Stereophiles?

[CZ-75]

Anyone else really into good sounding music?

For me, a system has to sound good at all volume levels, especially low volume, when base can be either too strong or too weak.

I'm partial to Paradigm speakers. They have great sound, matching speakers that cost thousands more. Currently have a pair of S4's with a matching sub.

I have B&K components, a PT5 preamp that also has a tuner integrated into it, and a dual monoblock amplifier that puts out just over 200 watts per channel.

I'm a bit of a traditionalist, and have stayed with a 2 channel system.

Any other audiophiles here?

 

[Totalled]

I inherited my dad's home theater setup. Two Paradigm monitor 11's, monitor 7's, ADP-170's, CC-370 center, and PW-2200 sub. It runs off of a pioneer VSX-49TXi.

The large Advent's I posted in the other thread were his that he bought new in 1973.

 

[Kit Sullivan]

I have always just used a decent mainstream headunit ( Pioneer, Panasonic, JBL, etc...), good quailty speakers ( I like Pioneers for value and quality), and a strong amp ( Orion, Rockford-Fosgate, JBL, etc...). I tend to use amps rated a little more powerful than the speakers are rated, my thinking is that I will typically not run the amp high enough to overpower the speakers, and it tends to sound better overall if the speakers are driven towards the higher end of thier capacity.

Of course, I am totally ignorant-adjacent when it comes to audio expertise, so this is just a basic set of standards I have fallen into over the years.

I am and old guy, so I like classic music from the 60-70s (rock/pop mostly) so good 6x9 3-ways deliver good sound for me. I don't need bass tubes, or super-tweeters and all that jazz.

 

[Austin Vert]

Hi CZ,

I assume your referring to home hi-fi here. I'm no audiophile myself, but i like quality listening. I've run Japanese Yamaha home Hi-fi components for many, many years and found them fairly good for the ratio of money spent to quality sound.

It's interesting to note also, that the world today, has largely moved away from quality sound, which of course was the popular, holy grail of hi-fi listening back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, to massive quantities of consumerable digital music pumped out of various cruddy sounding tiny small playback devices, using compressed formats such as Mp3. Quality sound has largely given way to quantity of music as being the big thing these days i think.

Greg.

 

[Mister 4x4]

I've always been about good sound, which is why I usually rip out whatever's in the daily driver and build something new with things I've picked out.

My home stereo is, OMG, almost 25 years old now. Wow. It was state-of-the-art when I put it together in 1990. It's a mid/high-end component system that at the time, cost me something north of $2500 - greatly discounted from retail since I bought it through the BX/PX when I was overseas in Izmir, Turkey.

The system:

Pioneer VSX-7500s integrated amp

Pioneer PD-T503 twin-tray CD

Kenwood KX-W8030 dual-cassette deck

JVC SEA-70 equalizer

Yamaha M-35 2/4-channel power amplifier (center channel amp)

Infinity SM-152 main speakers (2)

Infinity SM-82 secondary speakers (2)

Infinity BU-80 powered sub (1)

Pioneer S-X7 surround speakers (2)

Optimus Pro CS-3 center channel speaker (1)

Monster Cable connects it all together (speaker leads and RCA cables)

I never had one of those dedicated stereo racks, it just took up the whole side of the entertainment center, and now currently occupies a built-in cabinet with the TiVO, Cable DVR, DVD player, and yes, a JVC Hi-Fi Super-VHS that I still use occasionally - the opening of Top Gun with the planes on the deck, taking off, landing, etc., is still one of my favorite "sound checks." That was one of the first things to happen after the moves (we had a few rental houses before we bought our current home). The afterburners shaking the slab foundation is an awesome feeling.

It's really sad to think that anybody can get pretty much the same sound and functionality out of an all-in-one home theater system for less than $700.

My buddies kept telling me I needed a Nakamichi Dragon RX cassette deck, but seriously - who needs a $500 single cassette deck... even though the UDAR reversing mechanism is so damn cool?

