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Author Topic: What's your home stereo like?  (Read 19010 times)

chrisj

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #15 on: January 22, 2006, 10:05:36 PM »

I do my usual thing in this area: my turntable is some sort of awful something for which I've replaced the tonearm. It had been an awful Rotel screw-on-headshell thing (the platter and base were only typically awful, but I thought the tonearm especially awful) so I decided to have a little fun...

I read in a recent Stereophile about an uber-turntable with a strange, balloon-like tonearm that was epoxy over foam (extraordinarily large diameter armtube) and I thought, why not? So I made a styrofoam tonearm the correct size and shape, contrived to balance it on the existing tonearm lateral pivot assembly with a razor-edge for the vertical pivot, and patiently covered the outside- going right over the cartridge, which I built into the thing- in adhesive aluminum tape.

There's _nothing_ half so fun as vinyl DIY. And it sounds quite nice, actually. The area to watch most closely is the vertical pivot. If other parts of the conglomeration aren't done properly, you might get muddy sound or a lack of punch. If the vertical pivot isn't done properly, you get crazy flutter all over everything. It has to be quite rigid and damped or you're just picking different frequencies for the flutter.

RMoore

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2006, 07:29:37 AM »

Garrard 401 TT w SME tonearm, oak plinth & Goldring needle.

(IMO the Garrard 401 / 301's represent a great value for quality used / vintage classic TT's. I got the whole system for about $500 from the UK, the same price as a new Technics 1200.
The SME's are just badass - apparently they were made by an English factory owner who set up the SME shop as a money losing operation just because he was a hifi nut and wanted the ultimate tonearm. Another killer value used IMO.
I went to the local hifi store to help put the TT together as it arrived all dismantled & we A/B'ed it against some new LINN turntable costing about $2000 and the Garrard blew it away IMO, not even close.)

Quad 303 / 33 Preamp and amp combo - another great vintage value IMO.
denon dvd755ar CD player
Lamp cord & my better half's cheap paper cone speakers from the 70's sandwiched next to the sofa Smile

FWIW I actually like how the speakers sound & it gives a good 'real world' element when  checking mixes at home. I have actually got some quality speaker cable ready and waiting, just have to solder it up one of these days.
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jimmyjazz

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #17 on: January 23, 2006, 08:50:51 AM »

rodabod wrote on Sun, 22 January 2006 21:40

Horrid standard of living? Where did you hear that?


I was speaking in a relative sense; i.e., by comparing salary range and housing costs to other job offers I had at the time.  No doubt I would have loved living there, as I have always enjoyed Scotland (particularly Edinburgh).
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eligit

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #18 on: January 23, 2006, 11:46:04 AM »

interesting replies...

i guess what peaked my interest was what pleasure listening even IS to a working engineer....and how analog fanatics (can't afford to go that way myself) in the recording studio think of listening just for fun rather than accuracy/work.

since i am more of a player/teacher than recording guy i have this weird dual purpose set up...

mac-rme card-lavry d/A-old harmon cardon pre amp w/ eq bypassed-carver power amp-dynaudio bm6s

wacky...but pretty clear sound for a non analog set up....no real "pleasure enhancement"-but the d/a makes it pretty much like a really good CD player (although when i listen to CDs the mac is what spins the disc and the lavry is what converts)...

anyway, back to being jealous of all you vinyl/tube amp cats....
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jfrigo

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #19 on: January 23, 2006, 01:00:04 PM »

At home it's a Sonus Faber 5.1 setup (but with a Klipsch subwoofer), big Yamaha receiver for surround, Benchmark DAC1 and Bryston 3B-ST for stereo, Denon Universal player. There's also a Pioneer Laserdisc player and a Panasonic 1970 (the model, not the year!) SVHS deck, though they don't get used very often.

I also have another system for the lounge at the studio which consists of some Apogee hybrid ribbon speakers (large ribbon mid and tweet, conventional woofer) and a big Yamaha consumer amp (not integrated) and separate pre.

