123c's Audio System Thread
 

What home system do you have.
This is what I currently have:
Harman Kardon 330C receiver
Rectilinear III speakers
Inifinity SM62 speakers
Panasonic DVD player
Tivoli Model One Table radio (my Target clearance shelf find, $30) This is what I listen to most of the time.

Past Stuff:
Sansui G-6000
Harman Kardon 630 twin power
Bogen DB-212 tube amp
Harman Kardon FL3500 CD player
and a bunch of other stuff

Bottlehead Foreplay tube pre
Yamaha active crossovers
Pass MiniAleph ss amp (which just replaced a Velez 300B SE amp)
AudioSource ss amp
Klipcsh K-horn bass cabinets w/K-33 drivers
Edgarhorn trachorns with Fostex fullrange drivers (crossed at 500hz)
Audax bullet tweets
Empire tt with Formula IV arm and Grado cartidge, custom battery-powered phono pre
various digital sources (Nakamichi and Prioneer at the moment)

I can't compete with the heavy hitters, but my ears are very happy with the vintage system I have. 70s-era rack-mounted Marantz gear, in a matching cabinet. I've nicknamed the system 'Hal'...;)

Marantz 1180DC amp
Altec Lansing Model 14 speakers

Some pics (during my reno, just installed hardwood so kinda messy and no baseboards...)

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8...llfrontdb7.jpg

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/1...4detailag7.jpg

Nice, Zeus! I sold a pair of Model 14's a few months ago. Those were great speakers; I miss them! The old Marantz stuff still holds its own pretty darned well. A lot of that older solid state gear is just as musical (or more so) than the new receivers you can find at Best Buy and the like. I have an old Onkyo integrated amp that keeps up just fine with the new Pioneer A/V receiver in the TV room.

EDIT -- PS: nice job on the floors!

lol, thanks! I really enjoyed the hardwood part of the reno. I'd find some really long, nicely figured strips and keep them for select areas like hallways, etc. ;)

I don't think I will ever sell this gear, even if I update to a more modern system in the future. My surround system for movies, etc. is just an out-of-the-box LG system. Does the job.

My dads got some old Klipsch Horns that sound good...

Hes got an old McIntosh amp that literally weighs a ton....

Does that count?

Now you're talkin'! McIntosh stuff is fantastic... is it tube or solid state? I have owned several pieces of Mac gear; wish I'd kept it all, too!

Past system,
McIntosh C22 pre-amp
2x Altec 1570b mono tube pwr amp (811A transmitter tubes)http://www.triodeel.com/al1570b.gif
Alpha one MC cartridge

Quad ESLs, Maggies, Acoustats...

Current system at home is a pr of "thrift store find" vintage Jensen TF-4 spkrs. Very nice for the $15 I paid.
A modified Sherwood AV receiver and a homebrew powered sub.

Acoustats are at the cabin.

Big system is a custom built Line Array consisting of 12 boxes of 10" drivers(100-1Khz), 2" P-audio covering 1K-20K(JBL copies) and four LAB subs (27-100hz folded horns) per side, about 12KW of QSC power amps, DBX driverack processing and a bunch of other expensive junk that is too heavy for me to be lugging these days.
I have to say that my outdoor PA sounds as good as any hi-fi stuff anyone has ever heard. Must be the man behind the curtain. ;)

Dang... your past systems sound a lot like mine. Favorites were probably the C20 and MC30 (x2) or the AES SE-1 or velez 300B amp. Tubes are fun. Ran mostly vintage horn systems with those: Altec, JBL, Klipsch, Electrovoice, often modified.

I have owned Maggies and Acoustats, too (MG1's, Tympanis, SMg's, 1+1 with Medallion transformers, and 1100's). The panels were nice; I always found the sweet spot to be tiny -- but boy, was it sweet.

Serious audio folks up in here!

You guys talk of stuff I drooled at in stereo shops (before the Best Buy and Circuit City crap existed) and lusted for while reading Stereo magazines!

Sorry...I have an eclectic collection of equipment in various rooms including at work...but alas, nothing with MacIntosh, Krell, Mark Levinson, or any of those uber-audio components...

I downsized so I could get the piano upstairs. :( I never even get to turn these on anymore. Thinking of buying a 3 watt amp and high efficiency speakers. :D

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/e...x/speakers.jpg

Kuan -- have you listened to a SET amp? Awesome! If you don't want to mess with tubes (300B, 2A3, etc...) try one of the Pass MiniAleph amps. I have one that I sometimes run with the Fostex fullrange kit from Madisound, and it's great. If you want to spend a few bucks, try a Lowther setup, or build a Hedlund horn. Fun stuff!

