checking my email every half-hour, but no reply came until 9:00 at night when he sent me a name and a phone number to call the next day.
After work on Friday I called and confirmed that I was the ‘chosen one’ then we set up a time to meet. I was going to be watching my daughter all evening while my wife was playing a couple of gigs, so it’d have to wait until Saturday. I distracted myself reading the owner’s manuals for the equipment online, perusing specs, and reading other people’s reviews.
Saturday finally came and I drove the 45 minutes down the freeway at our lovely, legal 80 mph limit. At last, I came face to face with the equipment and their original owner.
I bought a sequential pair of Martin & Kreisel Satellite-1B speakers, a Velodyne ULD-15 subwoofer with matching serial # controller, an Energy EAC active crossover, and a Harman Kardon 7.1 AVR for $200. All of the original owners manuals and cables were included. As an added bonus, both the sub and the sats are finished in genuine walnut veneer.
The seller was a wonderful older gentleman who said that he hadn’t used the equipment now for a few years. His story was that he had originally purchased the speakers and subwoofer because he loved listening to 78 RPM recordings of pipe organs, and the subwoofer was what was available at the time to reproduce the extreme low notes. Sometime in the latter part of the mid-eighties he had dropped 3 grand on this system. Nowadays he looked to be using a large soundbar with a giant LCD panel. He had picked up the Energy active crossover somewhere along the line in order to keep male vocals from creeping into the subwoofer. I reassured him that I was not planning to flip the speakers and subwoofer, but to keep them and listen as often as possible for many a year to come. In fact, I didn’t even audition the equipment at his house. I accepted his word that it had worked the last time he’d used it and I was on my merry way back home.
Once everything was unpacked in the living room, I hooked it all up for testing. The speakers are working exquisitely and sound great so far, but I’ll have to move them into the family room where the space is better suited for listening (everything sounds way too bright in my living room with wood floors and no drapes) and then play with the midrange and tweeter controls. I exercised the subwoofer with some test tones on an iPod hooked up directly to the amplifier/servo control. I got to hear what it could do for all of about 60 seconds before I went too low and ripped the 30 year old, original woofer surround with 16 Hz. I don't think the gain knob was even close to 30% at the time. I pretty much fully expected to replace the surround myself at some point anyway and was kinda surprised that it was still intact in the first place. I know that it works though, so I am more than happy to finally own one of these Velodyne servo control subwoofers.
This is the most ‘high end’ equipment that I’ve ever owned, at least based on the original MSRP and there is no way that I’d ever have been able to afford such a nice setup any other way.
Next comes the process of figuring out which of my current amps/receivers to pair with the M&K and Velodyne. Eventually there will be a showdown between them, the Epicure 20+, the Bose 10.2 towers, and the Klipsch KG 5.5 towers for prominent placement in the listening space. The only separates that I own at the moment are an Onkyo P-3300 preamp and M-5300 power amplifier, so I might just continue using them with this setup until one day I can afford (or stumble upon) something slightly more powerful.
Now to just sell some other equipment to make up this sudden deficit in our budget before the end of the month.
I wonder how much plasma donation pays?
