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September 22, 2014 - 3:53pm
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Gear advice on a budget (New Zealand)
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Maybe spend a hundred bucks or so on a good cartridge and table set-up and another 150 or less on speaker stands and if you get lucky and get a usable Kenwood for your above price you will be sitting on $400 or so out of pocket and have a functioning system to get comfortable with.
Your speakers are pretty easy to drive and sensitive for the lower powered amps you are considering and so they will mate very well, but you won't be shaking the walls with them. That's not a bad vintage system to put together and you'll still have money in your pocket for records, cleaner and the possibility of having to replace something due to age.
Get it all together and read a little on proper speaker placement and use stands for them and you will be off to a great start.
Either of the Pro-Ject turntables would be a wise investment, or a Music Hall MMF-2.2 turntable. Old turntables can have bad spindle bearings and tonearm bearings, and you can trash your records with an oldie. Get a new turntable ASAP. Once you trash your records, they are damaged for good.
The Marantz 1060 was a good amp in its day, but you will no doubt need to replace some coupling capacitors and volume pot etc. Are you good at soldering and assembly work etc.?? Any electronics background?
One of the lower-priced modern NAD amplifiers would be better, or the Music Hall 15.3 amplifier.
The Kenwood 4004 is only 18 watts per channel, and that may not be adequate, so don't go there.
There were many nice stereo receivers produced by Kenwood in the 1970s and 1980s, and most of them have 40 or 50 watts per channel, or more, so don't overlook them. For example; the KR5600, KR-6600, KR-9600 etc. etc.
The JVC might be OK; same thing as the Marantz; plan on some restoration work.
JVC audio equipment is some of the best Japanese gear of the vintage. Heavy enough but not unnecessarily so. Metal film rather than carbon resistors in critical areas, and full of Elna and Panasonic caps. Good stuff.