Here's the Tivoli Model One, which the main thing I am listening to these days, I love the sound from it. I have been listening to a lot of community radio these days.

I've been hearing good things about this inexpensive T-Amp driving a pr of the late Terry Cain's BIB spkr.

http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/t-amp_e.html

http://www.zillaspeak.com/bib.asp

Oh crap of course I've listened to them. I love 300B amps and high efficiency horns. But I also love the coherence and imaging of planar speakers! If I had two big rooms I'd have two setups, but I don't even have a listening room anymore.

Nice: Coffee, Mac and are those Magneplanars?

Funny you mention it -- I have a Super-T amp sitting in its box in my listening room! It's redundant now that I have the Mini Aleph, so if anyone wants to try one out, shoot me a PM. It's for sale!

I have never personally heard the Cains, but I have heard good things about them too. Have you guys read the full range driver forum? http://fullrangedriver.com/

http://melhuish.org/audio/links.html is a good one too...

I hear you. I have been quietly trolling for another pair of planars myself, but my wife will kill me if I drag another set of speakers home. I suppose I have about ten pair around the house at the moment. Ideally I'd have a large enough listening room to have SET/horns *and* solid state/planars, each system on casters or on opposite walls to listen to different types of music on. Newer acoustic or jazz sounds great on planars, but the older recordings (esp. on vinyl) just SING through the horns. I suppose that makes sense as the old ones were probably mastered on Altec or RCA monitors!

Yep. :)

Nuthin new here. Still running my home-built folded horns thru a Harmon Kardon reciever and a Hafler power amp. But my big one fried(the 500-watt unit), so right now am only using the 220-watt unit.

For those looking for the "air" image sound of planer spkrs, try a pr of tweeters xover at 8K or so and place them in front of the mains such that they are way out of time alignment.
May have to pad them down a bit to taste.

Turn out the lights and listen to the sonic image.

A pr of KSN1016 piezos with 8 ohms across it works well.

Fun stuff to play with.

BTW, anyone aware of the Parts Express "NSB" drivers? I have a case of 'em here if anyone wants a pr to try out.

What hang them by their solder?

Isn't this the concept of the supertweeter or something?

I have the Audax tweeters crossed over nice & high. I bought three or four different values of nice caps from Madisound to play with and tweak my tuning, and you are right; HUGE difference. I also had a pair of JBL 075's, and then a pair of the Fostex version of the same, but I couldn't resist the ridiculous prices I was being offered to sell them, and I am quite happy with the Audax.

Now to take it down to the "audio for the beer budget guy"
 

Pics of my various systems:


This is my garage system...assorted pieces I picked up from eBay...

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...z/IMG_0548.jpg




...and one of the pair of Pioneers I picked up at a garage sale for $40. Actually I blew the original paper woofers and bought a set of polyropylene drivers for three times what I originally paid for the speakers in the first place... :freak:

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...z/IMG_0552.jpg

Actually this is my studio equipment so it really doesn't count as far as an audio component collection...still, I listen and record in here, so I thought I'd post.


I keep my midi generators samplers and effects processors here. Mostly gear that I tweak often, so it sits in a rack beside my desk.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...z/IMG_0553.jpg


The amp, EQs and power supplies are mostly "set and forget", so they occupy a wall rack that I constructed last year.


http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...z/IMG_0554.jpg


About 90% of the gear was procured over a 20-year career as an amateur mmusician, hence the dated equipment. Most of it can be replicated with PC music software, but hardware just looks cooler!

Finally, the mixing board...I got this from a friend who decided to go digital...again..."old school"...looks cooler than staring at a GUI board....

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...z/IMG_0555.jpg

The "house" system consists of components I bought patiently for several years...one component every birthday since college. The JVC at the bottom is the home theater unit. All of this sits in a Mitsubishi rack that was parted out and sold at a used audio store.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...z/IMG_0558.jpg

The company that made these speakers went out of business years ago...Amrita Audio.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...z/IMG_0560.jpg

G! Where is your Commodore 64? :D :D

I can't find Rick's folded horn pics, the ones that are taller than my house?