 

[Doug The Dog]

I'm a vintage stereo fan. My main rig consists of a Yamaha C-60 pre-amp, M-60 power amp, CD-2000 CD player, Harman/Kardon T-45 turn table, and KEF 104/2 speakers. My shop system is a little bit more insane, (2) Pioneer SX-1050 receivers running in series, Nakamichi OMS-5aII CD player, powering 8 Pioneer HPM-100 speakers. Good times!!! :banana:

-Travis

 

[CZ-75]

Nothing better than running 2 mono-block amplifiers for separating the left and right channels. if you ever get the chance, listen to Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on a system with 2 mono-block amplifiers and a good set of speakers placed in the right positions... Unbelievable sound stage.

 

[73vertproject]

I used to be an audiophile. I bought my system piece by piece at the Exchange at Iwakuni Marine Corps Air Station in 1980:

Sansui AU-919 Amp

Technics SB-G800 Speakers (18" woofer)

Technics Cassette, Turntable, CD, Equalizer, Tuner, etc., etc.

I listened to some great half-speed mastered albums including Pink Floyd's The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon. The sound was amazing.

I moved to Hawaii in 1993 and let my younger brother babysit the system so I wouldn't have to ship it, and he either sold it or it was stolen. I could have killed him.

 

[rpmcarter]

I know nothing about stereos I just have an old 20 year old harmen kardon set up.

 

[CZ-75]

I inherited my dad's home theater setup. Two Paradigm monitor 11's, monitor 7's, ADP-170's, CC-370 center, and PW-2200 sub. It runs off of a pioneer VSX-49TXi.

The large Advent's I posted in the other thread were his that he bought new in 1973.

Your father had excellent taste, and a good eye for bargain audio equipment!

Hi CZ,

I assume your referring to home hi-fi here. I'm no audiophile myself, but i like quality listening. I've run Japanese Yamaha home Hi-fi components for many, many years and found them fairly good for the ratio of money spent to quality sound.

It's interesting to note also, that the world today, has largely moved away from quality sound, which of course was the popular, holy grail of hi-fi listening back in the sixties, seventies and eighties, to massive quantities of consumerable digital music pumped out of various cruddy sounding tiny small playback devices, using compressed formats such as Mp3. Quality sound has largely given way to quantity of music as being the big thing these days i think.

Greg.

Yes, Greg... I was referring to home stereo. You are so right about low quality. I always wanted a good reel to reel tape deck when I was too young to afford one.

 

[Austin Vert]

Yes, Greg... I was referring to home stereo. You are so right about low quality. I always wanted a good reel to reel tape deck when I was too young to afford one.

Ah yes, the good old days when reel to reel was King. I remember it all so well.

Reel to reel did not enjoy a long period of popularity in the sun, which was a shame in a way, because the really up market expensive home models, that cost a King's ransom back then, really sounded first class. Analogue issues such as tape hiss, and wow and flutter, were taken care of and were not an issue on playback. But alas, other issues such as tape dropout, would eventually sound the death knell for all analogue tape formats, as long term achieving could not be successfully achieved.

Greg.

 

[Doug The Dog]

Nothing better than running 2 mono-block amplifiers for separating the left and right channels. if you ever get the chance, listen to Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on a system with 2 mono-block amplifiers and a good set of speakers placed in the right positions... Unbelievable sound stage.

Have you ever played with a Carver "Sonic Holography Generator"? It does increadible things to Pink Floyd.

I have never owned mono amps. Always seemed to be a little above my pay scale!!

 

[midlife]

I have a 40 year old stereo system in the house but the best part of it is the speakers: ESS Heil AMT1a's. I got the speakers from my brother for a song, who got them from a police auction. These are wickedly precise speakers from 50Hz on up, but they have no low-end grunt (subwoofers were just coming on line about then).

I wanted a quality stereo system for the garage, where I spend most of my time now. I went online and found that there is very little audiophile equipment for sale...a real shame. Bose is touted as high quality and that's just plain BS. No one makes quality speakers beyond bookcase size anymore unless you want to spend $2k+. I found a set of good Klipsh bookcase speakers (they are OK) and Klipsh subwoofer. I then tried to find a true two channel stereo receiver/amp, and only Yamaha still makes them....amazing. Everyone else is selling home theater stuff and that's definitely not audiophile quality. The Yamaha receiver is good, and I got a Yamaha 5 CD player. The system is adequate for the garage and serves my purposes. But I am still very disappointed about the lack of high end quality components. It appears that the customer demand for it has taken a nose-dive.

