I disagree... I enjoy music a lot I would like to call my self a wood bee audiophile and am super weary of buying used speakers you can never tell if they are blown and they will sound nice on low levels but once you get to high notes or high volume they could start to distort and be useless.
I have to agree with ric despite my original view at first glance it looked a lot nicer than it was. Someone could have run this machine into the ground.
As a sidebar to this thread discussion, I too consider myself an "amateur" audiophile(even though I have hearing aids now....from all those rock concerts I attended in the 70's & 80's:0)
What kind of speakers do you have on your home stereo(I think they call them entertainment centers now)....Bose, Klipsch, Infinity??? My main speakers on my 7.1 surround system are a pair of circa 1974 JBL L100 Century Studio Monitors(I wouldn't trade them for a truckload of newer speakers:0) I paid $300/apiece for those speakers in 1974 and back then that was a LOT of money for speakers. And I'm JBL all the way with two JBL J820M speakers for the rear surround left/right, two E10 speakers for the rear center left/right and a PSW powered sub-woofer. The thing about JBL speakers is not so much their "power handling capacity" so much as the speaker driver's "efficiency"(for my L100's it only takes 1 watt of power to drive them at 90 decibels and as far as peak power.....you would have to leave the room due to the ear discomfort at the highest volume before you would ever "blow them"). I use my Toshiba LCD TV's built-in speakers for the front center channel and they do a real good job. Sooooo....what do you keep your neighbors awake late at night with:0)
My 7.1 surround sound consists of 4 custom made speaker boxes each box has 3 cubes indiviually sealed one has a tweat one has a midrange and one has a 10" all focal speakers each speaker has a small amp connected to my klipsh pre amp and my klipsh amp. I have 2 12" base speakers placed strategically around my living room. With my 64" plasma you feel like you are in the movie. My dad helped me he's the real audiophile our living room stereo growing cost him over 10k not including tv
WOW...that's a real kicker of a system(you don't see too many Klipsch amps in home systems......I "almost" went with Klipsch speakers when I bought my first JBL's). I used to be a "Marantz-kind-of-guy" for amps/receivers(I've still got the original Marantz 2270 that I bought in 1974 and I use it as a preamp for my turntable) but when I went to Dolby Digital Surround I "downgraded" to a Pioneer Elite VS52THX(still a pretty decent amp). Bose speakers are good, but I think their "patented" dispersion design is a little overrated!! Yeah, I don't know about your wife, but when I pop in a good Blue Ray movie like A Good Day To Die Hard and crank up the surround sound my wife "complains" that it's too loud. Of course she doesn't say that when we go to a movie theater and it's just as loud of surround sound there:0)
WOW...that's a real kicker of a system(you don't see too many Klipsch amps in home systems......I "almost" went with Klipsch speakers when I bought my first JBL's). I used to be a "Marantz-kind-of-guy" for amps/receivers(I've still got the original Marantz 2270 that I bought in 1974 and I use it as a preamp for my turntable) but when I went to Dolby Digital Surround I "downgraded" to a Pioneer Elite VS52THX(still a pretty decent amp). Bose speakers are good, but I think their "patented" dispersion design is a little overrated!! Yeah, I don't know about your wife, but when I pop in a good Blue Ray movie like A Good Day To Die Hard and crank up the surround sound my wife "complains" that it's too loud. Of course she doesn't say that when we go to a movie theater and it's just as loud of surround sound there:0)
djdicetn,
We must be kindred spirits. I still have my Marantz 2270 Receiver that I also bought new in 1974 along with a Philips 212 turntable. For speakers, I bought a set of used Heil ESS AMT-1 tower speakers (also in 1974). To me, nothing sounds better than an album played on a turntable.
Bruce
I hope the OP has gotten his/her original question answered since we have hijacked this thread for a discussion of audio equipment:0)
Yeah, small world isn't it??? I went with a Sony PS1100 turnatable and a 3M/Wollensak 8-Track Recorder(with Dolby, including Dolby FM decoder...which radio broadcast never went to & Chromium-Dioxide tape equalizer). That piece of equipment is my "Jurrasic Park" stereo component and I had new heads installed in 2004. I've got over 300 8-Tracks and about 500 albums, so if either ever becomes a collectible I guess I'll be rich:0)
I bought U2's album Joshua Tree from the Columbia Record Club before they discontinued vinyl and never opened it(just in case some nut on eBay wanted to offer me a million dollars for it:0)
So, do you still use that Marantz??? Some of the display's "light bulbs" have burned out on mine, but since I am using it as a pre-amp only it's not a big deal. I actually(in the past) used the 2270 as a separate amplifier for the center channel of my surround sound system. I remember the Heil speakers...they were very good high-end stuff back then. Yeah, my son & daughter don't even understand what the sound of a turntable(with an occasional skip) or an 8-Track changing tracks sounds like(whenever I offer to play an album or 8-Track for them they don't show much interest).