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

[marvinbrown]

Some nice gear there.  I've owned two pairs of Monitor Audio speakers, and three Rega source components over the years.  They have always sounded superb.

  Thank you Tod. Which Monitor Audios did you own?

  The Silver 8s are the new Silver Range upgraded from the previous Silver  RX range. What attracted me to these speakers is the mid range driver which provides even more clarity, a feature I tend to look for when listening to classical music. These speakers are not as "forward" (for lack of a better term) as the previous silver range or even the Bronze range. The Rega Elex R amp is as musical as its younger sibling the Rega Brio R but more muscular. The net result is a smooth and musical as opposed clinical sound. I am very happy with this upgrade.

  I just wish I had more money to spend as the Gold range has just been upgraded- I can only imagine how wonderful they must sound.

  marvin

[Todd]

Thank you Tod. Which Monitor Audios did you own?

700 PMCs in the late 90s and early aughts, and the Silver 6s for a few years in the late aughts/early this decade - my wife gave the green light for a pair for our bedroom stereo!  That is an opportunity one does not pass up.

[marvinbrown]

700 PMCs in the late 90s and early aughts, and the Silver 6s for a few years in the late aughts/early this decade - my wife gave the green light for a pair for our bedroom stereo!  That is an opportunity one does not pass up.

  You are a lucky man  ! Usually the fairer sex likes the small sleek horrible sounding speakers LOL!!

  PS: I presume you had the Silver RX6, a very popular and excellent speaker, one of their best sellers.  This is not to be confused with the current upgraded Silver 6s.

  marvin

[Todd]

PS: I presume you had the Silver RX6, a very popular and excellent speaker, one of their best sellers.

It was the RS6 when I bought it, so at least two iterations ago.

The funny thing about that purchase is that my wife wanted new speakers to replace, of all things, some Sonus Faber Concertinos, which she described as "scratchy" sounding.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

700 PMCs in the late 90s and early aughts, and the Silver 6s for a few years in the late aughts/early this decade - my wife gave the green light for a pair for our bedroom stereo!  That is an opportunity one does not pass up.

Ha! "The wifey: Master of the Living Room". Got blindsided myself years ago when the ex put the stops to my attempts to integrate a gorgeous pair of old B&W 805s into the living room. She felt the dome tweeter perched atop the speaker looked too much like a futuristic emergency siren. So out the door they went, sleek, elegant looks and all.

I'll never forget the reaction of the sales rep at the audio shop when I returned them. His opening mile-wide smile with the melodic, hopping "hello" died a fast death on his face the instant he noticed the speaker boxes I had in tow. Unfortunately his offer for a "home trial" didn't go as planned. Worked on me of course but he (and I) hadn't factored in the master of the living room.   

[marvinbrown]

  Gentlemen,

  If it is any consolation my speaker system is placed in a decent sized, unimportant room that my significant other hardly ever frequents.  I wouldn't dare put these speakers in the bedroom much less the living room.

  PS: I have a pair of Bose 161 speakers in my bedroom. Sleek , delicate beautifully designed to my significant other's satisfaction...........and unimpressively sounding, to say the very least to my dissatisfaction 

  marvin

[The new erato]

Regarding wives and wife friendlyness. My wife once bought me a pair of these as a present:



This rig is not mine, but these speakers (the grey flat panel ones) are over 6 feet high. I think my model was sligthly narrower and slightly higher, I couldn't find a picture of exactly the same model. Acoustat made a large series of speakers built around various configurations of their electrostatic panels.

They retired a few years ago after 20 years in the service of fine music. For some years they stayed in our living room, after we moved they ended up in a dedicated listening room.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

  Gentlemen,

  If it is any consolation my speaker system is placed in a decent sized, unimportant room that my significant other hardly ever frequents.  I wouldn't dare put these speakers in the bedroom much less the living room.

PS: I have a pair of Bose 161 speakers in my bedroom. Sleek , delicate beautifully designed to my significant other's satisfaction...........and unimpressively sounding, to say the very least to my dissatisfaction 

  marvin

What's a home without compromise?

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Regarding wives and wife friendlyness. My wife once bought me a pair of these as a present:



This rig is not mine, but these speakers (the grey flat panel ones) are over 6 feet high. I think my model was sligthly narrower and slightly higher, I couldn't find a picture of exactly the same model. Acoustat made a large series of speakers built around various configurations of their electrostatic panels.

They retired a few years ago after 20 years in the service of fine music. For some years they stayed in our living room, after we moved they ended up in a dedicated listening room.

For such monsters those speakers are quite unassuming. But put a dome tweeter atop them and the ex-o-mine would've high-tailed it right out of the room...

[Bogey]

[Todd]

Santa Claus brought me the Schiit Fulla headphone amp/dac.  Roughly the size of a lighter, and meant for connection to computers or portable gear via USB, this little device is most delightful.  For a mere $90, it actually makes PC audio sound good.  (This assumes one has not plopped down for exotic soundcards, and so forth, which I most certainly have not.)  Sound is clearer, cleaner, fuller, weightier.  It can drive 250 Ohm headphones to unacceptably loud levels if needed.  No, it doesn't sound as good as a proper headphone amp fed a proper signal, but this is meant for work, where portability and inconspicuousness is preferred. 

