Hi Ecoustics.com, I found these forums while googling for info on the following problem and wondered if anyone here could offer me some advice. A couple of months back after reading an article on the resurgance of vinyl in the press I got a bit nostalgic and decided to dig out my old Hi-Fi seperates and start listening to my record collection again after using my PC 5.1 system for the last few years to listen to music. I took my Marantz PM48 amp, my Technics SL-DL5 turntable, my Technics SL-PG390 CD player and my old JAMO J122 Studio Monitors and hooked them up and found it was all working fine. About a two weeks ago though I started to get an intermittent cutting out on the amp. Sometimes it would come on again after a few minutes other times it would stay off for hours. I took it down to a small local business who after opening it up phoned me to tell me it would cost £60 to fix it. I declined his offer thinking that I could probably get a better second hand amp on Ebay for less than that.
I have now been checking out the available products on Ebay for a couple of days and trying to get up to date with it all. I had whittled it down to around 35-40 amps of various makes from Technics, Rotel, Harmon Kardon, Arcam Alpha, Teac etc with my favorite being the Cambridge Audio A5 model until on closer research I realised that in order to play my phono using this amp I would also need to buy either the 540P or 640P pre amp unit as well so I decided to take stock of what I had learned and make another choice.
The next thing I came across was that most of the amps I am looking for are in the 2 x 25W - 2 x 60W range with a preference for the lower powered models but became unsure of their ability to drive the 3 way Bass Reflex Jamo speakers. After finding a link to these forums while googling I decided that in the last 20yrs or so I have completely lost touch with home audio and perhaps it might be better if I asked some of the experts here for advice on a suitable used amp which would match my above listed components and preferences. My musical tastes are mostly rock orientated Eric Clapton, Little Feat and Bob Dylan rather than hard rock / heavy metal etc. My budget is less than the £60 mentioned already which after watching certain items sold on Ebay over the last few days should be do-able. Thanks in advance and any advice offered is much appreciated.
Any 100 buck amp, bought untested and unheard, from an anonymous source...plus having to BID against someone else for the unseen item that exists in a photo...
Sorry, Mate, but why would you BID on somebody elses problem, which was not mentioned in the fleabay ad, for which the seller was told it will cost 60Quid to fix, so he sold it to you online. You are pushing up the price in an auction on a penny-stock item, which you cannot demo for yourself.
I think the Marantz was his, dug out from the attic or the like.
I agree with Nuck. You're going to get an older amp that carries no warranty. The seller may be well intentioned, but there's no way to know what will go wrong with anything in a few months. At least your tech can take a look and see if your Marantz will hold up for a while or not. I'd spend the money there, then save up for a significant step up if you're interested down the road.
With an older amp from ebay, you're basically getting what you've got.