Not crazy audiophile systems, but better than the average Circuit City fare. They're pleasant listening systems that manage to reveal a reasonable amount of detail.
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rodabod

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #20 on: January 23, 2006, 05:24:55 PM »

jimmyjazz wrote on Mon, 23 January 2006 13:50

rodabod wrote on Sun, 22 January 2006 21:40

Horrid standard of living? Where did you hear that?


I was speaking in a relative sense; i.e., by comparing salary range and housing costs to other job offers I had at the time.  No doubt I would have loved living there, as I have always enjoyed Scotland (particularly Edinburgh).



I see what you mean. Yes, it's actually getting more and more expensive to live here. A family house around where I live will probably set you back
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Roddy Bell

jimmyjazz

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #21 on: January 23, 2006, 05:59:20 PM »

rodabod wrote on Mon, 23 January 2006 17:24

So, is there anything you would watch out for at Linn? I was given the impression from someone else that they were a little strange in some respects.


Well, I haven't paid attention to their products in maybe 15 years, so I'm not terribly qualified to talk about them these days.  When I was looking for a job in the mid-80s, it was clear even then to this very green engineer that Ivor ruled the roost.  Problem was, he had some rather bizarre ideas about "how things work", but I didn't know it at the time.  I'm not sure it would have been a very good breeding ground for a young engineer.
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Klokkern

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #22 on: January 24, 2006, 08:47:25 AM »

Hi all

First of all, and to stick to the original subject of the thread;

My home system:

Audio Note Series E/B Speakers (Audio Note version of the Snell type E)
Audio Innovation S200 2x12 w class A tube amp (4 x el84) power amp
Creek OHB 12 passive pre amp
Electrocompaniet PRE1 and Cambridge Audio C70 pre amps (These two pre amps are only there because of their phono stage, I regulary switch around when I listen to Vinyl)
Micromega/HarmanKardon/Rotel CD players (all top models of the brand, at the moment 2 lives in my studio and the micromega sits at home)
Regar Planar 3
Tara Labs / Supra cables (In the most reasonable price range of  high end cables I could find)

Living in Oslo/Norway, I regularly buy hifi magazines from other countries as well. There is one thing that strikes me, and I would like to know if anyone else has this impression:

In Norway, "everybody" knows that the best amplifiers on the surface of the earth is built here in Norway (Bruce Swedin uses the Norwegian "Electrocompaniet" as his reference amplifier, and all albums he mix is done with this. Abbey Road Studios uses Dynamic Precision to power its main monitors etc etc), and there seems to be a common thought that Norway manufactures some of the best high end sound products anywhere in the world.

It seems like the same can be said about Sweden. And Denmark. Not to mention France, Germany, Great Britain and The United States. And probably any other county with a hifi industry and a hifi press....

It has also occured to me that there seems to be a different ideal to what "good sound" is about, and this seems to vary from country to country. Often it seems that the character of the "preferred national sound" happens to be EXACTLY the sound from the top model of one of the top national suppliers.... Things such as linear frequency response etc seems to be unimportant to most, and their descriptions of the sound hardly ever tells me anything as a professional sound engineer. (Unless someone can direct me to a dictionary where explanations of expressions such as "sounds a bit splintered compared to XX" or "soundwise a little richer than XX etc)

Imagine this:
A test of three amplifiers in a hifi magazine, i.e. Electrocompaniet, Bryston and Jeff Rowland. Which one would be the champion in Norway? In USA? And in Canada??

These are all HIGH END amplifiers with a brilliant reputation. All of them would probably sound superb. Still, I am almost certain that the winner often would happen to be built in the country where the magazine is released...

So the question is: Who do we trust? I have stopped trusting the hifi press a long time ago...

Does anybody else have thoughts on this?? Is this in effect what differs "pro audio" sound manufacturers from producers of HiFi components?

This is not a claim to be the truth in any way, I am just very interested in the opinions of other pro sound engineers.

