Goodwill/Garage Sales & Old Audio

Not too long ago I found the Audiokarma forums and have spent a lot of time over there reading about what others have been doing with audio. As it turns out, it seems to be populated by a bunch of "cranks" like me who not only like audio, but love the gear that makes it come alive. On top of that, there seems to be a bunch of folks who enjoy the game of finding older gear at out-of-the-way places like garage sales and thrift stores like Goodwill.

After this inspiration, and made a couple of stops which netted me some pretty amazing finds. First, I had a honey-do which involved having to go to Goodwill to drop of a bunch of kids clothing that had been out-grown, so of course, I took the opportunity to look around. At the one where I did the drop-off, I didn't find anything noteworthy. But on the way home, I decided to swing by another one that was pretty much "on the way" where I found.....a very nice Onkyo cassette deck of fairly recent manufacture in full working condition for $8!

Then on Saturday, while working through my list of honey-dos (again), I decided to stop in at a garage sales that I saw, largely because it was in an old section of town....and was rewarded with the discovery of a pair of old Cerwin-Vega HED U-6 "bookshelf" speakers. I paid $25 for them after a short negotiation, mostly due to the fact that they looked to be in fair condition with surrounds that are still in good shape.

I'll have to say that I'm not a big C-V fan, or really much of a fan of the old-guard American speaker manufacturers, such as Altec-Lansing, Klipsch, Cerwin-Vega, etc, since my personal opinion of them is that they then to be very much like late 60's/early 70's American muscle cars....long on muscle/short on finesse. But at least, these were acoustic suspension bookshelf, vs. the big floor-standers with the 15" woofers and ports.

Personally, I tend to lean toward the "New England" sound that's more geared for accuracy and detail or even a "British" sound, but hey, I'm not going to stare a gift-horse in the mouth. Given their size, price and in all probability ability to handle abuse (if they hold up to the C-V reputation), they'll probably become the speakers to a first system for Josh. He seems to have a bent for music and at age 8, its probably time for him to move up from his Lego shelf-radio/cd player! I did come across another garage sale last week that had a fairly recent Yamaha receiver, but I think, I'm going to hold out for something a little more vintage for his first system.