I had the pleasure of accompanying the king of Thrift store forays on an introductory round of the local treasure trove hide outs. As our main contributor, my host Nat said several times, you just never know....
After what started out as a pleasant jaunt about town with a chance to talk we came across some fine bargains, never know indeed.
Because you see so much stuff that is instantly dismissed one can easily overlook what turns out to be a great bargain. Case in point, office chair!
I had seen a dozen or so half broken cheaply made crap chairs not worth a sit down when a small strange looking blue office chair with a very small back is spotted with a $12.99 price tag. A quick sit down and “wow that's comfortable!” me of the back surgery multiple spinal injury type yelps...
A quick look underneath confirms this is a very quality carefully made item with the Soma Ergonomics name on it. Scarfed it up. Back home after a quick comparison I immediately got rid of my computer chair and have been in seated bliss since!
A quick search on the net informs me this chair sells for $500! This is beyond bargain, this is Christmas!
What does any of this have to do with stereo?
Well besides Nat's great score which I'm sure he'll be writing up in the future, I spotted two fabulous CD players from yesteryear.
A TEAC PD-500 from the late '80's and a DENON DCD-1100 from 1985. Both of these things had $49. price tags on them and had been sitting there for 6 months. A little friendly chit chat with the manager resulted in an 80% discount! Ten bucks apiece!
I figured they were semi functional at best but would be useful in my ongoing soldering/overhaul education with little risk of costly disaster. Well they both work, amazingly better than expected.
The TEAC was obviously a high end unit. Gold plated outs and no less than 10 Rubycon Black Gate capacitors inside. The DENON too was heavy and worked well. Neither liked burned CDs very much but this is par for units from this era. The sound is lovely, very musical across the spectrum. Not quite as many sparklies at the top but a very natural sound.
The build quality of both these units is shockingly superior to the modern mid class stuff available today. Samsung giant killer previously written up is case in point.
Future articles will detail the refurb of these beautiful relics. I plan to put them to work after rejuvenation!
Thrift-O-Rama indeed! A fine day. Thanks Nat for the edumakashun!
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