Phew! Having only revisited audiophilia in the last year after a long hiatus, I'm carefully building my ref system at
the LOWER amount!
Verity Audio Parsifals ($8k demo); Aleph P ($2k used; Aleph 2 monos ($3k used), Red Dawn IC and cables ($1500), and now a new EMC-1 w/ 24/192 ($2200 open box); plus a vestigial NAD tuner. So that's around $17k.
Being a baroque organist as a teen I toured northern RI french canadian churches playing huge Casavant Freres multi-rank organs. 32' Bourdons nearly shook my left foot off those 16-32Hz bottom octave pedals! What primal acoustic imprinting!
Yet now as I approach the half-century I've become a romantic and jazz-loving pianist, with my Steinway B taking rear-centerstage in my listening/living room. Do I need Pipedreams, Soundlabs or even Eidolons to relive my youth? No.
Do I want a credible standup bass and realistic piano? Yup!
I get the latter in spades with my WAF-acceptable Parsifal Encores. (Hiding the Aleph 2s under the floor joists helped with Ellen, too!).
Being a digital newbie, I can't comment much on that upgrade path, nor software/resolution issues, as my experience is more in amateur speakerbuilding, Hammond B fun
as a kid, and now piano-voicing subtleties.
I enjoyed the posts above, especially Pls1 provocative comment re the pull-up that live listening required for him.
I enjoy classic and baroque live performances at Jordan and Symphony Halls in Boston about 25 times per year, as well as assorted live jazz and theater scenes. For me home system nirvana-chasing has simply occurred at a lower scale, as I could have been nearly as happy with a $5500-6k system if budget had dictated: Revel F30 ($3k), ARC Integrated ($1K),
leaving $1500-2k for CDP, cabling, and a decent tuner for those live WGBH feeds and great jazz programming.
A good friend and master acoustician predicts that I'll soon want multi-channel DVD-A; but I don't need a soundstage any more defined than my nearfield triangle in a medium-sized room provides. And can you imagine the WAF issues with 5.1,
6.2, or Homlinson's latest 10.2 chazerai!?
I'm also content to buy Redbook CDs, as I expect that tinnitus or old-age will coincide with maturation of SACD/DVD-A software!(and what's that new algorithm Wes Phillips is yakkin' about?)
Sorry to bend the thread, and Happy Fourth.
the LOWER amount!
Verity Audio Parsifals ($8k demo); Aleph P ($2k used; Aleph 2 monos ($3k used), Red Dawn IC and cables ($1500), and now a new EMC-1 w/ 24/192 ($2200 open box); plus a vestigial NAD tuner. So that's around $17k.
Being a baroque organist as a teen I toured northern RI french canadian churches playing huge Casavant Freres multi-rank organs. 32' Bourdons nearly shook my left foot off those 16-32Hz bottom octave pedals! What primal acoustic imprinting!
Yet now as I approach the half-century I've become a romantic and jazz-loving pianist, with my Steinway B taking rear-centerstage in my listening/living room. Do I need Pipedreams, Soundlabs or even Eidolons to relive my youth? No.
Do I want a credible standup bass and realistic piano? Yup!
I get the latter in spades with my WAF-acceptable Parsifal Encores. (Hiding the Aleph 2s under the floor joists helped with Ellen, too!).
Being a digital newbie, I can't comment much on that upgrade path, nor software/resolution issues, as my experience is more in amateur speakerbuilding, Hammond B fun
as a kid, and now piano-voicing subtleties.
I enjoyed the posts above, especially Pls1 provocative comment re the pull-up that live listening required for him.
I enjoy classic and baroque live performances at Jordan and Symphony Halls in Boston about 25 times per year, as well as assorted live jazz and theater scenes. For me home system nirvana-chasing has simply occurred at a lower scale, as I could have been nearly as happy with a $5500-6k system if budget had dictated: Revel F30 ($3k), ARC Integrated ($1K),
leaving $1500-2k for CDP, cabling, and a decent tuner for those live WGBH feeds and great jazz programming.
A good friend and master acoustician predicts that I'll soon want multi-channel DVD-A; but I don't need a soundstage any more defined than my nearfield triangle in a medium-sized room provides. And can you imagine the WAF issues with 5.1,
6.2, or Homlinson's latest 10.2 chazerai!?
I'm also content to buy Redbook CDs, as I expect that tinnitus or old-age will coincide with maturation of SACD/DVD-A software!(and what's that new algorithm Wes Phillips is yakkin' about?)
Sorry to bend the thread, and Happy Fourth.