I went to best buy to purchase a new stereo I didnt care if it was a boom box or a big system and ill tell you, what a bunch of crap they had. I couldnt find anything I liked. They dont make them with equalizers anymore or with Treble and Bass controls. I was shocked at how the designs were, so i left and went to circuit city and of course they had pretty much the same models. Who the he** is designing these things 5 year olds? I havent bought a stereo in about 10 years and I cant believe how the physical layout of the controls are so illogical and the lame colors and lights are just to much. Where can I get a stereo cassette deck, CD player that is normal??

In a second-hand shop , or one of these stores , that sell "leftover-stuff".
Either that , or you have to go to one of these "Audiophile-stores" that sell stuff like : Nad , Harman Cardon , etc and be prepared to spend several months worth of income for a single tuner , then again for a tapedeck , etc.

Component systems are IMHO the only way to ever get what you want. I havent owned anything but a component system in about 15 years, and Ill never go back. Plus, if ever any particualr function breaks, ie the cd player, you still have tape, dvd, dat, md, or whatver. you only replace a part of the system. We do it with computers, why not stereos....

Not to mention the sound quality difference. I cannot stand to listen to anything on a all-in-one system. The one exception may be the bose wave radio line.... but anyhow, the sound difference is soo noticeable, provided you dont piece together crap components.

Look for sony, jvc pioneer etc for the lower acceptable end and then Harmon Kardon and the like in the middle price range. Also, dont skimp on your speakers or cables. Gold connectors all the way around. For speakers, well, nothing like KLH, Cerwin Vega, or anything like that... bose, polk, mission, jbl, jamo, boston acoustics, infinity.. etc are all good starters.

Build your amplifier and speakers yourself. You'll (possibly) get superb quality for about 1/2 the price you'd pay in an audiophile shop. You'll get to learn how they actually work, too. It is also possible to make your own high-end Cd player if you're adventurous.

Hu?? How would you do that? Do you have a link to a website or something?

do you have an old box lying around?
if so, you could stick a soundcard, a cd drive, a network card, and a decent-sized hard drive in it, and make a linux-based jukebox/fileserver(for mp3s/oggs)/streaming audio server
shouldn't be hard, you could get an LCD display and an old joypad and mod it up.
take a look at xmms.org, there's probably some joystick-control/LCD plugins there.
the only downside to that is you'd have to run an X server, which would use up a lot of resources on an old box.
this is only for the 'hardcore' users of course.

i agree with you though, while i don't really use hi-fi systems, i just play music through my PC, i think fancy lights and 'cool' silver retro shiny stuff is a bit daft on something that's supposed to be heard, not seen.
kinda like polyphonic ringtones - it's a phone(or hi-fi), not a jukebox(of weird silver box with daft flashing lights)

Yes I was considering using XMMS in a small PC system and a stero card with a tape deck hooked up but after pricing everything out it was way to expensive. I have a 486 100 mgz and a 350 mghz laying around but I they are so old it would not be worth it.

I plug my computer directly into my sounds system. The CD player on the stereo don't work anymore but that doesn't disturb me.

I got sound my Hi Fi Sound Blaster Live card for free when I bought the computer. When I want to listen to the radio, just go to the radio station website and listen to the streaming music. (just doing it right now ) It can play CD's VCD's , Of course have DVD playback support. Subwoofer, headphones and everything. lol.....

350 mhz would do it easily
i found this - http://irmp3.sourceforge.net/
looks quite interesting, im gonna download it later and give it a try later

is anyone know a player that can play *.wma and other windows media files?

Here's one - http://www.daisy-laser.nl/homeoptics/

There are tube ones, too, but a bit risky if you aren't experienced.

I've had similar experiences with stereo-shopping lately (looking for a new home theater setup; currently have crappy sub/satellite computer speakers hooked to the TV). Shockingly disappointed by the lousy sound of almost everything I listened to at Best Buy and Circuit City. Might check out some of the higher-end audio stores around, but they are grossly expensive.

I'm no audiophile, but I know what I like... is it just me, or is the ridiculously popular subwoofer-with-five-teeny-tweeters one of the dumbest ideas ever? Every one of those I've heard sounds like it has no midrange whatsoever. I like midrange. Lots of good sounds happen in midrange, like, for example, dialogue and music. Bass and tweet gives you nothing but strong explosions. Blah.

wapcaplet,
look for an old set of bose 901's if you can find them..... they have one of the sweetest midrange sounds i have heard from an inexpensive speaker (relatively)..... or you can check out Boston Acoustics, I love 'em. They have a realy nice round and full sounds; not too much in the high range and not too much bass. Throw in a nice subwoofer or two and your all good .

IMHO the best sub/sat setups are made from your own selections out of bookshelf style speakers, which are made to handle a full range of sounds, just not alot of bass, and a nice subwoofer to round them out. But for music only, well, they dont quite cut it... sub/sat is not for an audiophile, but for someone who needs to compromise 3 things 1. space vs sound, 2. theatre vs music and 3 . price vs sound.