About 5 years ago, I bought on a Marantz 2265 off Craigslist for $300 from a seller in Park Slope, Brooklyn. That was an attractive price given how popular the vintage Marantz, blue-dial receivers had become (and remain today). I remember him bringing it down to my car and asking about my repair plans. He warned that this probably wouldn’t be an easy job and that he thought it would need “some new transistors and resistors.” Having far too many projects on hand, the Marantz sat in my closet until 3 months ago, when I finally got around to trying to get this beautiful thing up and running. Afte ..read more

Stereophile reviewer Jason Victor Serinus owns what appears to be a million-dollar-plus Hi-Fi system. It includes, among other things, a dCS Vivaldi Apex DAC, a Vivaldi Upsampler Plus, a Vivaldi Master Clock, an Innuos Statement NextGen Music Service, a Dan D’Agostino Momentum HD preamp and Progression M550 monoblocks, Wilson Alexia V speakers, various Nordost cables, a Grand Prix Monza 8-shelf double audio rack ($29,500 alone!) and amp stands, and power conditioners from AudioQuest and Stromtank. (Don’t get me started on his absurd review of a Nordost network switch, which remains in his syst ..read more

One of the many benefits of my foray into DIY audio is that I’ve learned the prices of the components that go into many hi-fi components, including the high-quality capacitors, resistors, transistors, and transformers at the heart of most amps and preamps. The truth is that even the highest quality components from the likes of Elna, Nichicon, and WIMA are relatively cheap – even when bought individually and without the volume discounts available to manufacturers. This makes the sky-high prices many manufacturers are now charging even more indefensible. Without naming names, below is a picture ..read more

I’ve written previously about my efforts to replace my beloved Logitech Squeezebox with a Raspberry Pi-based Logitech Media Server or Roon endpoint. But I recently started using a Roon feature that has changed how I listen to music, and I’ll never go back to anything else. After subscribing to Roon last year, I played around with its parametric equalizer and had some success improving the lower midrange and bass response of my main system. But the results seemed a bit arbitrary, as they would dramatically improve the sound of some tracks while making other tracks unlistenable. Recently, I stu ..read more

If you’ve read my review of the Nakamichi SR-2A, then you already know how I feel about Nelson Pass and his Stasis design. That low-powered receiver floored me, and it is still the best $100 that I’ve ever spent on a piece of stereo equipment. So when the opportunity came along to purchase a Nakamichi PA-7 in wonderful condition for $600 on Craigslist, I jumped at the chance (even if it took me a ferry ride to get it). If the 35W/channel SR-2A receiver sounded incredible, how would the 200W/channel PA-7 amplifier (weighing in at a hefty 59 1/2 lbs.) compare? Oh my lord. The moment I fired up t ..read more

I dedicated my last post to the joys of building a Raspberry Pi-based Squeezebox replacement, not least of which is that Logitech Media Server (LMS) is free and works well overall. Audiophiles with deeper pockets, however, have another great option: Roon Labs’ music server software. Roon’s software costs $9.99 per month (which does not include subscription fees for services like Tidal), but it offers a superior user interface, up-sampling and DSP capabilities, reams of metadata, a great recommendation engine, and a Pandora-like radio function. Most importantly, at least with my setup, there wa ..read more

The Logitech Squeezebox Touch was a life-changing device. I vividly recall seeing it on the cover of Stereophile, reading the review, and then purchasing one the same day for $300. That is still the best $300 I have ever spent on a piece of audio equipment. The Touch not only put my entire library of FLAC and MP3 files at my fingertips, but also let me stream Pandora, Tidal, and countless other services, and it provided SPDIF and optical outputs so that I could use it with my favorite DAC. The Touch did not have the most user friendly or intuitive music-server software, but once you had it up ..read more

Have you ever done something and realized immediately that it was a huge mistake? That is how I felt when I recently sold my Sansui AU-555A, a little gem of an amp that I never should have let go. I bought it on eBay a few years ago and it sat in my closet for a long time while I worked on other projects. I eventually got around to recapping it and was immediately blown away. This amp only offers 25 watts/channel into 8 ohms, but what beautiful watts they are! The only way to describe the sound of this amp is warm and luscious. Regardless of genre, everything I threw at it had an appealing glo ..read more

The story of my SA-7800 is one of heartbreak, frustration, and triumph. I purchased this unit on Craigslist for $200 about two or three years ago.  I picked it up from a self-storage facility in Brooklyn where the owner had set up a tiny electronics repair space.  He apparently owned a radio and television repair shop but had to shut down a few years earlier because no one repairs electronics anymore, they just throw them out.  True enough. I was excited to take the SA-7800 home and fire it up because I’d never before owned a vintage Pioneer product.  Needless to say, I was ..read more

If you’ve read my other reviews on this site, you know that I’m often excited about my vintage audio finds.  So imagine my excitement when I found an Ayre V-3 for sale by its original owner in mint condition for what I considered the bargain price of $800.  While that is more than I’ve previously spent on a single  vintage component, I felt confident that, if necessary, I could resell it for at least that much given the strength of the Ayre brand.  Indeed, the audio press has been gushing for years about Ayre, routinely ranking their amplifiers as among the best in the indu ..read more