The "Anti-Scroe" - What gear did you bleed for?

When I bought my ShengYa V-518's from RetroStereo. He let me put $500 down and I saved and sold off a few other things and album about a month later I was able to pay the remaining $1k and he shipped them.

I also paid a lot for my Juicy Music Blueberry Xtreme 2 preamp once I was presented a chance to buy one after looking for a while... And it's been worth every dime.

- Woody


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:lurk: probably the Porsche 914/6s I've owned over the years, and buying a new Boxster S in 2000 which a wise investment in Intel for 4 years paid for. Still wondering what that money could have produced if invested wisely, like I did 2 years later with AAPL, lessee, $65k worth of apple stock at $80, pre-2:1 and 7:1 splits. Oh, about $1.25 million worth today!
 
As a kid, I worked 3 to close, and every weekend for months on end at Radio Shack. Every spare cent went on the layaway payment for several pieces of gear.I still have my basic garage system, but the cassette and 8 track player/recorder and turntable are long gone. I had a TOTL Yamaha car system in my Z28. (Mind you I'm 18, 19 when this is happening.) Lately it's been vintage Kenwood gear, although I picked up a Yamaha receiver the other day that I plan on playing with over the weekend, just to see if that natural sound badge has any merit.
 
Well actually every piece I own i bled for, as they are all tough to acquire. But until recently I bought everything off the used market, and with a bit of focus I was able to sell them a year or two later with no loss. So it was financially prudent to upgrade a system that way.

But the pieces that I have really bled for was:

1: ZYX 4 D cartridge. i sold darn near anything that wasn't nailed down to be
able to afford it.

2: Jeff Rowland Consumamte pre-amp. The most I ever spent for a pre to date

3: Art Audio Diavolo Beautiful amp, wish i still owned it.

4: Teres Audio 225: I bought it in stages, so it didn't seem that expensive at
the time.


Ok the one item I bought that I have lost my ass on is a used Clearaudio Signature cartridge. Seller lied and misrepresented what happened to it. Bought it for $300 knowing it needed a retip. Turned out it took a hard hit and had coil damage. Got it repaired, with my total cost of the cartridge being $700. A year later a coil wire failed again, not repairable. Ended up being converted to a mono cartridge, and sitting on my night stand. As I have no turntables set up for mono and only a few mono records. Did not go well for the piggie on this one.


Regards
Mister Pig
 
The summer of 1976, I saved all of my money so I could buy my first audio system, a Harman/Kardon receiver, BIC turntable, and a pair of Advent speakers.

As I was leaving for my second year in college, I had to stop and pick up my high school buddy along with his stuff. Now we are off but have one more stop to make. :music:

I stopped at my local audio store to pick up my audio system. At the time I was driving a 1972 Buick Skylark coupe. Somehow, I was able to fit the H/K, BIC, and a pair of Advents into an already packed to the hilt Skylark. The trunk was packed full and the back seat was even fuller with the audio system.

For me, this was the best summer I ever had, and I have fond memories of my first audio system, which I will never forget.
 
It would've been back in 1988 when I was 19,just had to own a AKAI VSA-77 hi-fi,Dolby Surround VCR. It received amazing reviews in the hi-fi magazines and looked incredible. I wasn't earning much at the time,but could just about afford it (I even tried to give up smoking after I purchased it,but that only lasted a few days). Anyway,I'll never forget the feeling of joy and excitement when handing over the £700 cash in a Currys electrical store... I've still got the AKAI,but it no longer works.
 
I got a hankering for an Acurus L10 preamp when they came out: mil-spec construction, clean signal path, beautifully machined knobs, etc. I tried to talk the dealer down but they wouldn't budge, so I eventually paid full price.

About a decade later, in a downsizing/simplifying mode (I've gone through several waves of complication<->simplification), I sold the separates and chose the Rotel RX-1050 receiver. Paid full price for that piece, too. I still use it in an office system.

Oh — I also paid full price for a Sony DTC-75ES DAT deck, in order to do a specific recording project. I used that deck heavily until it wore out.
 
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Definitely my Celestion 66s.

These started out as cabinets with the bass drivers and radiators + crossovers. I bought these for $200 plus I threw in a pair of HF2000s from a pair of Celestion Ditton 25s.

I then sourced a pair of MF500 mid domes from eBay for the measly sum of $400 (ouch, I know but I wanted to get these working). And finally instead of finding original HF2000s, I had a pair of Seas 19TFF1s from another project that I decided to use. Those tweeters cost me about $80 I believe.

Then, the crossovers were totally rebuilt using solen polypropylene capacitors for the mid and treble filters and Alcap capacitors on the bass filter. I don't remember the cost here but I think around $120.

After getting them all fired up, something did not sound right. I discovered one of the mid domes had a resonance issue on very specific notes. $75 later, the mid is repaired and singing.

Also, there was far too much bass. I pulled the bass woofers and discovered one of them was measuring 6.4ohms DC, whereas the other one was around 4.1ohms. DO'H. Luckily, I have a pair of Celestion 12" bass drivers (again, from a pair of Celestion Ditton 25s) laying around. These were not free, but cheap at least.

