mambacfa

Responses from mambacfa

Have Passive Preamps Finally Come of Age?
Luminous Audio makes a great passive preamp. Perhaps the best value in audio.  
Where do I start-amp or speakers ?
The Krell/Thiel combo is very nice. I had the Krell FPB-300 paired with the Thiel CS3.7 speakers and it sounded ideal to me. This is also an affordable combo, as you can get this pairing on the resale market for $8K - $9K.  
Who makes budget speaker cables which are truly “good” or “exceptional” in quality?
Signal Cables - all of their stuff sounds great, and beats competitor products costing over 5x as much. I have used their interconnects, speaker cables and power cords. Most recently,  I swapped out my PS Audio AC-12 (a $1,200 power cord) for thei... 
Whats in your second system?
Oppo 105, Pro-Ject RS Pre Box with 1960s Siemens tubes, Krell FPB-300 power amp, WIlson Sophia Speakers. Power cables, interconnects and speaker cables by Shunyata and Nordost.  
If you had to choose between Okki-Nokki and Pro-Ject record cleaners....
Another question: how do you know whether the pops are from dirt or static? You're treating both, so how do you know the cause? 
Possibly dumb question: can I use two cable runs for each channel, not bi-wired?
I use double-cables two ways: a) For amps that I've owned having two sets of speaker outputs (Adcom and Krell) I have bi-wired by using both of these outputs and two sets of cables to bi-wirable speakers, like my B&W805D. b) For speakers that ... 
how do you handle your clean records?
I also use Spin Clean. May I suggest buying an special attachment for a small shop-vac (covered with micro-fiber or velvet) and vacuum the water containing the dirt off the record. Better than simply wiping them dry. Easily available on eBay. Here... 
Do you think audiophiles are the most gullible hobbyists
Audiophiles are certainly NOT gullible. There is always hard science driving every product's marketing campaigns and every audio purchase. For example, everyone knows that spending hundreds of dollars to lift your speaker cables off the floor impr... 
Why do people that are Into rap and hip-hop even want a high-end audio system
I think that anything you listen to deserves high fidelity reproduction, whether you consider it music or not. You'll enjoy it more with a good system. That's my opinion. That said, if the content has no melody, then it's not music. Melody is the ...