Wanting a computer based audio system, recently my younger brother was nice enough to send me his Creek Audio 4040 Integrated Amp that he hasn’t used for many years. I was with him when he bought it some 30 years ago. The amp was made in England and all of the connections are 5 pin din except for the phono which is RCA, the unit looks as new.
The cables that originally came with the unit started to deteriorate, fortunately I was able to find a 5 din to RCA female connection on ebay which is working well so far. I used it to connect my Mac Mini to the Creek so I can listen to my music library. I needed bookshelf speakers to see if the amp even worked which it does and sounds pretty good for the most part. I found a pair of Polk T15’s on sale at Best Buy for 49 bucks, not a bad sounding little speaker.
The Creek does have a phono circuit and while it works there is a constant sputtering sound coming from it even if nothing is connected to it, this is the reason I don’t do vintage. I’m not sure if I should go further at this point or pack it in and get something of better quality.. I’m a plug and play type a guy, well past tinkering with audio equipment. While I can use a phono preamp in another input I would need to buy another connector on ebay to do that about 20 bucks.
I’m not sure if I want to go through anymore trouble and expense then I’m already into just in case something else should go wrong. I can return the speakers and minimize my loses and stay with a headphone base system I’ve been using which sounds excellent.