Now after all of this, you would think, they must be good right? Well, they are good.. but not great. After talking to someone on DIYAudio who went down the same path as I, he discovered that polypropylene capacitors in the mid filter cause resonance issues (which were proven in graphs). Also, the treble filter was not done quite properly and I need to change the capacitance values as well as replace the coil.

In the end I'll have to throw another $100 or so at them, and hopefully at that point I will have the great sounding pair of Celestion 66s I've always wanted. Or maybe I'll just use the original circuit and get a pair of HF2000s and call it a day.

All in all, far too much money has been poured into these without satisfying results. But eh, what can you do? I've lusted for a pair of these for a couple years now. It definitely got the better of me.
 
Never 'worked' hard for a piece of stereo gear. Just haven't.

Now I've 'searched' daily, in 5 different countries eBay(s) for 3 to 8 years for some items.

Searching is Work.

Almost have it all done now.
 
When I was 14, I worked my butt off all summer long in a sweaty warehouse for $3.30/hr to buy a Lafayette LR-75A receiver (15 W/ch) and a ceramic cartridge meat-grinder of a BSR 6500AX. My dad threw in a pair of home-built speakers and I was in business! I've had a lot of audio equipment since then, but I never worked as hard for any of it.
 
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I gave so many hours of music lessons to pay for my uber system - my student's dad was selling his $62,000 system for $13,000 in pristine condition, so I had to get it...
 
It was the 90s and I decided it was a good idea to sell my APPLE stock for a booming car audio system; I mean why not their stock price was in the toilet! $2K later I ended up with an Alpine deck and cd changer, a sony amp, infinity kappas all around along with two 10s in a bandpass.

The idiocy of youth. That car is long go as is that system, but IF I'd kept the APPLE stock it'd be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars now. I bled for that system and I still bleed everyday for that decision...sigh.
 
Can't say I have had to use any band aids, but I have sweated a few times taking a risk on total strangers being honest.

I really could post dozens of stories but here is one.

A post in Dollars and Sense, are these worth it, a pair of Infinity RSIIb's and a Yamaha M70 amp for two hundred dollars. I thought it seemed like a good deal, and so did all the other members, we let the poster know great deal go get them. Only thing is, he had no money, so we suggested all kinds of ideas for him to drum up the money this went on for a few days, I think someone even recommended pimping is wife. But after a number of days, he just couldn't think of a way to come up with the money, guess wife's are not the hot commodity in Lake Havasu. Anyway I give the guy a call, figure they would be sold by now anyway, but he said he still has them, but he wants cash, has no paypal account, and I was in Georgia at the time. I Fex Ex him a bank check, and make arrangements to have a shipper pick them up. All the while I think when the shipper shows up, he isn't going to answer the door and has already sold them long ago. All my worries were in vain the shipper picks them up, and no problem other than the fact the amp didn't work. I did end up getting the amp working thanks to Avionic helping me recap the power supply. I still have both of them, I don't use the amp, but I listen to the speakers all the time.
 
Ken Boyd said:
Can't say I have had to use any band aids, but I have sweated a few times taking a risk on total strangers being honest.
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Me too. A few weeks before visiting California one recent summer I started scanning California Craigslists and found my speakers. They had been relisted several times and hadn't sold.

I contacted seller and asked if he'd take $100 to take them off Craigslist for a few more weeks until I could show up in person. He agreed to a cashier's check.

A few weeks later I drive over an hour from where we're staying, meet the guy, endure the obligatory 5 minutes of small talk ("these speakers are LOUD! My friends down the street hear them! Oh YEAH!") I happily hand over close to $1000 cash, then he helps me bring them out to my car. They're too big to get inside the car.

"Uhhh - can I come back tomorrow afternoon with a bigger car?" sez me.

"No problem, long as it's after 4:20 - huh, huh!"

I akwardly exit, hit the road and realized I didn't ask the guy for my money back until the next day. I also didn't have the balls to tell my wife I just left a lot of money with a guy I might never see again.

But he was there and all worked out just fine. Then I felt a little rotten for suspecting they guy would be less than honest. I guess my line in the sand for trust in humanity to accommodate my mis-steps is somewhere around $1000.
 
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Let's see, back in the day when there wasn't yet a "score" to be had because they didn't exist, I coughed up $300 for a 1/2 off new Yamaha CA-1000.
It was a very good price but not an "anti score".
 
gongli said:
I gave so many hours of music lessons to pay for my uber system - my student's dad was selling his $62,000 system for $13,000 in pristine condition, so I had to get it...
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Please tell us more!

prighello said:
It was the 90s and I decided it was a good idea to sell my APPLE stock for a booming car audio system; I mean why not their stock price was in the toilet! $2K later I ended up with an Alpine deck and cd changer, a sony amp, infinity kappas all around along with two 10s in a bandpass.

The idiocy of youth. That car is long go as is that system, but IF I'd kept the APPLE stock it'd be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars now. I bled for that system and I still bleed everyday for that decision...sigh.
Click to expand...

That, my friend, sucks the almightiest of ....well, let's just say it sucks. :sigh:
 
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