john_l
Responses from john_l
| Onkyo,Denon,or Yamaha for DolbyDigital? All three of those brands are known as some of the better sounding in home theater gear. Check out Stereo Review. They seem to favor the Denon's for sound quality. You can also see some good reviews on etown.com, audioreview.com, and amazon.com. T... | |
| McCormack\Rotel The DNA-1 is my favorite solid state amp. Haven't heard the new pass or ayre's yet though. | |
| Reccomend power amp for Virgo"s I run mine with a VT100m2, and SFM-160's. Those both work very well. I had some Denon mono's hooked up once, and they did not sound as good. I guess the speakers are sensitive to quality. I have heard that for solid state amps, the Ayre, and the P... | |
| Best headphones? I have definitely heard better than the Sony's. One of my co-workers had the old stax electro-static-on-your-ear headphones with the dedicated amp. Those were the best sounding I have heard (at $2000 in 1993 they should be!) I once heard some of t... | |
| Spectral Amps and Legacy Speakers? I was left totally flat by the spectral amp setup I listened to. I felt the sound was detailed, but dry and lifeless. I'm more of a tube amp person, so I tend to dislike solid state amps. I have not listened to the pass or ayre amps yet. | |
| VTL or Audio Research? I think VTL builds an excellent product. I think their ST-85 is a best buy. The VTL sound is a little leaner and cooler than Audio Research. AR is a little warmer and has great detail. I prefer AR equipment myself, though not by much. I feel the t... | |
| ML no39, Wadia 850, Classe 1.0, or Sony? I owned both the Wadia 830 and the XA7ES. I spent about 20 hours comparing them, and I seriously could not tell them apart sonically. I felt the Sony had some nice practical features such as one touch track selection and the way-cool remote door o... | |
| Advice for a new hi-fi customer The maggie 1.6QR's might blow your receiver to kingdom come. You're receiver probably outputs 8 ohm loads. The magnepans are (probably) 4ohms or less. You will want to make sure your receiver can drive these before connecting it up. | |
| Vandersteen 2Ce and bass performance You might want to try a different CD player. I know when I bought a higher end CD player the bass response of my system went up noticeably. If you don't want to spend money try the following: 1. Spike the speakers. 2. Put lead shot or sand in the ... | |
| Shipping via UPS. I had Dell ship me a 21" Trinitron computer monitor by UPS. It arrived with a big purple spot. I called Dell, and they said it must have been dropped in shipping. They sent me the new one by Airborn Express. They Dell tech support said they had ma... | |
| Nautilus or Virgos? I have the Virgo's. They have to be brought out into the room to get the three-dimensional disappearing act to work. Their midrange is perfect, and they actually make you feel like a person is in the room with you. Very clear speakers. They are ni... | |
| CD player finally died. Need rec. Buy another Sonographe. You can pick them up at used stereo stores for $150. I have had one of the SD-1 alphas for years. They were simple 14 bit players with Conrad Johnson high quality analog sections. I recently bought a Wadia 830 and Sony XA7E... | |
| What are monoblock amps? All of you are quite incorrect. Monoblock amplifiers are a special breed of amplifier created back in the Phil Spector 'Golden' era of recording. They are specially designed to reproduce mono recordings. People in the know have commented on their ... | |
| Speakers: all-time worst I have to buy into the bose acoustimass camp. Their five speaker system sounds like a couple of cheap clock radio's wired together. A close runner up is the set of the ultra-moderne products from B(ad) & O(verpriced) back in the early nineties... | |
| Best headphones? I have been very happy with my Sony MDR-V6's. They are the compact ones with aluminum speaker enclosures (not plastic). Consumer electronics stores usually do not carry them, but you can get them from Guitar Center (about $100). I have had mine fo... |