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Sennheiser PMX 100. Fabulous headphones at a fabulous price.
Money can't always buy love, but it is often thought it can buy audio happiness. Or can it? What is the least amount you have spent on an audio component that produced music that made you happy?
My first good phono cartridge was a game changer. It was a Shure V15 type III. I doubt I spent $75. It was a revelation compared to the typical, almost free garbage that used to be bundled with turntables, but that also was many years ago.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who says "free," but I found a discarded portable FM radio (Sanyo, maybe?) in a drawer in a junior high art class that my teacher said I could keep (because he thought it was broken). I still remember its absolutely brilliant sound to this day, even with the cheap headphones. I didn't know it at the time, but that radio marked the beginning of my audiophile hobby.
The fringes, if antique fairs frequently diversify into any realm of resellable. One gentleman relaxing in a lawn chair had a classic '70s Kenwood tuner in its original box (sorry, can't remember the model number) with a $25 price tag. In daylight, the lights did not appear to light so he let it go for $15. At home that night, the lights worked perfectly, everything worked, and a quick web search revealed that it is considered by some to be one of the best tuners ever made and sells, updated, for much much, much more.
$1. Back in the '60s, I placed four quarters under each foot of my Thorens TD-240 'table on the advice of a then-Stereophile columnist, whose name escapes me. It made an audible difference in bass, rhythm, and pace. The 'table just sounded better all around. Even my musician friends were blown away by the difference those four quarters made. I haven't tried using that technique with my Clearaudio Statement.
After 35 years in this hobby, the best return for the money and biggest shock at the improvement would be a toss-up between the HRT MusicStreamer ll ($135) and Caig DeoxIT and Pro Gold ($16 per can each). Ten years from now, I may have another DAC, but I still will be using can after can of Pro Gold. So many tweeks are free and cumulative in effect. Lately, I have been grounding everything (speaker baskets to cross over neg posts, left, mono, right sub woofer speaker baskets to each other and each other's amps, neg speaker terminals to wall outlet ground, on and on) with bits of wire and unused speaker cable, until I ran out of wire. Zero out of pocket, startling improvements across the board.
Now that's an easy one. How much cheaper can you go than"'free," as in gratis? Which is exactly the asking price for iTunes. Which again transforms your modest Mac (or meager PC,, if you must) into a full-blown, universal, infinitely tweakable music server. Up to 24/384, if you please. If this ain't the Grand Theft Music, I'd very much like to know what is.
My new Logitech Touch gets my vote. For $250, it cost less than than the digital interconnect sticking out the back of it. In a cool, convenient way it provides remote and touch screen access to all my computers and storage drive's music, and will handle 24/96. With the outboard PSU from Welbourne, it sounds almost as good as my Theta on 16-bit. Great fun for the money.
Just bought one of those little DSPs for my subwoofers and it made me stop thinking about a new (tube) preamp. Let me tell you, when you get the bass right, that's half the battle. I had my room tuned for my main speakers, but when I added a few subs it got a little muddy. Enter the DSP and now I'm very happy for a few hundred dollars. Go figure!
Superspikes from Soundcare, a Norwegian company. These babies made my Verity Fidelio speakers improve dramatically, at least on my wobbly floors. They cost about $120 for two sets, and I have on other occasions paid thousands of dollars for comparable improvements.