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[eligit]

this is for steve and everyone else:

what do you like to listen to music on? not for business but just for pleasure on a daily basis.  besides the "covience" listening (in the car, on the subway, at the gym and other compromised locations)

turntable? reel to reel? ipod? tube amp...all the rest....

just kind of curious.

[jimmyjazz]

I picked my gear for its lack of an analytical nature, as the last thing I want when I listen for pleasure is to be encouraged to pick things apart.  I want my system to lean towards a tendency to (subtly) sweeten, fatten, and enhance everything.  That's a tall order for most gear, but I think I found some good stuff for not-too-exhorbitant prices:

Classe 150W integrated amp
Classe CD player
Vienna Acoustics Beethoven II loudspeakers

I have an Oracle Alexandria II turntable with a Premier MMT tonearm and a Grado cartridge, but it's on the fritz.  Haven't listened to it in years.  I hope to resurrect it and start archiving a good portion of my thousands of LPs on CD, but that's a long-term project.

[bushwick]

Old Thorens turntable (Grado Gold).
Older Pioneer Elite CD Player
Macintosh C20 preamp
Macintosh MC275
ProAc Studio 100's
Nothing esoteric in the cabling.

Almost always use the CD player.


Ipod on the go at 320kbps  (only 1:5 data compression vs ~1:15 data compression at 128 kbps .... my biggest gripe about audios future. Itunes at 128kbps. )


j

[jimmyjazz]

I used to have a Thorens turntable.  That thing sounded GOOD.  Only problem was that it skipped like a schoolgirl on the playground.

[maxdimario]

I have a totally rebuilt Golden tube se-40 with no circuit feedback. it's a single ended parallel amp that is probably around 10-15 WPC and it has a cathode winding as well as a screen-grid winding in the output transformer.

it does not sweeten anything, although it has high THD over a couple of watts, it is very sensitive to load (no feedback=low damping) but it is a very live sounding amp (the singing and drums are very human-sounding).
it's a very wacky amp that will not work properly unless rebuilt. it also can give you an amazing indication of volume balance between instruments.

Class A single ended is probably the best topology for music if you don't need to move air..

I have an old belt-drive turntable with a tube preamp and an adc cartridge with the 78 tip (three speed turntable)

I just re-discovered cassettes for the car and have a nakamichi 600 deck.

my cd player is a sony 1 bit modified with passive filters, very nice sound.

Just got a revox g36 half track which I am going to use to play prerecorded tapes from the 60's very soon:)

next on the agenda are full range speakers..

I used to have a more conventional solid state/Mosfet setup but it was a bit boring in comparison.

[dcollins]

LP-12 TT
Homebrew phono preamp
Vandersteen 2ci speakers
Hombrew amp  (Originally a Sumo)
Sony XA3es CD player

Whatever cables I had lying around.

DC

[davidc]

dcollins wrote on Sun, 22 January 2006 01:09

LP-12 TT Homebrew phono preamp Vandersteen 2ci speakers Hombrew amp  (Originally a Sumo) Sony XA3es CD player Whatever cables I had lying around. DC

I bet the Linn TT murders the Sony CD player!

[dcollins]

davidc wrote on Sat, 21 January 2006 17:44

I bet the Linn TT murders the Sony CD player!

Depends on the source.  I will say that the Linn is one of the most poorly-constructed things I've ever seen.  Truly embarrassing.  It sounds ok, I guess, kind of slow and overly full.

But that's what I want in a home stereo, every recording appears made by a beautiful genius.  If I want accurate, I'll listen at work.

DC

[jimmyjazz]

dcollins wrote on Sat, 21 January 2006 22:10

I will say that the Linn is one of the most poorly-constructed things I've ever seen.  Truly embarrassing.  It sounds ok, I guess, kind of slow and overly full.

Yep.  I actually interviewed (by phone) with Ivor T about a job at Linn after grad school.  Ultimately, the horrid standard of living in Glasgow scared me off, but when I had a chance to really dig into a Linn TT, I was appalled (and glad I didn't head overseas to help engineer the things).  They have predictable resonance issues, etc., but seem to work well in a full-on Linn/Naim system, and less so elsewhere.

Quote:

But that's what I want in a home stereo, every recording appears made by a beautiful genius.  If I want accurate, I'll listen at work.

Pretty much what I said earlier, but better.

[electrical]

Anybody build a Platine Verdier TT? I saw a neat article in a German magazine about guys using recording tape as the drive band with a capstan motor for the drive. Apparently damping the bearing is critical for any of these systems and there are only a few greases with the right viscosity, if that's the right word.

I have a Revox linear tracking TT that I don't like very much, but I haven't had the time or the money to go get me a VPI. I've really liked the VPIs I've heard, and they're not too expensive. Audio Advisor was selling them with a Sumiko Blue Point Special as a package for a while.

