A new video

Over the past 5 years, the thrift stores in our small, semi-rural town have yielded a Beomaster 6000, a Denon cassette deck, a Denon digital-readout receiver, a Dual turntable, a Marantz CD-R recorder, and several high-end Sony Walkmans. I also found my Technics 3-way speakers there. Each and every one of these items has been priced at $15 or below. And other than cassette deck belts, each and every one has worked properly and had pretty decent cosmetics. Those of you who live in major cities will likely have even better pickings, but will prolly pay a bit more for each item.

Roger Beal

Not really...except for the 2020TI (boosted power). It was stunning! The 2020A that I have just doesn't have even the slightest headroom. It's fine - for what it is - but the TI is so much more, IMHO.

Do you have an off-the-shelf amp you like? I have the 2020A and have been pretty happy with it thus far paired with some Pioneer BS22 bookshelves (for living room usage, rarely all that loud) but if there's an inexpensive alternative I might be curious to try one - sadly I haven't yet learned to solder :/

Rufo Sanchez

I was never impressed with the Lepai 2020A. There's no way it's even close to 20 watts per channel. However, the new version 2020TI is amazing...but not out of the box. There are 4 electrolytics that need to be bumped up to 50v. Once that's done, you can pump 24 volts of power into it (adding a small heatsink is recommended) and it almost doubles the power output. They're so cheap, too! I hooked one up to some big, dumb "rent-a-center" speakers - yes they had carpet on the outside - and it shook the entire house with power to spare. I would say it's closer to 30wpc for an investment of $3.00 plus a new $15 power supply. Worth trying if you have the time and basic soldering skills.

I like this video. I finally got my new-ish LG PF1000U (that I bought because of a Techmoan review) mounted to the wall so now time to put the amp & speakers back and dump the projector sound. I'm using a Pioneer amp that my dad bought in the early 2000s and speakers he bought in the early 90s that I inherited. I may replace with an Atmos setup at some point. For the computer, I'm using a set of Logitech quad speakers I got as a graduation present in 2000. Even after I spilled a margarita on the control box, they still work! :P

Jason Wellband

Interesting piece Alec and good advice.

Stephen Bell

Gah! Why didn't I mention this? I was staring at the spec sheet...

Technology Connections

Good advice, however one thing to add would be that by looking up your speaker's original spl - you can figure out whether it is likely a good match with a small amp - remembering that every 3 db difference requires a doubling of amplifier power - your Infinity's I noticed were 89db, however if they had been 86db, your amps's power would be essentially cut in half - thankfully 86db is about the most inefficient you are likely to see, and some speakers have spl's in the 90's or even over 100db in the case of a rare few, thereby enabling tiny wattage small class A tube amps to power them nicely!

Bill Basch