Escape From New York - The audio system!

Due to the recent illness (and then passing) of my mother, I came to Florida a few weeks back, and have decided to stay here indefinitely, rather than return to my home in Manhattan, for obvious reasons.

My late dad had a system here, with receiver, jazz vinyl/CD’s and some off brand speakers. There are some Verve titles and even a Readers Digest collection (which I’ve read some of which were very well produced). I’m rinsing the LPs I play in the sink!  The horror.

While the rooms are good sized with high ceilings, I wanted something simple; speakers and a streaming integrated. I set my budget for $1200 for used speakers and under 2 grand for the solid state all in one, a category I have never explored as a separates guy with a penchant for having some tubes in any system.

As I researched used gear here and elsewhere, I thought about speakers including Maggie’s or older scansonic, which I had never heard.

I had never dealt with Wally at Underwood, but had been getting his email blasts for years, and called him about scansonics.

He spent about an hour on the phone with me telling me about his LSA house brand, and the design decisions that went into creating the new line. He felt that his signature bookshelves at $1500 would make me very happy without necessarily a need to go up to his $2500 model with a beryllium tweeter.

Having TAD CR1’s in my home system, which use beryllium for much of the frequency range, And speaking to Charles from Underwood who assured me I’d hear the difference, I upsold myself to the better model.

With the speakers being shipped, It was time to decide on the electronics. My audiophelia took over and now instead of the goal of a basic music system, I researched the best all in one unit I could get without going crazy. The PS audio all in one won’t be released for a few months, and neither would Underwood’s own exciting Gallium based class D be available soon.

I thought about Peachtree and others units which had really great features but low power output, but all my research seemed to point to one place; Hegel.

While it didnt have the wireless I was hoping for, and it had a USB limitation of 24/96 and 44.1 on airplay, it seemed like for pure Sonics, the class A/B Hegel was the way to go, and I was okay with running Ethernet (though no DSD or MQA unfortunately).

I found a great deal on an H190, which should be here in a few days.

Maybe as a distraction for my loss, my planning of this temporary system continued with a search for some low cost power conditioning. I thought about the small AQ Powerquest filter since I only was using one component, but then I took a chance and put in a very low offer on an old used Furman ref15 pulled from a working environment. I liked that it has some current storage like my Niagara 7000 (both designed by Garth Powell). It was “only” $450 I thought, and of course now I’m looking into a pair of Core tech power cables from Underwood, as I got their Diamond speaker cables that were offered with the speakers.

While the Hegel hasn’t been delivered yet, I did receive the Speakers today, and set them up with my dad’s old 40 watt Kenwood receiver in the interim. I’m using the oxidized old speaker cable, as the Kenwood won’t accept banana plugs.

I’m actually shocked at how good and just plain enjoyable the sound is with my dad’s LP’s on an old Sony turntable.  I was smart enough years ago to buy him a Grado Zte plus cartridge, so perhaps that is part of success.

Even with the speakers not broken in, and the worst case possible speaker cables, I am almost wishing I didn’t order the Hegel. This total mismatch of great speaker and bargain basement electronics is incredibly satisfying.

I’ll post back in a few days when everything has arrived and been set up.