What's your audio system like?

NewEnglandPotriot said:

I agree with 99% of what you said, except this point. Many tube amps over 40-50W are Class AB. My Assemblage amp (Sonic Frontiers kit) is AB Ultralinear, as are some Audio Research, Conrad-Johnson, and others. My system's a few notches lower than yours (Cary, B&W, Rega Planet 2k, Clearaudio turntable) but we share the same enjoyment. The next thing I build will be an SET amp just to see what those are like. What kind of speakers are those? Those aren't Pipe Dreams are they?

Click to expand...

How bout them Patriots!!!!!


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAH

Here are a couple of pics of my rig, underwhelming after PanHead's.

I have a alpine head unit, a hifonics 3600 watt rms amp, and two Fi BTl 18s

36 Watt - 5.1 - Subwoofer 16 Watt


Believe me, I have totally never had a real audio system ^^

i like'd buying weed more

ohwell ^^

NewEnglandPotriot said:

Here are a couple of pics of my rig, underwhelming after PanHead's.

View attachment 71805

View attachment 71806

Click to expand...

Sweet,nice to see another audiophile.

How do you like the Cary gear ?

panhead said:

Sweet,nice to see another audiophile.

How do you like the Cary gear ?

Click to expand...

It's like listening to 3-dimensional waves of Grade A Light Amber maple syrup. I've got a Cary preamp that is the best I've had in my system. I had an Audio Research LS-7, which was really open and airy sounding, but a little dry and thin on the bass and 2-dimensional. A Conrad-Johnson PV10 was much warmer and had deeper bass and had more of the 3-D thing going, but the bass was loose and the thing was noisy. This older Cary I've got is the sound, though. It's got very deep bass that's still tight, open and extended highs, and a midrange that's very liquid and has that swirling psychedelic thing that tubes have perfectly.

The Cary phono preamp is the only tube phono pre I've used so I can't honestly say what it sounds like compared to anything else.

The power amp is a straightforward EL34 design that I upgraded with some oil-filled capacitors and foo-foo carbon resistors. It's pretty neutral soundwise, maybe just a touch on the warm side. Just for kicks I think my next project will be to build a single-ended triode amp with 300Bs or something just to see what that's like.

NewEnglandPotriot said:

It's like listening to 3-dimensional waves of Grade A Light Amber maple syrup. I've got a Cary preamp that is the best I've had in my system. I had an Audio Research LS-7, which was really open and airy sounding, but a little dry and thin on the bass and 2-dimensional.

Click to expand...

Agreed on the AR gear,ive been through a bunch of AR gear before i dove head first into Mcintosh gear,the thing that i disliked the most with AR was their lack of a house sound,seemed like every time i bought a different peice of AR gear it had different sonic traingts,i dont care for that.

Ive got a couple of peices of cary gear in storage & im running 2 CAD 5500's right now in secondary systems.

Im sure you know how wierd this is talking high end audio on this site,i'd bet we've talked on Audiogon,Audio Aslym or Audiokarma before

Enjoy your system,it looks fantastic.

Hey, Panhead ...

Beautiful Mac gear, Bro. I have a Mac 1700 receiver at work in my office. Only the tuner section is tube with the rest being solid state ... but even so, Mac built some good solid state stuff back in the day too. My associates at work all have I-pods ... but they come into my office to listen to music. ~lol~

At home, I have Audio Research's Reference gear. Awesome sound.

Audio Research. America's premier manufacturer of precision hi-fi equipment, committed to High Definition® in sound, service, and product support.

The difference between good audio and great audio is this: With "good" audio, your friends say:"Man, your system sounds good!" With "great" audio, your friends say: Man THOSE GUYS sound good! ~lol~

For those in the room who've never heard a truely high-end audio system before ... We're into recreating the actual event. Some great audio systems bring the performers into your living room. Other great audio systems transport you into the recording environment. All of this is in three dimentional relief. The timbers of the instruments are correct. You can hear the wood of the cello, the ivory of the piano and sense the personalities of vocalists. If you're listening to choral music, each voice is discernable from the other voices. There is no confusion to the sound at all, just like there is no confusion to the sound when listening to live music. The emotional impact of the music is like listening live. The realism, at times, can suspend disbelief. Tubes and vinyl are best at doing that.