Regards,
larsK





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Hud Hudson

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #23 on: January 24, 2006, 12:01:30 PM »

Jolida 302A tube amp (4 x EL34, 4 x 12AX7)
Cal Audio CD player
Technics SL1200 turntable w/Ortofon cartridge
AR 312 towers and Bruce Maddocks custom 3-way nearfields
Ridiculously expensive audiophile interconnects and speaker cables that the hifi dealer never charged me for  Twisted Evil

I also have a more consumer-level rig upstairs, with an Onkyo receiver, Sony CD and DVD players, and Infinity bookshelf speakers.
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Big Bodum

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #24 on: January 24, 2006, 01:31:42 PM »

Downstairs:
           Mirage M1si's bi-amped with a Sim Audio Celeste 4150se on the mids and highs, and a Soundcraftsman PCR-800 on the lows. Approx. 450 a side. Using the speakers x-over. there is also a Sim Audio preamp, an AR XB turntable( into a Cambridge Audio Model 300 for the Holloman phono pre), and a Phillips CD-150. ( 2nd generation 14 bit...one of the oldest out there).

Upstairs:
        Angsrtom Omega 5's powered by an(other) Audio Innovations Series 200. Superphon SP 100 Passive Pre, Phillips CD-630.    

 
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Plush

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #25 on: January 24, 2006, 01:43:44 PM »

We enjoy these two home systems since the 70's
and 80's:

Linn LP-12
QUAD CDP Cd player
Revox B-285 receiver
Revox B-215 cassette machine
Pro-Ac Response 2S speakers
Stellavox SM8 reel to reel

Linn LP-12
QUAD 34 pre-amp
QUAD CDP Cd player
2 QUAD 405 amps (Victor's Stereo Mod)
QUAD FM4 tuner
QUAD ESL-63
Stellavox SM-8 reel to reel


If it was good then, it's good now. . .
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Duardo

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #26 on: January 25, 2006, 07:14:00 PM »

My "home" setup's not so impressive, probably because my wife has more say over what goes on in the living room...which is fine with me because she leaves me alone in my basement studio.  I just have a relatively cheap Sony surround receiver with a Teac 5.1 speaker setup with a powered sub.  If I want to listen to a CD I use our Magnavox DVD player, but more often than not I'll just use iTunes.  I got my wife an iPod for Christmas last year and didn't think I'd really be too interested in it but now I want one, and iTunes is just so handy...

When I want to really sit down and listen to something, though, I go down to the basement where I run a DVRA1000 through a Central Station to a pair of BM5A's with a Mackie HRS120.  Not too impressive in comparison to the other stuff mentioned in this thread...

-Duardo
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Duardo Hunter

max cooper

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #27 on: January 27, 2006, 09:45:35 AM »

This week:

Michell Gyrodec SE
Crimson Electronics
ATC 20's

I haven't bothered to replace my California Audio Labs CD player that died a couple of years ago.  Haven't missed it either!
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Barish

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #28 on: January 28, 2006, 08:08:20 PM »

jimmyjazz wrote

Ultimately, the horrid standard of living in Glasgow scared me off...



Hey, it's not worse than Baltimore as far as I could see for that matter. Been living here for 9 years and still surviving. Plus Tannoy factory is within an arm reach as well, whatelse do you want?


At home I have a cheapo Fusion DVD player + a cheapo Marantz amp + a pair of large Goodmans speakers from the 70s.


In the office the test equipment is a cheapo mini Hitachi CD/Radio bought for
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M Ozturk

rodabod

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Re: What's your home stereo like?
« Reply #29 on: January 29, 2006, 07:57:03 PM »

Barish wrote on Sun, 29 January 2006 01:08

jimmyjazz wrote

Ultimately, the horrid standard of living in Glasgow scared me off...


Plus Tannoy factory is within an arm reach as well,



Tannoy? Really?

Whereabouts are they?
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Roddy Bell
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