[Bogey]

Santa Claus brought me the Schiit Fulla headphone amp/dac.  Roughly the size of a lighter, and meant for connection to computers or portable gear via USB, this little device is most delightful.  For a mere $90, it actually makes PC audio sound good.  (This assumes one has not plopped down for exotic soundcards, and so forth, which I most certainly have not.)  Sound is clearer, cleaner, fuller, weightier.  It can drive 250 Ohm headphones to unacceptably loud levels if needed.  No, it doesn't sound as good as a proper headphone amp fed a proper signal, but this is meant for work, where portability and inconspicuousness is preferred.

That's cool.

[Holden]

I just bought something similar in the Fiio Q1 for about $US80. I've attached this to my Sansa View, iPhone 6S and iPad Air with similar results to what Todd has described. It doesn't replace my Fiio E7/E9 combination on my home PC which sounds amazing.

The one issue with upgrading sound cards in PCs is that the sound still has to go through part of the MS Windows sound system with the inevitable degradation in SQ. Much better to use a DAC/amp and bypass it all entirely. It makes a huge difference.

[Fëanor]

My best equipment acquisition in 2015 has been the Multibit Upgrade to my Schiit Audio Bifrost DAC.

For the technically curious, "Multibit" refers to Schiit's use of a so-called "ladder" or "R-2R" DAC chip instead of the more common today, delta-sigma DAC technology.  The general R-2R type chip is used in all the so-called "NOS" (non-over sampling) DACs that some people consider the best technology.  However Schiit does oversample using a "DSP" (digital signal processing) chip ahead of the actual DAC;  they use a "closed form" filter that ensures that the original data samples proceed to the DAC, no just random interpolation points from the oversampling process.

The Bifrost Multibit is outstanding IMO, (at least in its price range, i.e. US$600); see HERE.  Frankly I have never heard more realistic and plausible sound.  Detail, timbres, instrument decays, and spacial information is all simply more believable than I have heard before.

For those better heeled than I, Schiit also offers up-market versions of the Bifrost Multibit in the Gungnir Multibit, $1250 and top-of-the-line Yggdrasil $2300, models.

[Bogey]

I just bought something similar in the Fiio Q1 for about $US80. I've attached this to my Sansa View, iPhone 6S and iPad Air with similar results to what Todd has described. It doesn't replace my Fiio E7/E9 combination on my home PC which sounds amazing.

The one issue with upgrading sound cards in PCs is that the sound still has to go through part of the MS Windows sound system with the inevitable degradation in SQ. Much better to use a DAC/amp and bypass it all entirely. It makes a huge difference.

Excellent to know.

[Pat B]

I just picked up a '90s Rotel integrated amp for my home-office system. So now I have:

Onkyo C-7030 -> Rotel RA-970BX -> Mission 731i

The amp is probably more power than I need for my room, but I'm very happy with the sound and hoping to stick with this for a while.

The Rotel replaces a Denon integrated amp (which I was also happy with though the Rotel is probably an upgrade) but I need the Denon in the living room.

[jlaurson]

The one issue with upgrading sound cards in PCs is that the sound still has to go through part of the MS Windows sound system with the inevitable degradation in SQ. Much better to use a DAC/amp and bypass it all entirely. It makes a huge difference.

This can only be underlined and set in bold. (So I did.)

I just tried listening to music through my computer (have no truly mobile DAC and my CD Walkman [don't laugh] died on me) on the road... and I had to stop with disgust, because it just sounded so ridiculous and bad. I'm far from claiming golden ears, I think cables are a field for elaborate hoaxes, largely, I think SACD/CD is overrated, mp3s underestimated etc. (Still, I cherish good equipment and I'm not deaf.) But with DACs you really hear a difference and the difference between listening through the sound card of your computer and bypassing that glut and getting the music through an external DAC should be as notable as hearing the music on headphones and hearing them in the subway when your seat-neighbour is listening to music on headphones. (Or something like that.)

[The new erato]

The amp is probably more power than I need for my room

Unless you have horn speakers you can NEVER have enough power. Not for playing real loud, but for the relaxed reproduction only a large amp can give even at low volumes, and for feeding enough current into the bass speakers at low frequencies and difficult impedances.

[Pat B]

Unless you have horn speakers you can NEVER have enough power. Not for playing real loud, but for the relaxed reproduction only a large amp can give even at low volumes, and for feeding enough current into the bass speakers at low frequencies and difficult impedances.

I'd say you want plenty of headroom, but I do think extra power at some point becomes overkill. Where that point is depends on your room, your speakers, and your listening habits. In my case, I suspect the next model down (40WPC) would still provide a lot of headroom, but used wattage costs a lot less than new wattage, and it seems like the 60WPC ballpark is the most readily available anyway.

For my big room, on the other hand, I would not go under 60WPC.

P.S. I love your music room and hope to have something like that at my next place.

[Mookalafalas]

Put together one of these systems--Mirage OMD-15 5.1) from various Ebay sellers (It has been out of production for some time).  I'm very happy with it.