Beware ... the high-end stereo hobby is like having a heroin habit ... only more expensive.

Vi

ViRedd said:

Hey, Panhead ...

Beautiful Mac gear, Bro. I have a Mac 1700 receiver at work in my office. Only the tuner section is tube with the rest being solid state ... but even so, Mac built some good solid state stuff back in the day too. My associates at work all have I-pods ... but they come into my office to listen to music. ~lol~

At home, I have Audio Research's Reference gear. Awesome sound.

Audio Research. America's premier manufacturer of precision hi-fi equipment, committed to High Definition® in sound, service, and product support.

The difference between good audio and great audio is this: With "good" audio, your friends say:"Man, your system sounds good!" With "great" audio, your friends say: Man THOSE GUYS sound good! ~lol~

For those in the room who've never heard a truely high-end audio system before ... We're into recreating the actual event. Some great audio systems bring the performers into your living room. Other great audio systems transport you into the recording environment. All of this is in three dimentional relief. The timbers of the instruments are correct. You can hear the wood of the cello, the ivory of the piano and sense the personalities of vocalists. If you're listening to choral music, each voice is discernable from the other voices. There is no confusion to the sound at all, just like there is no confusion to the sound when listening to live music. The emotional impact of the music is like listening live. The realism, at times, can suspend disbelief. Tubes and vinyl are best at doing that.

Beware ... the high-end stereo hobby is like having a heroin habit ... only more expensive.

Vi

Click to expand...

Amen brother,i fell off the deep end collecting vintage Mac gear within the last 10 years,i have your receiver as well as a shit load of other vintage Mac in storage,im thinking about buying the new turntable that Mcintosh just released this year but im still undecided.


As far as high end being heroin its true,ive bet ive got 200K tied up in my systems & im still not done,ill never be 100% done.

Theres nothin like kickin back with the lights down low,burning a fat one & listening to some great tunes on a properly set up high end rig,even my mother thought my systems were awesome until my wife told her how much i spent,then she freaked.

Yeah, I saw the review of that new Mac turntable. Don't remember if it was in TAS or Stereophile. Again ... beautiful. If I were into collecting Mac gear like you are ... I'd HAVE to go for the turntable. ~lol~

This morning I was listening to Brubeck's "Jazz in the USA" album. Its mono, but the sound and performance is really great. Paul Desmond was right there in the room. Nothing like the aroma of home roasted Sumatra coffee and Desmond's sax wafting through the air!

Here ... If you don't know about this site, I'd like to turn you on to it: AudiogoN high end audio auctions, classifieds, hifi chat

Its an auction site for high end audio equipment, both used and new. Honesty is strictly enforced as is accurate descriptions of what's for sale. Enjoy ...

Vi

ViRedd said:

Here ... If you don't know about this site, I'd like to turn you on to it: AudiogoN high end audio auctions, classifieds, hifi chat

Its an auction site for high end audio equipment, both used and new. Honesty is strictly enforced as is accurate descriptions of what's for sale. Enjoy ...

Vi

Click to expand...

Good call on Audiogon,ive been buying & selling there for 5 years,i quit taking part in their forums though after they switched to 100% moderation of every post.

I'm a dj and love playing with vinyl.. non of you would like the type of music I play but.. I also have moved on with the times and still love to play with vinyl. If I want to listen to a cd I would stick it into my hi-fi or car system and listen to it but when I'm mixing I much more prefer mixing with vinyl. To me it's the art part that comes into play with vinyl and mixing with cd does not have the same effect on me.

Also buying a record to me is more interesting and collect-able satisfying than what cd's are. To me you buy a cd you stick it in and listen but when you buy a record you put it on you feel and listen.. it just comes with the whole process and the vibe is different and therefore I hope it never goes away.

I didn't grow up in the old times but there has definitely some good that came out of the old times and that to me is vinyl. It's just not the same feel when you put on a mp3 or cd like you have with vinyl.. your mates would much more be interested in you showing them your record collection than you showing them your cd or mp3 collection it's just not the same coz everyone buys cd's, etc... it's part the modern day and people are getting too use to it but they definitely not used to vinyl anymore and therefore are always in owe when you play them something on vinyl.

