2. amps-preamps
  3. 175396-143318

No more "High End" for me...Back to Reality Audio

After a 3 year roller coaster ride with so called "Audiophile High End" Tube Amps,/Tube Preamps, multi thousand dollar DAC's, Speakers of all shapes and sizes, and several DIY mods. I've settled on what will be my "forever system" and stop chasing a Dragon that I'll never catch. There's more important things in life to worry about. Plus HIgh End crap can be very fickle at times. It has taught me though what sounds good and how to get there and of course how much it will cost new or slightly used.

For the first time, I'm building a system around the Speakers. I'm an electronics Geek so that has ALWAYS come first. I've always done DIY Speakers as well form High School to College to married life (my Wife puts up with A LOT).

My Bose 901 "passion" will be with me forever. I will defend those Sealed Box odd shaped boxes till I do. Any old Geezer will be told off wherever they knock that Brand down. I did it last last week.

Anyways, the list :

  • Klipsch Cornwall IV's driven by a pair of resto modded McIntosh MC50's
  • Sony UBP-X1000ES (gotta get some more before they and the 1100ES become as rare as the overpriced Oppo crap) with my mods to the Analog Output boards
  • Orchard Audio Ultra Amplifers x6 (I'm getting near the end of hand buiding/soldering the 6 pcb's)
  • Stax SRM-007tA with Koss 95/X Electrostatics
  • Surround Speakers will be 4x Series I/II Speakers with two on Tulip Stands and two more hung from the ceiling (what the Wife can see sitting down but can hear is always a good thing)
  • Center Channel with be two Heresy's resting horizontally angled up towards the screen slightly
  • two double stacked 12" H-Frame Subwoofers on the back wall 
  • All the Electronics will be mounted in the wall giving lots of space for the Cornwall to do their "thang"

To those still chasing the Dragon. Enjoy !

 

 

rajugsw

Showing 3 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,632 posts
 

what do you think lightning strikes cause?? 

In my world lightning strikes are different from power surges, which are caused by the power company. One way a power surge can occur is if there is an interruption of power, the magnetic field in the power transformers upstream from your house collapses. When this happens, the transformers put out a very large voltage (this is the same principle used to drive spark plugs in a car). Because of the load on the transformers the surge might only be 50-60 volts.

A lightning strike by comparison will do well over 1000 volts! So I draw the distinction in that manner.

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,632 posts
 

But it sounds FANTASTIC...You can't believe 8 watts into KEF LS50 Metas would even work, nevermind sound like it does.....Something is wrong with the whole High End HiFi picture.....

@rbertalotto 

Not really: there is a reason Nelson Pass named some of his product 'First Watt'. Most of the time that's all the power most people are using- the extra power is for peaks (most of the time). If you have a good clean first watt, you can do a lot with that, and this has fueled a great deal in high end audio!

Again- high end audio is driven by intention, not price.

(If you worked with that little amp to solve its noise problems, I suspect it could be sorted out.)

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
11,632 posts
 

Even had another powers urge last Saturday and this time I was home.

A power surge should never knock out anything more than a fuse. If the equipment was off at the time, its more likely it was a lightning strike on the AC line, which can take out anything. If this were the case you should be informed of that by whomever did the repairs as this is usually easy to show that something other than a surge did the damage- at which point its covered by homeowner's or renter's insurance.

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FWIW, high end audio isn't about price! Its about intention. This is a poorly understood fact and so a lot of people have spent way more getting 'good sound' than was really needed. 

Knowing how to get imaging and depth out of audio equipment without harshness and brightness is useful knowledge for any audiophile!

 

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