Don't know if I'm cured or not but over the weekend I took a pass on an SX-850 at the GW. Nice looking unit but on the back there were two stickers. One was a service label and the other label noted, "still cuts out intermittently." No date so don't know if the prob was taken care of. It was marked $39.99. Seeing as I paid $34.99 for my GW SX-1250 and having just picked up the Marantz 2325 I couldn't see pulling the trigger even to resell. Possible problems could have taken hours to find. And, I already have one that was serviced.

thats setting the bar high, how are you going to top that?

Good pass. The SX-850 is actually a very nice looking unit with real walnut veneer.

That was almost exactly 4 years ago on my first visit to a thrift after getting into this madness. It was Thanksgiving week and I was headed out of town the next day so it was a almost a week before I got playtime. Got me hooked on thrifts . The month before that I got I sweet Sansui 9090DB for $10 and over that summer a Yamaha CR1020, Jbl L112 and Onkyo CDPC for $40. Two years later around Thanksgiving I got a stack of 70's SAE equipment with walnut cases, Thorens TD-125, two Shure V15 III and an extra stylus. All in original boxes. And last Thanksgiving season a Marantz 10B tuner and 1200 amp. Those were all private sales though. Would be nice if lightening struck again.