Ever Bought an Audio Product that was Stupid Good for the Money?

Yamamoto a08s power amp.

Line magnetic 518 integrated amp

line magnetic 515 CD player/dac.

Pair of Belle Klipsh in walnut for $500 and change
at an auction house!  Early 2000's and who wants these behemoths in their house?! In rural Hawaii, no one even knew what they were.
One guy drove from the other side of the island to bid. He got the K-horns for a similar price as I ran out of $ at about $550.  Oh, I also got a pair of fixerup Mcintosh Mc2300's for $75. Never finished them but got one running for a while.

Stupid good..... yeah, these are mine B&W DM2a's which I bought for just 75,- Euro.
They sound incredible.
Important when you choose speakers: you must not get tyered. Checking: use dixyland music. Due to the mix of instruments you can check how prominent these are specific in low volume range. Note: Most speakers will perform quite good on higher volumes.

Have fun!

Ton

Due to the way I build my audio component collection (frugal & patient) most of it is stupid good for the money.

But two components stuck out as Surprisingly Stupid Good.  One was a Denon DVD9000 (~$3000 msrp new - $300 to me used); I couldn't believe the sound improvement over my other reasonably high end Sony on regular CDs.

The second was a Music Hall 9.1 turntable with its' stock Goldring Eroica LX mc cartridge ($1000 to me).  I was utterly blown away by the improvement over my aging Thorens and Technics.

And then there's my speakers which are a variety from the defunct Meadowlark Audio co.  There's loads of better speakers but I don't believe many could be had for what I paid for these that sound more satisfying (to me at least).

Mike

PS Audio Sprout.