@YoungOne 476691 wrote:

Yeah im thinking of getting a decent amp+speakers combo for £100ish but its so hard to find nowadays, did find this however:
Ebay—-
Dont know if its any good? only has outputs for 2 speakers…

it looks similar to ones that CPC in Leeds/Lancashire(?) sell. probably not bad kit but I’d get the stuff from CPC as at least if its faulty or completely wrong delivery they aren’t too bad at sorting out cockups (had to return a DOA amp and once they tried to deliver 3 large TV sets to me instead of other kit (I rarely watch TV!)).

Also that sort of amp may have a big noisy fan in it (adding to any other noisy fans in your PC, graphics card) and if you live at the family home still tends to freak out parents, who think you are going to run a illegal rave out of your bedroom :laugh_at:

@YoungOne 476691 wrote:

Yeah im thinking of getting a decent amp+speakers combo for £100ish but its so hard to find nowadays, did find this however:
Ebay—-
Dont know if its any good? only has outputs for 2 speakers…

They will be pretty awful and probably produce a less bassy (but overall louder) sound than what you’ve got already. They only have 8″ woofers, which won’t get you much bass in a PA speaker. And whilst it says they’re 1000W they’re not – this is the peak power rating of both speakers combined. This is a common marketing trick to make them seem louder than competitors products (the RMS power of each speaker, a much more useful rating, is actually 200W (and even then, there are tricks manufacturers use to make this number as big as possible)). I seriously wouldn’t worry too much about getting the most ‘watts’ for your money.

You’d be much better off going for a pair of second-hand floorstanding hifi speakers and an amp. You’ll be able to get something really good and bassy that will fill your room and still have change out of £100. E.g. 2 minutes looking on ebay turned up these (though I’d email the seller first to check they’re in alright nick) and then find a suitable amp. They will have cost a lot of money in their day and will sound so much better than those cheap disco speakers where every corner will have been cut to make them cheaper than £100.

them 3 tellies wouldn’t have sold for much more than CPC sell them anyway and the parcel of kit I was expecting wasn’t a great deal cheaper. I bought one new telly recently only because my mum had come to stay for a bit and the old one it was on the analogue transmissions which were switched off, and this one can also be used as a PC monitor. Did try watching a bit of telly but was annoyed by the awful picture quality the BBC News are sending (might be because the London studios are being run down and moved to manchester). I used to work on some of their equipment so know what good video should look like.

a similar one of those amps is sold by CPC for about the same price and was what I returned as it was dead as mutton. I don’t like the practice either of them being sold with EU plugs and a sketchy looking Chinese adapter when they should be terminated on UK plugs and there are better adaptors if amps do have europlugs (mine does)

I bought the Sony receiver which was slightly over £100 instead from an Amazon. A “receiver” contains an Band II (FM) and MW radio as well as amplifier and may not be of interest to you unless you have a good community or even pirate station what plays music you like.

my younger sister may well still have a pair of Eltax Symphony speakers, from what I remember they weren’t bad. My only concern with buying speakers second hand from the 90s era is some bedroom DJ of my generation may well have proper caned them already…

livestreams audio is rubbish (they sacrifice a lot for the video, when you get your new speakers you will notice this).

ironically todays generation are liable to be using equipment with limiters/protectors what stops them blasting their project studio speakers. which is fine, until they get to play on a proper rig and piss off the crew by redlining everything and worse this mindset contaminates the whole industry. Biotech once bought (from a reputable source) a WAV tune so badly clipped both me and cheeseweasel read the waveform “upside down”or thought it was one mono file and the colours reversed.

A lot of my bedroom DJ/producer friends were using very basic equipment and with not much money. Often a set of speakers got caned and the cabinet was kept but replaced with various locally sourced drivers. As word got out that “I knew how to use soldering iron/screwdriver” as well as the new computer stuff, I often got the job of fixing these (being paid in a variety of commodities 😉 ). I admit I didn’t bother with stuff like thiele small parameter or other hard maths – me or my mates would find drivers what fitted the hole left by the old ones and put them in. If the speakers sounded OK the job was a success. I am sure I was not the only person to do this, and so second hand speakers may not be what they seem.

This is a low cost package of brand new kit from a company which had a good reputation in the 90s/2000s, but you need a store near you to get it and it seems today customer service can be variable in the stores (used to be OK when I went there but that was years ago)