 

[CZ-75]

Nothing better than running 2 mono-block amplifiers for separating the left and right channels. if you ever get the chance, listen to Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" on a system with 2 mono-block amplifiers and a good set of speakers placed in the right positions... Unbelievable sound stage.

Have you ever played with a Carver "Sonic Holography Generator"? It does increadible things to Pink Floyd.

I have never owned mono amps. Always seemed to be a little above my pay scale!!

A friend of mine in High School had a Carver M400 amplifier. It was a cube about 4-5 inches... amazing little amplifier!

I have a 40 year old stereo system in the house but the best part of it is the speakers: ESS Heil AMT1a's. I got the speakers from my brother for a song, who got them from a police auction. These are wickedly precise speakers from 50Hz on up, but they have no low-end grunt (subwoofers were just coming on line about then).

I wanted a quality stereo system for the garage, where I spend most of my time now. I went online and found that there is very little audiophile equipment for sale...a real shame. Bose is touted as high quality and that's just plain BS. No one makes quality speakers beyond bookcase size anymore unless you want to spend $2k+. I found a set of good Klipsh bookcase speakers (they are OK) and Klipsh subwoofer. I then tried to find a true two channel stereo receiver/amp, and only Yamaha still makes them....amazing. Everyone else is selling home theater stuff and that's definitely not audiophile quality. The Yamaha receiver is good, and I got a Yamaha 5 CD player. The system is adequate for the garage and serves my purposes. But I am still very disappointed about the lack of high end quality components. It appears that the customer demand for it has taken a nose-dive.

Yeah, I agree... Bose is over rated. They used to make quality loudspeakers, like the 501 and 901, but most of their miniature stuff is way overrated. Great treble, but non-existent mid-range, and, depending on the system, cloudy base.

I absolutely LOVE my Paradigm S4s... A little on the big side to be considered bookshelf, but just about as small as you can get without spending $5,000 or more. I got mine for $2,500.

 

[sicndhed]

A wannabe hear here. Two friends provided my quality listening experiences for the last 30 years. I've enjoyed the warmth of Crown amps but never in my home. A friend in Montreal is pushing close to 100K in his system. There is a page of instructions to follow if he says "Hey why don't you go downstairs and turn on the stereo."

For many years my shop sounds came from an 8 track stereo pulled from a car, powered by a 12V power source I built as an electronics student, driving two 6x9s hanging from strings. The BOSS surprised me with some amps for the shop but there is a $$$ list of additional components before they go to work. She's pretty cool. Even though she doesn't spend a lot of time in the shop she still wants quality (and quantity) sound out there. I'm looking forward to bleeding ears from a dose of Led Zeppelin.

 

[4Vforever]

I know nothing about stereos I just have an old 20 year old harmen kardon set up.

I'm in the same boat, all I know is how to turn it on and up. When I go to purchase a system I say to the salesman, don't know what does what and don't really care as all I care about is how good it sounds loud and if they don't allow doing that in their store, then see ya later and off to the next place. Gotta say though, the Sony system I've got now is great, sounds good at any level, especially loud and it has that many buttons, dials and knobs that I don't even know what most of them do, except like I said the on button and the sound one, but really that all you need.

 

[123FRANK321]

My grandfather took his jazz very serious and loved to entertain. Most of his vinyl is stashed in my sisters garage. He had a very large mcintosh amp that powered Boston Acoustics and polk audio speaker through the house and in the backyard. He spent hours listening to music and working in his garden after retirement. During Christmas the Nat King Cole Christmas Album would always come out after he fired up the fireplace in his dream home.

 

[EdM]

It was many years ago. It all went into storage when we started moving 20 years ago. I still have most of it, a Carver M400a amp, a David Hafler DH101 preamp that I assembled from a kit, a Yamaha YP 701 turntable and KEF CS1 speakers. Some day I will fire it all up again.

 

[c9zx]

For music, Denon POA 2200 Amp, Denon PRA 1100 pre-amp, Technics SL-1300 turntable, a pair of JBL 4311 control monitors. The amp and pre-amp are circa 1988. The rest is from 1975. Still sounds good. Chuck