crustycoot
Responses from crustycoot
| Bananas rule, spades drool. End of discussion. I want to put in a vote of agreement with E_S, with one qualification…BFA bananas, not the regular spring loaded kind, whose metal quickly fatigues. Screw-lock or Cardas’ with the little rubber plug to maintain contact are OK too. The problem wit... | |
| Value of a preamp? To my ears the preamp is the make-or-break component in my system. A good match expands the soundstage and makes instruments appear more solidly defined in space, with tone colors and timbre faithfully reproduced….a bad one sounds flatter and mor... | |
| Can I turn my 2-way Bookshelf speakers 90°…? Properly engineered 2-ways generally exhibit wide, well balanced response in the horizontal plane, but often some noticeable irregularities in the vertical plane, due to the ways frequencies shared by both drivers tend to interact in the crossover... | |
| Best single volume guide to classical music I'd go with this: | |
| New Falcon ls3/5a Silvers in the house Your pairing of 30W class A Yamaha is synergistic…why mess with success? Oops! I said a bad thing…. | |
| Anthony (Tony) Cordesman has passed away The WaPo obit sure puts our hobby in its place…for a Titan of national security policy wonkery, a lifelong obsession, a hobby. Who will take his place….and I don’t refer to TAS. | |
| Best Covers Linda Ronstadt covered Jackson Browne’s songs magnificently. “Rock Me On The Water” early in her career, “For A Dancer” with Emmylou Harris later. Her cover of Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou” was an encore every time I heard her. Rod Stewart covered ... | |
| Starting a Classical Vinyl Music Collection There are books on the subject, and lots of advice online regarding orchestras, conductors, their interpretations of the composers, tempo choices, and the sound quality of the recording. The Penguin Guide is very useful. But only you can say wha... | |
| I took Frank Zappa’s advice I took the advice given on the back of Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s eponymous first album…”To capture the effect of hearing a performance by the PBBB, PLAY THIS RECORD LOUD!” or words to that effect…I didn’t need to be told twice. | |
| The Sound Quality Of Commercially Pre-Recorded Reel-To-Reel Albums In the mid 80s I roomed in a house owned by a fellow audiophile who recorded a local semi-pro orchestra live to a hot rodded Revox A77 using DBX NR. His tapes were amazing. He used the Nakamichi Tri-Mic system with spaced super-omni capsules to ca... | |
| NAD M10 V2 compared to Naim Uniti Atom I agree with all the above. The Naim App is weak sauce, but as a Roon endpoint it’s a great sounding compact piece, perfect for your application. You won’t need the Grimm streamer. | |
| Integrateds: Luxman vs. Ayre? In my listening to Ayre vs. Lux, McIntosh, Naim, and Bryston, Ayre comes out on top for transparency, clarity, imaging, and control. Naim feels more dynamic or punchy, but Ayre out points in all other areas. This is based on their lower tier sep... | |
| Speakers - Your "Safest" Choice Focal Kanta 3, Revel 328 Be, both easy to enjoy and comfortably under $20K. These I know, and are “conventional” types. Ohm Walsh 5000 or Magnepan MG 20.7 are choices for certain types of rooms and listeners. | |
| Connecting a subwoofer Get a pair of Y connectors with 1M>2F configuration and run your existing RCAs from the Auralic DAC to both the McIntosh and the Sub in parallel….if you don’t want to use the Sub’s HPF, which I assume you don’t. Audioquest makes some nice ones. | |
| Technics SL-1310 Mk2 The current model SL100C is the No-frills version of the Technics turntable….no speed control, just quartz locked, no arm return or motor shut-off, but it does lift the arm at the end of a side, no built in phono preamp. Tonearm is height adjusta... |