What audio system do you have, or plan on getting?

Started by Bonehelm, May 24, 2007, 08:52:55 AM

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Fëanor

#1860
Quote from: Klavier on August 26, 2021, 04:00:35 PM
Acapella Audio Arts High Cellini speakers
Ayon Audio Auris II with phono stage preamp
Ayon Audio Orthos II XS mono blocks power amps
Transrotor Apollon TMD turntable; TR 5012 tonearm
Clearaudio Titanium v2 cartridge
dCS Vivaldi CD/SACD; MSB Premiere DAC (for hi-res files/streaming)
Stax SR-009S/Stax SRM-T8000 headphones/amp
Nordost Tyr 2 speaker cables/interconnects
Solid Tech Reference NOS4 rack and amplifier stands

Congratulations.  Quite a sumptuous system I should say, an no doubt terrific sounding.  As I understand the Acapella High Cellini's have ion tweeters, do they not?

Fëanor

I recently upgraded my Sonic Frontiers Line 1 preamplifier to the "SE+" version.  The SF Line 1 has been out of production for over 20 years but that equipment is still expertly serviced and upgraded by Parts ConneXion located in the Toronto area.  The owner of Parts ConneXion was principal of Sonic Frontiers before they sold out to Anthem.

Yes, I think the SE+ finesses the basic attributes of the basic Line 1.  See before & after pics ...

Before:


After:

Klavier

Quote from: Fëanor on August 26, 2021, 04:22:26 PM
Congratulations.  Quite a sumptuous system I should say, an no doubt terrific sounding.  As I understand the Acapella High Cellini's have ion tweeters, do they not?
Thank you. Yes, ion tweeters, so there's really no mass at all.

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

#1863
Quote from: The new erato on February 07, 2021, 05:17:16 AM
Well, it's the brain that tell you what the ears detect. And the brain is an extremely subjective organ. I don't believe for a second that any absolutte senses exist, not in smell, taste, reaction to pain (why can people be hypnotized to not feel pain?) or anything. It's all prosessed by the brain.

Of course there are differences in sound - or in wine for that matter - and the basis can be understood pretty well as in acid in wine or freqency respons in sound, but for the finer nuances there are always a not particularly reliable, subjective element.

+1. There is no sound outside human sense. There are only waves, that touch eardrums.

Bachtoven

#1864
SPEAKERS: B&W 803D3
AMPLIFIER McIntosh MA9000
CD/SACD PLAYER: Esoteric K-03
DAC: Chord Qutest
TURNTABLE: VPI Prime Signature
PHONO CARTRIDGE: Ortofon Cadenza Bronze
BLU-RAY/DVD PLAYER: Oppo 205
HEADPHONES: Sennheiser HD800S and, Audeze LCD-XC











DavidW

Update for me.  I moved and in the new room the stereo sounds awful! :o

That hardwood floor.  I am receiving an area rug today and corresponding pad.  Between that and speaker positioning I hope to make my stereo sound good again.

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: DavidW on October 08, 2021, 07:27:40 AM
Update for me.  I moved and in the new room the stereo sounds awful! :o

That hardwood floor.  I am receiving an area rug today and corresponding pad.  Between that and speaker positioning I hope to make my stereo sound good again.
Uh, oh!  Good luck getting everything squared away!  What kind of shape and size is your listening room?  Would some sort of audio diffusing panels/treatments on your walls help or not an option?  Is your partner a big music lover?

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

DavidW

The sound is good now.  The area rug and positioning did the trick.  Now time for some Shostakovich!

SonicMan46

Quote from: DavidW on October 08, 2021, 01:08:27 PM
The sound is good now.  The area rug and positioning did the trick.  Now time for some Shostakovich!

David - +1 - glad to here!  Dave  8)

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: DavidW on October 08, 2021, 01:08:27 PM
The sound is good now.  The area rug and positioning did the trick.  Now time for some Shostakovich!
Yeah!  Happy for you!
:)
PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Valentino

#1870
Mine is a bit complex, so I've made new block diagram for you (I may have posted about my kit some 10 years ago, but I've been away from here for a while).