I have a Hagerman Bugle preamp that was built for me as a gift and a big ol' Marantz integrated (my girlfriend's dad's cast-off) I'm using until I get the time to build something. I used to have a Marantz preamp and a Son of Ampzilla, but I never unpacked them after the move 10 years ago.

I've got an idea for a two-tube power amp using a 6B5 and a 5703 per channel. I've already got the parts, just haven't built it. The 5703 as a voltage amplifier looks like it will do the job (I breadboarded the VA circuit and the square wave looks great 20kHz down to 15 Hz), and the big-and-little tubes will look really neat. The 6B5 is a driver triode cathode-coupled to a power triode in the same envelope, which saves me the trouble of deciding which driver topology to use.

Someday...

[bobkatz]

dcollins wrote on Sat, 21 January 2006 20:09

LP-12 TT Homebrew phono preamp Vandersteen 2ci speakers Hombrew amp  (Originally a Sumo) Sony XA3es CD player Whatever cables I had lying around. DC

DC, I thought you had poo-poohed the Linn...  bad construction and all. But to me, regardless of the cheapo construction, it does sound good.

My business takes up 4 rooms in my home...  employees come to work each week day, so it's real hard for me to separate my home listening from my studio except after hours. We have a "relaxed" listening room in the living room that has an unremarkable system in it. During office hours it doubles as an alternative listening environment, but outside of office hours it's a bonafied living room and "party room" with couches, hardwood floor, area rug, fireplace and all.  

I've always built my mastering room around an "audiophile" approach. It's very homey. People come in and feel very comfortable. The gear that's in front of you does not have a big presence either visually or acoustically. So you feel you are in an audiophile's dedicated listening room. However, the signal still goes through the Avocet, even my phono, which is also a Linn Sondek LP12 with an Itok arm feeding a Spectral DMC-10 phono preamp. Fortunately I consider the Avocet to be  "audiophile-quality".

There has been a quiet revolution over the past 20 or more years, where professional manufacturers have begun to pull away from using opamps or 1950's-style unregulated tube circuits and replace them with custom discrete circuits and low-noise, lower distortion tube circuits. So there is now considerable overlap in the sonic performance and sound of some so-called "audiophile" gear and pro gear. You'll find that in products from Cranesong, Millenia, Forssell, Manley, etc. The overlap is very strong and the main difference is the price tag and lack of a 30 pound custom-machined front panel.

You'll find double regulated power supplies, discrete opamps, minimalist signal chains, balanced or unbalanced I/O in a lot of pro gear now. Add to that a philosophy of far more headroom before clipping than the average consumer gear and it may even sound better than the $10,000 "audiophile" stuff even if it doesn't have a fancy 10 pound machined front panel. The power amp I use (Pass X250) is also a "crossover" power amp that audiophiles would be proud to own.

I guess that's why my mastering room is also my listening room.

BK

[danickstr]

anyone ever built an Ampslab kit?  They look well-designed as mosfet amps go.  ampslab.com

[carlsaff]

My home system is also my work system, so:

hard drive -> RME HDSP 9652 -> Benchmark DAC-1 -> Bryston 4BST -> Dynaudio Contour 1.3SEs + HSU Research 12" sub

I rip CDs to the hard drive for listening and vinyl gets into my system through my Lavry Blue ADC at 96Khz/24-bit (sacrilege, I know). My turntable is not ideal (an old Yamaha). An upgrade is in my future.

Love the Dynaudio 1.3SEs. They're the perfect size for my room. I do wish I didn't need the sub, tho. Might upgrade to Contour S3.4s or S5.4s in order to keep the beautiful sound of the Dynaudio tweeter but get away from the sub integration.

[jimmyjazz]

electrical wrote on Sun, 22 January 2006 03:20

I've really liked the VPIs I've heard, and they're not too expensive.

Yeah, they strike me as probably the best-engineered TTs out there, along with SOTA.  (Is SOTA still in business?)

[rodabod]

jimmyjazz wrote on Sun, 22 January 2006 04:10

Yep.  I actually interviewed (by phone) with Ivor T about a job at Linn after grad school.  Ultimately, the horrid standard of living in Glasgow scared me off, but when I had a chance to really dig into a Linn TT, I was appalled (and glad I didn't head overseas to help engineer the things).  They have predictable resonance issues, etc., but seem to work well in a full-on Linn/Naim system, and less so elsewhere.

Horrid standard of living? Where did you hear that?

Glasgow is a very interesting place actually. I stayed there for the last four years. Great fun. It's a typical ex-industrial city.

Anyway, I actually applied for a job with Linn last week. I'm waiting for a reply, but I've heard that they only take on one graduate per year which worries me slightly.

Any advice if I get an interview?

I've used the Linn LK140 power amplifier which was excellent. It had a very solid sound and sounded more realistic than my current amplifier.

My (modest) setup:

Marantz integrated amplifier
Technics CD player
Technics direct drive turntable
JBL L20T3 loudspeakers (developed from monitor speakers)