mike_in_nc
Responses from mike_in_nc
| Biggest "pleasant surprise" components you have owned? Marsh Sound Design A400S stereo amp, 200 wpc, bought used seven years ago for about 40% of the new price. It sounds really great and has served daily in my desktop system with a pair of Harbeth P3ESR.Allo DigiOne SPDIF output card for the Raspberr... | |
| Lumin T2 or Matrix Audio Element X I'm using an Auralic Aries G1 with a Bryston BDA-2 right now. That combination would definitely meet the call for "open and detailed" but it's not a single-box solution. | |
| Whats your favourite track to play to the non hi-fi visitor? I’ve got several short tracks I can use as demos. My favorite is "Die Nacht" from this album: Schubert Male Choruses, BIS 1033. The naturalness of the sound, space, and dynamics always gets to people. Usually, there are a few moments of silence be... | |
| Repair Or Replace Sub Sorry, with my bad eyes, I missed that you had blown the cone! The $400 I paid was for fixing electronics only. | |
| Lumin T2 or Matrix Audio Element X I have not heard either but am familiar with the firms' reputations. As to your question, my impression is that implementation (engineering) is more important than the chip. Both vendors are known for excellent implementations. Both are Asian firm... | |
| Repair Or Replace Sub I sent one of those (F112 v1) to JL for repair in March of this year. The fee was $400 + one-way freight. They have, or at least had, a flat-fee repair service.If you are in the US, it seems odd that you are being quoted $900. You may want to chec... | |
| I've been dragged to recommendations, kicking and screaming I switched to Qobuz. It recommends only in the genres I’ve expressed interest in. Many of those recommendations have been fun to listen to.I like Qobuz for the true HR streams, also, rather than MQA ones. As a DSP user, I find MQA problematic. | |
| Cambridge Audio Lifecycle My impression is, very few companies give dates for new products before they are ready, or very nearly ready, for distribution. The companies don't want customers to avoid buying the old product and wait for the new one. | |
| Modern Bluegrass As others have said, check out Billy Strings. This young guy is phenomenal. He plays guitar, banjo, and mandolin; sings; and writes songs. Knows all the classic tunes, and seems to be all about the music. I just love him!If you haven't seen it, th... | |
| Newbie, need advice. Benchmark is quite responsive to customers. You might try emailing their support department. | |
| Power Conditioning / Surge Protection If you are buying a costly power unit and you hope for improvement in sound, the common advice TRY before you BUY is important. Power units' effects vary by system. I have had good results with the Torus RM-20, but that doesn't mean you will like ... | |
| Do you rely on RAID as your NAS backup? RAID provides a lot of storage with some protection against drive failure. If a drive fails in a 4-unit NAS, one can put in a new drive and rebuild the volume with no loss of data.If the controller card fails in the NAS, not so simple!I have my NA... | |
| Amplifier upgrade advice under $2000 I have an SHD in one of our systems and think it’s great.You have a lot of good recommendations already for power amps, so I’ll keep this short.I owned the AVA Fet Valve 400R and liked it a lot. It has been improved by AVA since and now is availab... | |
| Thor Audio repair? Stereo Unlimited was a go-to place when I lived in SD (nearly 35 years ago), and they are still in the high-end business. They are located in the Sports Arena area. You might ask them to recommend a repair shop. | |
| Which in-wall speaker wire I probably would use Mogami W3103. It is professionally engineered for the purpose but not priced for audiophiles. It should be fine within walls; I don’t think it’s rated for plenum use, if that matters to you.P.S. The Belden 5000-series cable fr... |