The *NOT BORING!* Hi-Fi faff chat and sales

Some bargains

Tintin, was it you who had the busted 207? Did you fix it?

Last weekend I was walking past a local junk shop, and did a double take at an old glass Technics rack outside. It contained Arcam Alpha CD, Amp and Tuner, and a Marantz SD52 Cassette Deck. A pair of Wharfedale Laser 80's sat atop said rack. The price? £30!

So far I've cleaned up the CD player and the amp, both work fine - though the CD player is no match for my heavily modded Marantz - as I'd hope!!



The tuner has a couple of station marker stickers on it so I'll need to get the residue remover on it, and the cassette deck, like the rest of the kit, looks pretty much pristine.

Best part is in the bottom of the rack were two unopened packs of 10 late 70's vintage TDK D-C90s! As I don't use cassettes, I stuck them on evilbay and got £90 for them! Therefore the kit owes me nothing



To top things off, I just won a newly listed (and local) pair of Celestion 44's for £50 buy it now. My mates dad had a pair BITD and I remember them sounding stunning.

Library pic!



Got my new listening room now too - moved house two weeks ago

Re: Some bargains

apache":md6f8fmi said:

Tintin, was it you who had the busted 207? Did you fix it?

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Not me. That's how that player would have looked if i had touched it
It x my mind. But really wanted the 208.
You have done well with the buying & selling top kit.
I bought my first tuner ever this week. Rotel cost me £28. Very happy with it. Waiting for my Jecklin electrostatics cans. Then have to decide to keep or sell my Rotel pre-amp and run every thing through the 208, which has a excellent pre-amp.

£90 for two packs off D90s :!:

Panda scurries off to loft

Pah! Sold two TDK MA-XG for £60 about 6 years ago.

Mr Panda":2qbf8a2s said:

£90 for two packs off D90s :!:

Panda scurries off to loft

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Plenty cassettes
My problem is finding a good working order cassette deck.

Tintin, I have 3 serviceable, and one (the nicest) which needs new belts. Any of them are yours for beer money plus post!

The Marantz is probably the best bet, being that the rest of the kit I got with it is pristine, that's probably also top notch condition.

I picked up the Celestion 44s today. Aside from having a few cabinet bruises which will be sorted with a sanding and a re-laquer, they are electrically perfect with no driver surround degradation. The protective meshes are missing from the tweeters, but I hear people take them off to improve top end dispersion anyway.

Whilst they undoubtedly produce deeper bass than smaller cabinets, what has surprised me is the clarity, detail and smoothness in the midrange. Vocals take on an 'in the room' quality which is slightly spooky - particularly given how very dead Johnny Cash is is real life!

That's a Mission 71 for scale - used as a temporary stand til I build some low ones.

I wonder if you guys could help me. I have bought a new system with an Onkyo cinema amp which is a bit bright sounding when playing music. With TV and films its ace.
I want to try some new speakers as the Gale ones I have at the moment I have never been any good - not much bass extension and always a bit cheap sounding - tinny almost.
I got out bidded on some Castle Isis speakers a few days ago which I am gutted about. I probably have about £50 to spend.
I used to have a lovely sounding system of a Nad 302/Marantz CD63/Mission 731 - I've thought about getting some 731's again.
I think a nice full sounding warmish pair of speakers would tame my amp and make music sound a bit more bold.
No floorstanders - max height on the cabinets maybe 40cm high to sit on my current stands.

Any ideas?

Rob Atkin":6ory0bq2 said:

I wonder if you guys could help me. I have bought a new system with an Onkyo cinema amp which is a bit bright sounding when playing music. With TV and films its ace.
I want to try some new speakers as the Gale ones I have at the moment I have never been any good - not much bass extension and always a bit cheap sounding - tinny almost.
I got out bidded on some Castle Isis speakers a few days ago which I am gutted about. I probably have about £50 to spend.
I used to have a lovely sounding system of a Nad 302/Marantz CD63/Mission 731 - I've thought about getting some 731's again.
I think a nice full sounding warmish pair of speakers would tame my amp and make music sound a bit more bold.
No floorstanders - max height on the cabinets maybe 40cm high to sit on my current stands.

Any ideas?

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cinema amps just never seem to get it right with music no matter how good at cinema - you can only fiddle!

For Tintin

Marantz SD40



Aiwa ADF410



You can have either for the price of a couple of beers + postage, or pick up, or get someone closer to pick up for a couple of beer tokens. The Marantz is the tidiest. My others are a bit dusty and I cant be bothered putting plugs on to try them out!

Anyone want a pair of Mordaunt Short MS25i floorstanders? Owned by me since new from around 1997. Decent enough but never state of art........heavy so £60 posted?