Oh, these?:D

Yeah those! Heh heh! LOVE IT!

they're even MORE awesome in my "new" house. All the inner walls in my basement are concrete, so they don't absorb any energy. A good bass riff on a Stevie Ray Vaughn song actually blurs your vision:D Now I just need to find another Hafler DH500 amp to power 'em.......LOUDER:eek::D

Yamaha MX-1000/MX-1 amplifiers, CX-1000/CX-1 preamps, legendaryYamaha NS-1000X/M speakers, Yamaha 170Wx7 HT DSP-AZ9, NS-300 for main and C for center, NS-100x4 for surrounds, YST-SW800x2, YST-SW320, Canton Ergo 120, Yamaha KW-932 deck,Technics SL 1200Mk-II TT, Yamaha CDX-1050/550/450 CDP, Yamaha DVD S2300 SACD player, Accuphase DP 70V CDP.

Nice! I once had THREE Altec A4 cabinets (as in the photo) at one time. Even with the multi-cell horns disassembled from the tops, they would not stand upright in my apartment, so I sold them all... along with the original 515 drivers, and even the HF horns and 288 drivers. Wish I still had all that stuff now.

I just scored a Marantz 2270 the other day for $17.99. It needs a new power switch and a little TLC. I jerryrigged the power switch so I am good for a while!

Picked up a pair of Voigt cabinets with drivers a couple months ago, and have been playing with different amp combos to see which I like best. So far, the Pass MiniAleph DIY amp is fighting hard with the 6L6 integrated amp for top honors. Not sure which I'll end up keeping, but my "listening room" is just about ready. The old plaster walls have been taped and skim-coated. They're sanded now, too, and ready for primer and paint; then I can move the records and gear in!

I was gonna say... you have a LOT of components. :D:D

Does anyone else suffer from the "depends on what I'm listening to" syndrome? I would have six pair of speakers if my wife would let me. The K-horns, Altecs, and old JBL horns were fantastic for old Riverside jazz remasters and such or Wagner at stun-volume, but the TQWT or Voigt cabinets with fullrange drivers are nice for either of those at more moderate levels, or piano, acoustic guitar, string quartets, etc... Then the Magnepans were ideal for female vocals, and the old JBL monitors could handle everything thrown at them (a "jack of all trades" if you will) fairly well. Each is kind of "tuned" to it's specialty, or in the case of the JBL's, tuned to do everything PRETTY well, but really excel at nothing in particular.

I won't even get into the swapping in and out of components that I do, too...

Took me a few minutes to "get" that comment...ha ha ha!!! :D

You guys have a lot of money to play around with!! My stuff generally revolves around the instruments I've got. As far as just plain ol' listening:
- Aiwa 5.1 system ($20 from thrift store, needed to resolder volume pot)
- two Sony Hi-Fi "rattletrap" speakers...sealed 'em and no more rattles ($10 thrift store)
- Razer Barracuda 7.1 sound card in dedicated music/media PC

Most of my "audio" money goes into instruments. I think if I sold all the instruments I've gotten ove the years they'd be worth 5-6x my MB...but they're too much fun to play

Most of the acuumulation of audio equipment comes with age...living long enough to collect, that is. Once married, the collecting frenzy drops dramatically, the result of wife complaints! :rolleyes:

When I started out in college, I had a turntable, a 20-w/ch amp, and a pair of homebuilt speakers.

So what kind of instruments do you own/play?

Let me dig... I used to do Marantz warranty repair and may have some of those switches stashed away.

I've got lots of stuff,
- Gibson SG (also an Epi SG),
- Line 6 Bass
- Roland TD-12 electronic drum module with homemade/custom electronic drums w/homemade silent heads, gibraltar rackmount/hardware
- m-audio MIDI workstation
- Yamaha keyboard (older)
- Tama Rockstar Custom drumset w/ Sabian AAX cymbals
- added on two Gretsch studio birch toms with another Rockstar custom bass (so double bass + 2 more toms)...basically made my dream set
- Dancla 1/2 violin (need to sell, too small for me!)
- various recording/mixing equipment - few mics both condenser and dyn
- 2 A.R.T. DI tube Preamps
- Fender 25w practice amp
- Fender 125w guitar amp

No wonder my room is such a mess

That would be nice if you did!

I guess my business partner got off with that stuff. I have a few bins of ICs and transistors but no Marantz switches that I could find.

The 2270 was a workhorse. All that ever failed was the power switches and the "intermittant one channel" due to a dirty tape mon switch.
Keep the PA transistors bias set and the amp will play forever. However, given it's age I'd say the power supply caps are getting soft so, it might sound a little weak in the bottom end if so. Still, that unit would make a good preamp.
Nice find for < $20. If it has the optional walnut case it might fetch 10x that to some collector.

It has the walnut case, and it is in very good condition. The power supply caps almost look like they have been replaced at one point. I will take a closer look next time I open it up, and I am going to go through and clean up everything.

I should update my list and add a Sansui 9090DB that I paid $25 for and sold for way more ...