The main user interface is this nice little Yamaha MusicCast WXC-50 streaming pre amplifier. It's not able to drill deep in music catalogues, so a trusty old Squeezebox Touch patched to pass through everything up to 192/24 takes care of the locally stored music files.

The speaker system is a dynamic 3 way dipole with closed box sub woofers. Crossovers run on Console in a PC. The sound card is a RME Fireface UC and amplifiers are Hypex nCore and B&O IcepowerASX2.

We audiophiles don't really like music, but we sure love the sound it makes;
Audio-Technica | Bokrand | Thorens | Cambridge Audio | Logitech | Yamaha | Topping | MiniDSP | Hypex | ICEpower | Mundorf | SEAS | Beyma

Valentino

Quote from: "Harry" on February 22, 2021, 07:08:47 AM
I can now confirm that the Bluesound 2i is far superior to the Yamaha. Natural, with a deep stage, excellent detail, a broad image, and a lot of orchestral punch.
And I just bought the Yamaha, as presented above. Mind you I use the digital output 98% of the time and playing LPs is for nostalgia more than sound quality.
We audiophiles don't really like music, but we sure love the sound it makes;
Audio-Technica | Bokrand | Thorens | Cambridge Audio | Logitech | Yamaha | Topping | MiniDSP | Hypex | ICEpower | Mundorf | SEAS | Beyma


Valentino

We audiophiles don't really like music, but we sure love the sound it makes;
Audio-Technica | Bokrand | Thorens | Cambridge Audio | Logitech | Yamaha | Topping | MiniDSP | Hypex | ICEpower | Mundorf | SEAS | Beyma

DaveF

Just bought a Marantz PM7000N receiver plus a pair of Fyne F303 floorstanders.  Having gratefully received a lot of technical advice earlier on this thread which was just a bit too technical for a bear of very little brain, I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to hook up, and now have an embarrassment of different ways to play music - off a USB stick, streamed wirelessly from my PC running Emby Server in another room, or wired to a laptop running the same server software.  Or even plugging in a thousand-year-old CD player.  All sounding good.  And my son, now flush with cash in his first job, bought me not one but three pairs of ear/headphones for my birthday, of which the Sennheisers sound especially fine.
"All the world is birthday cake" - George Harrison

Holden

Quote from: DaveF on December 01, 2021, 01:07:37 AM
Just bought a Marantz PM7000N receiver plus a pair of Fyne F303 floorstanders.  Having gratefully received a lot of technical advice earlier on this thread which was just a bit too technical for a bear of very little brain, I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to hook up, and now have an embarrassment of different ways to play music - off a USB stick, streamed wirelessly from my PC running Emby Server in another room, or wired to a laptop running the same server software.  Or even plugging in a thousand-year-old CD player.  All sounding good.  And my son, now flush with cash in his first job, bought me not one but three pairs of ear/headphones for my birthday, of which the Sennheisers sound especially fine.

What Sennheisers did he give you?
Cheers

Holden

Holden





As a headphone listener from my iMAc much of the time, the sound quality is of high importance. I currently own the Burson Playmate 2 which is a great DAC/Amp with plenty of power. However, it apparently won't drive my Sennheiser HD650s to the level and quality that they require. (This is what I've read on a number of forums and review sites). I still hear a rolled off treble, fuzzy mid bass and there is that three point imaging issue where the sound appears to come from three distinctive points instead of being spread around my head. They don't sound like an $AUS560 pair of headphones which brings me to the images above.

The top one is the Schiit (yes it is pronounced like that and the name is deliberate) Asgard 3 headphone amp which has four time the power of the PM2. I'm pairing it with the second image which is a Schiit Modi 3+ DAC. The Asgard has been touted as one of the amps to get to bring the HD650s to life outside of going down the 'tube' route.

The interesting thing is price as this combo is costing me only $AUS550 plus s&h, considerably less than the Burson did.

