I've lost my hair, I've lost my youth and now it's time for my hearing to follow. recommend a stereo system, please.

September 4, 2006 2:01 PM

I've lost my hair, I've lost my youth and now it's time for my hearing to follow. recommend a stereo system, please.

I come to you with grave concern.
you see, I moved into a shiny new apartment complex. the elevators are fast, the views are vast and the food is delivered on time. I think I'd be ready to love this place if only the young asian couple next door would refrain from agreeing to each other so much and so intensely. besides, they have a habit of waking up early and their preferred wake-up call consists of agreeing to each other and european techno music I last heard in the early nineties, a period in time during which I wore neon yellow sweatpants. it's unfair that the kids today get to pick and choose what former trends to pick up again and it's unfair I now have to awake at five o'clock in the morning. my reputation of being the last in the office is at stake, as is my beauty sleep.

what is not at stake is my hearing. I am failing in the family tradition that is loss of hearing. my dad has been pumping up the tv further than a dog can stand for at least ten years now, my grandfather used to require no less than three repeats of every word uttered, just I am fine. people are beginning to suspect I've been adopted.

I have decided that a mix of faith no more as social commentary for the kiddos next door ("it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it") in combination with richard wagner for my hearing will fix my problems and I am willing to put my money where my fingers are (or, since this is the internet, my credit card).

so help me lose my hearing, will ya? recommend a mini stereo system I can play cd's with, listen to npr (isn't that what old liberals do?) ad perhaps hook my mac up to. I don't need anything fancy, just a good bass that can shake the 6 or so solid feet of concrete that separate us. I'm willing to throw between 100 and 300 bucks at it.

posted by krautland to shopping (14 comments total)

I would strongly recommend, if you have the room for it, saving an extra $50-100 and dropping about $350 on the latest Onkyo home theater in a box package. I spent $300 on my HTS-660 which is a 6.1 surround system and I couldn't be happier. It came with:

- Receiver (with AM/FM tuner)
- 4 gorgeous sounding surround speakers
- 1 center channel
- 1 big and clean sounding subwoofer

Yes, it's a smidge above your price range, but the surround speakers are relatively small and should do nicely even in a small condo/apartment, and the system is great as a standalone but is also expandable as the time comes. Hook up a DVD player (which will play CDs and which you most likely already have) and you're pretty much the whole way there.

The HTS-770 came with a DVD player for a while and was available for $350 when my brother picked it up after hearing my HTS-660... he loves it.
posted by twiggy at 2:40 PM on September 4, 2006

My friend has one of those JVC "mini systems" aka "executive systems". Maybe its the placement in the room or something, but is sounds better then my Onkyo with mid-range speakers. Not sure the exact model, but a quick google gave me this page with a number of them:
like these
(in no way endorsing that particular site)

Fits your budget well.
posted by distrakted at 2:46 PM on September 4, 2006

Your price range limits you considerably.

JVC makes a few mini systems, some butt ugly... but smallish and with decent sound in that price range. FS-Y1, EX-D5.

They are small, decently built, have an AUX input, stylish enough. I use a very old one for daily use.

If you have room, you can get a budget legacy amp, like an old Kenwood KA-7100, a component tuner, and some decent speakers and make a hulluva fine noise. I have several of these and for $75 or so, they have very decent specs for a solid state amp. (They are DC coupled, and have a 200 KHz bandwidth, according to their specs.) The switches are usually noisy, but the amp is not the limiting factor in your sound system with one of these.

