An Arcam Alpha 3 integrated amplifier:
Found one in a skip last night - it'll need some cleaning up and I think some internal checks too but if I can get it working I'm laughing - this was £500 brand new back in the early 1990's!!
Ah, lucky find.
. I know this isn't on the same level, but I found a nice cane sofa on a skip when the people next door moved out. It just needed some new cushions and cushion covers and now it is in my front room. I lifted it off the skip at about 1.00 in the morning.
Wonder if skip diving is an AS thing, whilst I don't engage in *cough* such trampish ness, I know my dad sometimes does.
Well, when I was a kid my brothers and I used to look for things at the local dump. It was amazing the really good things that people threw out.
Well, it all works perfectly - the only problem was two of the clips that hold the front panel to the main case were broken, but they were rattling inside. I bought some superglue today and will stick them back on when I get home as I'm in my local library at the moment.
The sound is really good (40W @ 4ohm) and drives my Mission SC-M10K speakers perfectly - have the CD, DVD and computer all linked up to it. The knobs have tarnished a little and they've turned a golden color but this doesn't look that bad actually!
Here it is along with my Pioneer DV-350 DVD player and Denon DCD-695 CD player, also rescued from a skip and repaired:
They look pretty good! I think these days, people are not encouraged to re-use and recycle. There used to be a show back in the 70's called the Wombles and they used to find things and fix them up.