I’ve wanted to write something on this for a little while, so I am excited to be able to post something to help others reach their listening goals…
In this day of age, lots of people all over listen to music on their phone, or iPod or via smart home devices such as Amazon Echo or Sonos and Apple equivalents, and although these are improving greatly, their vastly overpriced and not specifically designed for listening to music.
You can do all of this without spending a lot. If you want to get a great sounding stereo setup follow these steps.
- You need an amplifier. If you want retro, eBay is your best bet and I have a Sony TA-F400 (Spec here). I’ve had a few others but this has been the most reliable. You can get one for around £70, and I would recommend not spending anything over £80 on this. If the exact model is not available, similar models in the “TA” range will do as good a job. This particular model is from 1988. The beauty of this amplifier, is that it also has a phono stage. For you millenials, that’ll allow you to hook up a record deck without using a separate pre-amp.
2. You need some speakers. Now on this part you may want to spend a little more as you don’t necessarily want to be replacing speaker cones due to someone blowing the speakers, but more than anything if you buy older speakers they tend to cost a lot more, and you don’t know how people have treated them.
Richer Sounds have an absolutely cracking deal on some Wharfedale 9.0 speakers. Newer models have replaced them but they are critically acclaimed, and are currently for sale for only £39 (including 6 year warranty). You really can’t get anything better new for that price. Grab a pair here: http://bit.ly/2FfZmKW
3. You need some RCA cables. These will allow you to connect anything with a 3.5mm headphone jack. The following will work, here.
This is the basics, but it’s a good starting point to get you up and running on a budget.
If there’s any interest I can follow up with additional separates such as CD player and so on. If you want to see my personal setup you can take a look here
Enjoy and happy listening 🙂