[drambit]

I have a pair of vintage shelf speakers hooked up at my cottage similar to the picture below. They're currently hooked up to a stack of stereos that are all blatantly broken in one obvious way or another. Some of them only have one channel, some of them are casette players that will not even play casettes, one of them won't even turn on, etc. I use these things a few times a year when I go out visiting, so quality is not really an issue, all I need them to do is play audio from my phone but louder than my phone can output.

I looked briefly into DACs, full amps, seems like basically every dedicated amplifier on the consumer market is catering to a wildly different audience than me, usually prioritizing quality, portability, interesting technology, etc. Literally all I need is aux to either RCA or just speaker wire clips with halfway usable amplifying in between.

What is the cheapest practical way to do this? Even building the amp myself is not necessarily out of the question, I have a bit of a background in electronics, though I have no background in audio technology. Going looking for used stuff is also not out of the question.

 

[dachad]

https://www.amazon.com/SMSL-SA-36A-...ld=1&keywords=smsl+amp&qid=1590967400&sr=8-13

 

[drambit]

https://www.amazon.com/SMSL-SA-36A-...ld=1&keywords=smsl+amp&qid=1590967400&sr=8-13

I have an SA-50 hooked up on my PC audio setup, It's banana plugs only though and rewiring my old speakers to banana plugs is probably not an option.

 

[dachad]

Why can't you just use the straight wire on the speaker side??

 

[drambit]

Why can't you just use the straight wire on the speaker side??

They are hardwired, I know I was shocked myself when I found out. The back of the speakers is even glued on all the way around so in order to open them up to rewire them I would probably need to smash the back in with a hammer. There's no clips or anything.

 

[dachad]

So order a couple of pairs of banana plugs and put them on the end of the wire...

 

[drambit]

So order a couple of pairs of banana plugs and put them on the end of the wire...

I'll consider it. There's problems I would have, I would rather not have to take apart my PC audio setup every time I go, and I need to be able to go back to bare wire if I have to quickly because my grandpa still likes the old broken stereo. Ideally I'm looking for something cheap that accepts bare wire inputs and I can just leave out there. No idea if there's even options for that in budget price range these days.

 

[drambit]

I found a guy selling this receiver for $10, It might do what I need.

 

[Tjj226 Angel]

I have an SA-50 hooked up on my PC audio setup, It's banana plugs only though and rewiring my old speakers to banana plugs is probably not an option.

Im pretty sure those banana plugs unscrew to give you a bare wire option.

But yeah, if you want something to be as cheap as possible, a used receiver is a great option so long as it is in working condition.

 

[drambit]

Im pretty sure those banana plugs unscrew to give you a bare wire option.

But yeah, if you want something to be as cheap as possible, a used receiver is a great option so long as it is in working condition.

Definitely. It is frankly shocking how unreliable they seem to be though. This will be the 5th time I have tried this so far, all 4 other ones I have borrowed from people to try have had weird audio processing problems. This one looks good to go.

 

[Zer0.p0int.Zer0]

I have a Kinter 2020+ that cost $30 and a chromecast audio hooked up to an old pair of KLH model six speakers in my basement. Cheap, small, wireless audio that can be hidden out of the way. Sounds pretty good too.

https://kinterusa.com/product-line?...mini-amplifier-with-12v-5a-power-supply-black

 

[drambit]

I have a Kinter 2020+ that cost $30 and a chromecast audio

seems like pretty much all of that got discontinued. All good though, this vintage $10 receiver I found actually works perfect for what I needed, it took 5 tries to find one with both channels working!