The_LED_Museum
*Retired*
Ahhhh, payday. A day for waiting in line at the bank, a day for pigging out on junk food I otherwise avoid, a day for thrift store shopping.
Almost picked up a nice VCR with remote and VCR+ for $9, but some older woman who looked like she wanted (or needed) it more than I did was seriously eyeballing it, so I let her have it and kept moving. Go to the back of the store, and on a large dolly I saw a pair of large, nice looking powered speakers. A thick black AC cord is wrapped tightly around each one. Pick one up - damn that's heavy. But they look in good - no wait - GREAT shape. A few little dings here and there, but hardly noticeable. A pink price sticker on it says $6.99 each. So I checked out the back of the speaker to see who makes them and what kind of inputs they have. Turns out they're Roland studio monitors with inputs for mic, line, and something else; and with an original price tag of $259.00 EACH still on them. Worn and faded, but on there nonetheless. I quickly grabbed the other one and headed off to the counter. The pink tags put on by the thrift store were half off today, so I actually got $520.00 worth of speakers for $7.00!
But the question remains: do these suckers still work? A stop by the local Rat Shack to pick up a pair of female RCA to male 1/4" phone plug adapters and an AC adapter for my new LED sign and then head home, where I set up my sign and promptly forget about the speakers. Fast forward to now, around 11pm. Plug the speakers into the wall, crack open the Rat Shack phone plug adapters, and hook my computer's Line Out to them. Damn those suckers are loud, and they have quite the dynamic range too. At this hour, I can't turn them above "2" without having somebody downstairs start beating on their ceiling with a toilet plunger handle. I could crank up an ordinary boom box to 6 or 7 without disturbing anybody even at this hour. But not these things.
Thrift store find of the year? Yes, undoubtdly so.
(Last year's thrift store find of the year was a Pioneer laser disc drive in new condition for $6, and I also found a pair of Color Kinetics lights on Ebay for 50 cents plus $2 shipping).
Pays to snoop around musty old thrift stores every once in a while!
Almost picked up a nice VCR with remote and VCR+ for $9, but some older woman who looked like she wanted (or needed) it more than I did was seriously eyeballing it, so I let her have it and kept moving. Go to the back of the store, and on a large dolly I saw a pair of large, nice looking powered speakers. A thick black AC cord is wrapped tightly around each one. Pick one up - damn that's heavy. But they look in good - no wait - GREAT shape. A few little dings here and there, but hardly noticeable. A pink price sticker on it says $6.99 each. So I checked out the back of the speaker to see who makes them and what kind of inputs they have. Turns out they're Roland studio monitors with inputs for mic, line, and something else; and with an original price tag of $259.00 EACH still on them. Worn and faded, but on there nonetheless. I quickly grabbed the other one and headed off to the counter. The pink tags put on by the thrift store were half off today, so I actually got $520.00 worth of speakers for $7.00!
But the question remains: do these suckers still work? A stop by the local Rat Shack to pick up a pair of female RCA to male 1/4" phone plug adapters and an AC adapter for my new LED sign and then head home, where I set up my sign and promptly forget about the speakers. Fast forward to now, around 11pm. Plug the speakers into the wall, crack open the Rat Shack phone plug adapters, and hook my computer's Line Out to them. Damn those suckers are loud, and they have quite the dynamic range too. At this hour, I can't turn them above "2" without having somebody downstairs start beating on their ceiling with a toilet plunger handle. I could crank up an ordinary boom box to 6 or 7 without disturbing anybody even at this hour. But not these things.
Thrift store find of the year? Yes, undoubtdly so.
(Last year's thrift store find of the year was a Pioneer laser disc drive in new condition for $6, and I also found a pair of Color Kinetics lights on Ebay for 50 cents plus $2 shipping).
Pays to snoop around musty old thrift stores every once in a while!
