I have some old speakers in the house that I wanted to test. So instead of messing with the real stereo unit from the 80s, I bought a $30 stereo from Amazon, and new speaker wire.
The speakers sound okay, but there’s a hum coming from them all the time. Even with the stereo volume knob turned all the way down. Is this normal for stereo systems and I just haven’t noticed?
To be honest, anything you get on Amazon is going to be shit compared to almost any stereo unit from pre 1990.
I dont understand why people need new. For audio gear, old is almost always better (if its not outright broken).
All my gear is 70s-90s and sounds and works great, and im not getting bezos closer to his trillion.
Sorry for the rant friend, good luck!
You can’t compare a $30 Amazon stereo to anything made before 1990. That would be equivalent to something costing $10-$15 back then, which wouldn’t have even existed.
There’s plenty of extremely high quality audio equipment that is made today, it just costs real money, just like it did back then.
Yes, for a lot of people, used gear would probably work fine, but it wouldn’t have the inputs they need (no HDMI, no Bluetooth, etc.) heck, a lot of folks would expect it to have WiFi to cast their Spotify music to it.
True. I dont care about any of that, just sound and analog inputs, so id never buy used unless it was actually a high quality or boutique build. Or better yet a kit!
Someone should make an Amazon for used gear, with the same fast shipping and return policy. BC you are right and the new stuff is often such low quality.
There is a goodwill near me with OK prices, but it is a crapshoot whether what you bought will work. From what I’ve seen, used gear shops where they repair and test are mostly for rare and expensive collectors items and not worth it.
I recently had to spend $160 to buy a used VCR capable of PAL/multisystem, on eBay.
That’s eBay, isn’t it?
Part of the reason Amazon works well is because they sell high volumes of each product, allowing them to distribute products ahead of time across warehouses to match expected demand. You can’t do that if you only have exactly one of each item.
There’s zero profit in this. The overhead of storage and broken equipment would be insanely high and impossible to manage. Not to mention old gear is a lot heavier, more expensive to ship.
No to mention people interested in cool old gear are as rare as unicorns these days. Young people couldn’t care less for the most part. Most of them wouldn’t know what soldering even is, theyre not gonna try to repair old gear when their phone can do everything.
Nope those days are gone. Now you either suck it up and pay thousands for quality or hope you get lucky at a garage sale! Or there are still cool antique stores here and there that are carrying good old gear that they test out and sell relatively cheap.