I also have a venerable pair of Sennheiser HD580s which were the precursor for the HD600s and HD650s. While the Burson does a great job of bringing these to life, they are also 300ohm cans and I'd be interested to see what the Schiit combo does for these. Similarly I am looking at pairing up my Audeze LCD1 planars. I'll report back after they arrive.
Cheers

Holden

DaveF

Quote from: Holden on December 01, 2021, 11:42:08 AM
What Sennheisers did he give you?

HD 560S.  Also a pair of Beyerdynamic DT 770s and some in-ear ones called KZ-ZSN Pro, which were supposedly to use with my iPod when gardening - although I'm terrified I'd cut through the cable (as has happened before) so use cheap throwaway ones instead.
"All the world is birthday cake" - George Harrison

Valentino

#1878
^In Norway the Topping headphone amps are quite popular. They seem to be able do drive anything. Mind you, they're designed to have no sound of their own so they will not be to everyones liking.

Throwing in a pic with a view to our living/listening room, wife's plastic sandals and all. The main speakers are as mentioned dipoles, designed to operate below the dipole peak (ok, that falls apart at about 6 kHz for physical reasons. The tweeter is just too big). In practice they shower the room with a frequency spectrum that doesn't change much as you move around. Subwoofers between the main speakers and the front wall. The listening chair is that rocking chair. I sit fairly close when I listen seriously, about 1,8 m speaker-ear. Note the 10 cm reflection killing "box" above the listening triangle. It also does wonders to the acoustics of this rather classic L-shaped Scandinavian living room.
We audiophiles don't really like music, but we sure love the sound it makes;
Audio-Technica | Bokrand | Thorens | Cambridge Audio | Logitech | Yamaha | Topping | MiniDSP | Hypex | ICEpower | Mundorf | SEAS | Beyma

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: Holden on December 01, 2021, 12:13:05 PM




As a headphone listener from my iMAc much of the time, the sound quality is of high importance. I currently own the Burson Playmate 2 which is a great DAC/Amp with plenty of power. However, it apparently won't drive my Sennheiser HD650s to the level and quality that they require. (This is what I've read on a number of forums and review sites). I still hear a rolled off treble, fuzzy mid bass and there is that three point imaging issue where the sound appears to come from three distinctive points instead of being spread around my head. They don't sound like an $AUS560 pair of headphones which brings me to the images above.

The top one is the Schiit (yes it is pronounced like that and the name is deliberate) Asgard 3 headphone amp which has four time the power of the PM2. I'm pairing it with the second image which is a Schiit Modi 3+ DAC. The Asgard has been touted as one of the amps to get to bring the HD650s to life outside of going down the 'tube' route.

The interesting thing is price as this combo is costing me only $AUS550 plus s&h, considerably less than the Burson did.

I also have a venerable pair of Sennheiser HD580s which were the precursor for the HD600s and HD650s. While the Burson does a great job of bringing these to life, they are also 300ohm cans and I'd be interested to see what the Schiit combo does for these. Similarly I am looking at pairing up my Audeze LCD1 planars. I'll report back after they arrive.
I can't speak to your issues regarding listening through headphones, but as a fellow Mac user, I do have one suggestion that you might like to check into (I have both an older iMac and an older MacBook Pro).  B&W (Yes, as in Bowers and Wilkins) speakers.  I bought a pair around the same time that I purchased my Macs.  B&W MM1.  There are probably newer models out today if you want to look into it.  Honestly, for speakers meant to be hooked up to your computer, they are impressive.  You could probably find a used pair of the ones that I purchased for a lot less than I paid originally (were for sale at the Apple store back in the day).  https://www.amazon.com/Bowers-Wilkins-Computer-Speakers-Built/dp/B003R6U6HG?th=1  They particularly come in handy when I want to listen to online radio programs (like from the BBC) and I want better sound and not being stuck in front of my iMac to listen to a program.

Will be interested in seeing what all you are happiest with in the end.  :)

PD
Pohjolas Daughter