Brett Gideon: HiFi on a budget – life is good!

For all the mid range, high end and esoteric stereo kit I love listening to, it’s always nice to check out the entry level and get a very pleasant surprise. Today’s budget kit can be so good that the law of diminishing returns becomes a real concern for many punters. Does each incremental level of expenditure lead to proportionately better sound? Ah that’s a totally personal and subjective call but few could argue that a well set up budget system can sound magical (in context).

I’ve been listening to a couple of budget small standmount speakers lately – the Roth OLi2 and the Paradigm Atom monitors. At around $500 (that’s RRP – wouldn’t be too hard to track them down at a deeply discounted rate somewhere), they’re seriously impressive and are a lot of fun to listen to. They’re not the last word in bass extension (obviously) and it would be easy to get ultra critical and find faults with the sound or the finish but that would be crass when the price is considered. In a smallish room, they hit all the right notes and they’ll please many an ear and just as many pockets. There are even cheaper options out there from major brand names and the jump to the next level isn’t that big, with outrageous performance available from killer products like the super Wharfedale Diamond 9.1s.

So it’s grand to be buying budget speakers but the amplifier side is just as good. The little aluminium Trends TA-10 Class D amp I tried recently measures 46mm x 76mm x 150 mm and weighs just 500g but just like my Sonic Impact T amp, the sound is vastly out of proportion with the form factor. It can’t match the plastic cased T amp ($65 on TradeMe) for bargain basement value but the Trends amp is in a metal case, with decent sockets and binding posts. If that’s not quite your cup of tea, there are award winning conventional amps from Cambridge Audio, NAD, Rotel etc. that sound particularly fine considering the amount of lolly that you need to part with to own them. Same goes for CD players and even turntables.

I’m always one to take a punt on TradeMe but there are many who aren’t comfortable with second hand HiFi, so a chat with a local retailer will see them right. Life on a budget doesn’t have to mean drab sound and that’s been brought home to me once again.