What are your favorite small system combinations?

[davidhun]

Gonna necro this thread rather than make a new one:

My current favorite small combo is a Sansui 551 with a pair of Realistic Solo 2s. To be fair, I replaced the drivers in the Solo 2s with Visaton FR10HM-8s, which I guess is a car speaker replacement. It has a whizzer cone like the original Realistic driver (Korean manufacture) -- the surrounds started separating from the cones, so rather than fix, I replaced.

They were suppose to be my little test speakers. I started using them on the 551 when I was recapping it, and I'm taken aback by how not shitty they sound together. Especially with the loudness button engaged.

Granted, they aren't going to reproduce a full orchestra or heavy metal band -- those mid range drivers get overwhelmed easily -- but for easy listening, drum-guitar-piano-vocal stuff, they sound better than they have any business sounding.

This is all very subjective of course, but I smirk in disbelief when I pair those two together.

 

[twiiii]

Small system components. M&K 2.1 systems, small Boston, small AR 4x for example, Smaller B&O 3702 or S series, Nakamichi made some great small systems. I used NAD combo players with 45 watts per channel. Though a Hersey is not small by some standards placed in a corner up against the ceiling gave fantastic results with the NAD. They also work great as rear channels for HT systems. With the right subs 5 of them made a great 5.2 HT system for homes.

 

[ernieb1536]

Yeah, Kenny, the AF-4 has tuned out to be "pleasant surprise". Here is another: a Magnavox 6v6 stereo amp with 10 wpc thru a pair of Mirage 460's or just about any decent speaker. Justs sounds good . I may have made a mistake by selling that one.

For the solid state side S-7100 receiver (18 wpc) and small EPI's sound pretty decent.

Didn't Sansui have a mighty mite integrated? Seems like I read somewhere about one with 12 wpc.

Jon

Had the Sherwood 7100 a with cube epi speakers and it was a very pleasant non fatiguing experience ! Sorry I sold them , but if I kept everyone I liked I wouldn’t have room to breath ! Lol

 

[Lavane]

I have various tube amplifiers and preamps ive built setup on shel ing on each side of my bench. All are small systems. Only one sys5em has a tur table and CDP connected to it. I stream to the rest. I have two setups that get used the most.
One is an old Magnavox 10wpc tube amp pulled from a console with a modified power supply with SS rectification. It has 4 ohm only taps on the output transformers so I have a pair of 4 ohm ADS L570/2 speakers connected to it. The amp has no preamp connected, just a volume control added to the amp. I stream Pandora through it. It sounds very nice.
The second small system that gets used a lot is a passive preamp with 4 inputs and an added SS phono stage I built to match a 5.5wpc tube amp I had built a few years ago. It's connected to a pair of Dyton BR-1 speakwr kits with an Or it Custom turntable, a Denon CDP I hooked up to it and a patch cable to use with an old smart phone to stream. Both little systems sound really good.