For vintage component tuners, you can consult the Tuner Information Center (www.fmtunerinfo.com) for reviews. You could do a lot worse than the old Kenwood KT-7500s.
posted by FauxScot at 3:12 PM on September 4, 2006

don't worry too much about the price range. that was nothing more than a kneejerk "golly that feels kind of right" reaction.

and notsnot: thank you. it bothers me that I can only ask one question per week.
posted by krautland at 3:17 PM on September 4, 2006

i don't have a suggestion on a stereo system, but wagner is certainly the right kind of music to get revenge with ... "flight of the valkyres" is very effective ... no 2 on my list would be black sabbath's early stuff, which is also effective

if that doesn't work, may i suggest "paralyzed" by the legendary stardust cowboy or anything by the shaggs

actually, cheaper stereo systems are going to sound worse loud, which gives you an extra annoyance factor to work with
posted by pyramid termite at 3:35 PM on September 4, 2006

They're just out of your price range new, but if you're willing to go the second-hand route, I can definitely recommend Denon minisystems - my Dad passed his on to me (an UDRA-90 receiver and UCD-90 cd-player combo), and it packs a serious punch in terms of bass, looks great (ie no weirdly-shaped fascia or flashing lights), and is very solidly built.

I have no answer, but have to commend you on an incredibly well-worded question.

Are you joking? It's packed full of drivel we don't need to know in order to answer the question, which is 'Can you recommend a $100-$300 loud, bassy mini stereo system?'
posted by jack_mo at 3:35 PM on September 4, 2006

While this post is not worthy of a MeTa, I'd agree with jack that it doesn't need to be so embarrassingly "clever" in order to ask a simple question. Leave the self-aware, unnecessarily verbose witticisms to the professionals at McSweeney's.

Then again, his writing style could be an intentionally oblique metaphor for the musical stylings of bands like Steely Dan, who insist on playing 10,000 boring notes, despite the fact that 10 good ones will suffice, and whose compact discs are often used to demonstrate the quality of high-end stereo systems.

If the latter is the case, then this is a brilliant post.
posted by melorama at 5:28 PM on September 4, 2006

What does it mean to agreee to each other?
posted by croutonsupafreak at 5:59 PM on September 4, 2006

That's exactly what I was wondering. If I knew, maybe I could answer the question...
posted by dash_slot- at 6:18 PM on September 4, 2006

Leave the self-aware, unnecessarily verbose witticisms to the professionals at McSweeney's.

you know, if you take life too seriously, it ceases to be funny.

I am a professional, thankyouverymuch and writing it out in the style of a social security application is something I just couldn't live with for there already is too much dull and boring text in this world. if it took you less than ten seconds to read my musings, you shouldn't have bothered complaining. if it took you more, you might wish to swear at your grade school teacher...

Then again, his writing style could be an intentionally oblique metaphor for the musical stylings of bands like Steely Dan, who insist on playing 10,000 boring notes, despite the fact that 10 good ones will suffice, and whose compact discs are often used to demonstrate the quality of high-end stereo systems.

I never considered steely dan to be boring but then again, I haven't played golf while intoxicated and nude in a while.

What does it mean to agreee to each other?
what three letter word beginning with y and ending with s do you usually utter when you agree with someone? now say it loud. again and again. sloooowly. got it?
posted by krautland at 6:34 PM on September 4, 2006

You last two, just in case you're not deliberately misunderstanding, the young couple are having this conversation:


Young Guy: Yes.
Young Girl: Yes!
Young Guy: Oh, yes!
Young Girl: Yes! Yes! Yes!

They are, as you can see, agreeing to each other rather a lot.

On preview: Aha, I thought so. Good euphemising, Krautland. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way you wrote the post, for what it's worth....
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:45 PM on September 4, 2006

If you have lost your youth it is time to step up to some serious gear. Add a zero on to the end of your figures and you are in the ballpark, perhaps then multiply by two and you will have a system capable of reproducing live acoustic music with incredible realism and fidelity. Add another zero and you can reproduce a live hard rock concert with similar fidelity.
posted by caddis at 8:26 PM on September 4, 2006

I got the 'this is the conversation they have' meaning, but as a professional you might be interested in the more traditional usage: one agrees with a person, and agrees to a decision or course of action. Aside from that, I did like the euphemism.
posted by jacalata at 2:41 AM on October 26, 2006

krautland, what you need is not only something that plays music, you need recording equipment: get a mic, record your neighbors "agreeing to each other" and they play it back at them. Really loud. That should get your point across.
posted by micayetoca at 6:06 AM on October 26, 2006