I wana puff puff some of that Dutch stuff! Hard.fm - The #1 Hardstyle Radio / Community on the web! - Home
www.Hardstyle.co.za :: Index

i caught that vinyl/tube bug awhile back and man it can get expensive, swapping tubes, cartridges, cables, individual components.heavy vinyl,45rpm. so i downloaded all my music to my laptop and a couple of hard drives and sold all my stuff. the plan was to buy a headphone preamp and listen to my music on my senn hd600(moved into a small apt.). anyway i broke down and bought another system and this WILL be the last one. attached is my system.

well I got all a yas. I got a laptop which came with speakers already inside of it and I have a tape deck in my car. Bet I know what you fellas will be dreamin about for the next few nights.

Heres my setup:

Head unit is a 7.5" flip up dvd/mp3/cd player
Speakers are 6x9" Eclipse 3 ways up front, 5.5" Pioneer 2 ways in the back.
Speakers powered by a rockford fosgate 450w 4 channel amp
12" Kicker Solobaric L7 subwoofer, powered by a 1000w 2 channel Rockford amp.

I love my system.

I was looking thru some old threads & ran across this old thread about peoples stereo/hifi systems & figured i'd give it a shot of adrenalin & bring it back to life .

C'mon peoples lets see some pics of members audio systems .

Ive added another complete Mid level hifi system ( Emotiva ) and added another dozen or so pieces to my vintage tube gear collection since this thread went flat , the coolest piece ive acquired is a 1 of a kind pair of Mcintosh XR-290 Line Array speaker system , hand built by legendary Mcintosh hifi engineer Roger Russell for use in his home system , in my personal opinion the 290's hold up against Mc's current TOTL XRT2K line arrays & i saved $90,000 in the process from picking Rogers 290's vs Mc's new $120.000 xrt2k statement speaker system .

Any new audiophiles join RIU & if so lets see your rigs !

I want to give a shoutout to AirFoil by Rogue Amoeba - You can simultaneously stream music from your computer to any iOS device or any (I believe) Android device. So you use your phones/computers/tablets as a wi-fi receiver. Or from your iOS/Device to your computer, to other wi-fi devices. It gives you surround sound throughout the house and has a nice digital EQ to tweak all the sound. I think it's like $20, and well worth it. Like "Apple AirPlay" but AirFoil goes where that cannot. Check it out if you've been running WAY too many wires around the house! GL

NewEnglandPotriot said:

The next thing I build will be an SET amp just to see what those are like.What kind of speakers are those? Those aren't Pipe Dreams are they?

Click to expand...

Late ass reply but to answer the question the speakers pictured are not Pipe Dreams they are Mcintosh XRT-22's , they operate on the same principal as Pipe's with both brands being line array systems but the Mcintosh line array far out performs Pipedreams in bass response , i auditioned a pair of Pipedream Hemispheres for a week in my main system & was really dissapointed in their bass response , i found they needed external subwoofers to equal the 10HZ bass response the Mcintosh line arrays have , the pipes sounded great but IMO a $50,000 speaker system shouldnt need a subwoofer , i own 2 pair of the Mcintosh XRT-22 line arrays & a pair of Mcintosh's last top of the line XR290 line arrays , along with a few other more tube friendly systems .

I got off the hi end audio band wagon for several yrs so i could focus all cash twords real estate but ive got back into the hobby & collecting gear within the last yr or so .

There's gotta be some more people out there who still have real stereos & hifi's , i hate to think computer speakers & i-pods have replaced stereo systems in the USA .

What about all the album covers?
A lot of great stuff going on there that you
don't see any more with the new stuff.

With vinyl you get warmth, depth and mids.
Digital etc...you get none of this.









.

ViRedd said:

I'm into vacuum tubes and vinyl. My belief is, digital ended what transistors started; the complete ruination of reproduced music in the home. Agree or disagree?

Vi

PS: Digital sucks.

Click to expand...

something.flac