Cheap systems....

[plastic penguin]

... here's my recommendations, for what it's worth.

One of my favourite affordable systems was: Arcam A65+, Rotel RCD 975, Monitor Audio RS6s. It was fabulous for the money.

As they are now old, look at the newer Arcam amps, with a Rotel CD14 and one of the newer MA Silver floorstanders or standmount equivalent. Although the sonic character has been tweaked over the different incarnations, still worth a demo IME.

 

[davidf]

The first place I worked at we had worked out a few package systems, based on listening tests, and the budget on was based around a pair of Celestion 3 speakers (or the 5 model), a Rotel RA-930AX amplifier, and a Denon CD player (whatever it was at the time). I always used to demonstrate it with Naim NAC-A5 cable which I liked (as it was about £5/m back then), and a pair of Chord Chameleon interconnects. So with some stands (the open frame Epos ES11 speaker stands were perfect for the Celestions), it was about £750/800 all in, and sounded great for the money.

 

[plastic penguin]

Yes, quite a few independent dealers used to offer budget-friendly systems packages, usually based around same make amp & CDPs....

It doesn't seem quite as common these days.