I thought I create this thread for members who have struck audiophile gold! A rare speaker find or component or music a deal to good to be true! What ever comes to mind I love reading your stories!
I’ll start with my story about how I found a pair of Martin Logan CLX Art speakers in a guitar dealers shop in Milwaukee WI. They were 9 years old barely used and sat under custom covers the last several years. Mint condition I was able to trade my 16 year old ML Odyssey speakers and cash. Shortly before that happened a friend of mine had a brother in law moving out of state and sold me a pair of JL Audio F113 Fathom subwoofers for next to nothing. My intention was to flip them but once connected to my system I couldn’t let them go! Sometimes it seems like these deals are meant to be! I can’t wait to read your stories!
Mine would have to be my Mark Levinson 390S. A gentleman was moving to Italy so none of his audio system would work over there. The Levinson had been misbehaving so before he listed it, he sent it to United Radio in New York. The serviced it and sent it back with a clean bill of health. The repair was almost $1000. He sold me the player for $2500. I’ve had no problems with it and it absolutely blew away my Rega Saturn-R, which I’ve since sold.
The Levinson CD players are great! I borrowed a demo No. 39 the model the 390S replaced. I remember hearing details on my music CD’s I never heard before! I gave it my best try to listen to every CD I owned before bringing it back to Audio Consultants!
I have liked the sound of every piece of Mark Levinson or Proceed gear I’ve ever heard or owned. There’s just something “right” about the sound of their gear.
I was walking to the train station on my way to work in the early '70s and in the window of a general second hand shop was a TD125 and a Luxman SQ507X - got to work, phoned my dad, and when I got home there they were - I still have them! [a foreigner had bought them but was returning to his home country and decided not to take them with him. They were as new]
I still use a proceed amp in my home theater set up! 3 channel Amp 3 powers my center channel and my surrounds. I think I got it from Overture Audio via ebay for $450 another great buy!
Perhaps not golden treasure but one Saturday back in the 90s, on the way to work I spied a stereo system at a garage sale and nabbed a Luxman receiver, Mordaunt Shorts, Yamaha EQ, cassette & turntable - all for $40. Just a couple of teens running the show. I told them it was worth much more but they said $40 was fine. Nothing else there but some furniture, paintings, lamps… as if someone had literally moved the living room outside. I found out later that summer, the parents had punished the kids for something or other and one weekend when the folks went away, the pissed off kids did exactly that - garage (cheaply) sold off half the contents of the house!
Mine would be my recent purchase of a MBL 1621A transport and a MBL 1611E Dac used for $12500 delivered. It became my best audio deal when I discovered that I can upgrade the MBL 1611E to the current 1611F for $1250. So for a total of $13,750 I am getting the Reference Dac and Reference Transport from MBL at current retail would be around $56,000. I know that nobody pays retail but I feel very fortunate with this recent transaction. The fact that MBL supports and upgrades their older model products is also a testament to how they support their clients. Needless to say I am a MBL fanboy.
I once was the only bidder for an Aesthetix Atlas power amp at an estate auction. They described it as “an amplifier, based on it’s size and weight, that was probably used for large public address systems.”
I got it for the opening bid, somewhere around $100.
PS Audio I2S products aren’t designed to handle HDMI, the licences alone would be an expensive nightmare. The HDMI cable is perfect for I2S, but the HDMI protocols aren’t.
The HDMI out on the Sony Blu-Ray players with SACD is for multi channel SACD into Sony Receivers or Receivers with HDMI that accept the signal. All the DSD processing is still being decoded in the player with subpar electronics at best. Before HDMI they used the 6 channel analog output some used both.
