Cheap set up (<£100)?

Was telling my brother's girl friend she sould get a system that would flatten good computer speakers for under £100. Now I need to prove it...
I was thinking something based round the likes of a Rotel RA921, NAD 3020 or CA A1.
Now I'm a bit more stuck on the speakers. Kef, Mission, Mordaunt Short, Tannoy, assume I won't be able to include B&W due to price. But which models?
She's a student so the room will be small and probably heavily furnished. She listens mainly to classical, but maybe a tiny bit of rock/pop.
Can anyone help me here?
Thanks
Harry

 

Something like a second hand pair of Eltax Monitor IIIs may do the job, the only slight flaw with these is a slightly bright treble but the furnishings should help that, the bright treble will only be a problem if the source is bright anyway.

You should pick up something like the 3020 or Cambridge A1 for around £30-£40 which leaves £60 to spend on speakers.

Something like these may be ideal but I have never heared them.

http://www.richersounds.co.uk/showproduct.php?cda=showproduct&pid=MISS-M2SS.

I am pretty certain that system would make meat of any computer setup.

 

A pair of Edirol MA - 15 D These are excellent. They even have their own amp and DAC so you can connect them directly to a computers digital output. They also have connection for RCA type inputs and they have an out put to a sub woofer. - They as designed for nearfiels studio work and as such are ideal next to a computer monitor

 

To flatten all suggestions so far

Tannoy Reveal Actives in excellent condition.
£100. Phone 07799067736

Look about half way down the page on the sound on sound adverts http://www.soundonsound.com/readersads?Cat=18

Or you may get lucky with:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fostex-PM0-5-...DVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item160069389070

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Tannoy-Reveal...DVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item230073170103

 

All good suggestions by the looks of it. Like the look of the Eltaxs' especially. At this price point, are active monitors better than a conventional passive/amp set up?

 

IMO, vastly.

 

I was putting together a bedroom system - the room is about 10' square - a little while ago and set the budget of £100.00.

I managed to get a Creek 4040 amp (£5.00, free ads), a Technics SL-PG477A cd player(£10.00, car boot sale), Arcam T21 tuner(£15.00 Free ads), and a pair of JPW ML-510i speakers (£30.00 inc postage from ebay). I decided to go crazy with the rest and blow £10.00 on some T+E mains cable for the speaker cable and use the freebie phono plugs to hook it up with.

It was accumulated over a period of 6 weeks, and sounds fantastic for the money - it can be done, I think you just have to be patient and a little bit lucky.

 

I use some MS20i speakers and a Marantz A400X amp in the kitchen and they sound good. Speakers were £25ish and the amp £40ish IIRC

Currently runs off the main system via a long interconnect but will soon be squeezeboxed onto a 300gig harddrive

 

Building cheap set ups is possibly more fun than assembling a main system IMO.

 

Indeed You also don't get rather annoying feeling when you realise you're bank account is £100's or even £1000s down either.

 

You are also a lot more comfortable diving inside with a ham fist and a soldering iron!

 

I can heartily recommend a NAD3130 (superior to 3020 apparently) and a pair of celestion 5 speakers - kept me going for years and always got +ve comments from people coming through the various flats the system lived in. Should be able to pick up both for under £80. 3020 amps seem to be going for silly money on ebay at the moment...

 

I've got my 26 year old NAD3020 and Mission 700's, a quality Yamaha tuner (bought for £5) and an early 90's Technics CDP in the garage - For a garage system it rocks!

The CDP did need a tweak of the laser and focus pots some 15 years ago and has been good as gold since.

That lot can't be worth so much can it?

 

harry,

I don't think you will better some active reveals for £100.

Thats the best deal I think thats been discussed here.

 

I'm with Simon on the actives. It would be a big ask to beat those Tannoys at a mere £100.

 

OK guys, I'll take your waord and press for active Tannoys

 

If you are going for the ones that Tenson linked to I'll stop bidding. It's not like I need yet another pair of Tannoys.

 

I'm not bidding yet Dev, she needs to give me the go ahead. So bid away. Thanks for the offer though

 

high-fi on a low-fi budget

Have you considered Marantz/Tannoy amp/speakers. In the 90's Marantz amps were "tuned" to partner Tannoy speakers, or it may have been vice-versa. Either way, the synergistic effect was very successful, and the combination was bought by many - including lots of students purchasing from Richer Sounds.

 

A friend of mine has a hifi shop have a look at his gear.

www.steveshifi.co.uk