Foo - Cyclists also into high-end audio?

Nothing beats listening to some great music after a long/hard ride with your feet up.

Just recently got back in to high-end audio, and transitioning my system into an all digital system with a new DAC/Pre, fed from a PC and a CD transport. These new crop of DACs sound really quite amazing and take audio files up to 24bit/192k quality from USB/optical/coax. I got the Monarchy M24, but also looking to get a Bel Canto DAC2.5 soon.

Still have the old B&W 801 s3 with the North Creek cross-over. I think I will take them to my grave. Same goes with the Accuphase P-450 solid state amp.

I'm into headphone audio. My main rig: flac and 320kbps mp3 files from PC > Musical Fidelity V-Dac > Mapletree Audio Ear+ HD headphone tube amp > Audeze LCD-2 (or Grado RS1i or Beyerdynamic DT880 600ohm or Denon AH-D5000) headphones. 237964

pandora through beats by dre
/thread

Stax headphones /thread

what is a DAC and how much better is that than a basic receiver? ONKYO is what I have. prob 95 decibel SN.

2A3 SET mono blocs under driving some old Polks.
Vinyl rules.
If you have a tone control, you lose.
/thread

im a big fan of Chris King Angry Bees; its like Angry Birds, except louder and with lots of money.

I love the commercial for the cell phone with "Studio Quality Audio" coming through the guy's EAR BUDS. In terms of pureness, I enjoy listening through the Mackie HR824's in the audio booth.

Klipsch guy here, since 1988. The system morphed through the years, and sounded its best (for audio) in the early nineties, when I was feeding my Klipsch Fortes with a McCormack DNA-1 Deluxe Power Amp and a McCormack TLC-1 pre. Aided by a Hsu 1220 cylinder subwoofer, it was the nearest I have come to reproducing the elusive "live" sound into my house.

When DVD (and later, Blu-Ray) made home theater a possibility, I transformed the system into 5.1 goodness, but compromised on the 2.1 channel music listening.

I'm currently powering the system with more McCormack amps, but not as powerful or revealing as the DNA-1 Deluxe (the sale of which helped to purchase more channels of less quality); my two home-built subs are being powered by a QSC RMX2450 (650 watts into 4 ohms each sub), and the whole system is controlled by an Anthem AVM20 HT processor, a terrific receiver that allows for very precise calibrations.

My display is becoming the weakest part of the HT experience - a 10 year old Mitsubishi 55" Widescreen (one of those 250-lb box beasts) that still looks good, but not as life-like as the current LED and LCD offerings.

I still love music, but sadly end up listening to it more in the car with the iPod connected to the car stereo than at home.

Always. High end AKG headphones, B&W 602 II's, velodyne ref series sub, coupled to a Yamaha amp/tuner. I know its not the best but Racmoninoff on a sunday morning is amazing.

big audiophile here. Listen to an Ipod shuffle on the bike and even have some Logitech computer speakers with a subwoofer.
Do have 20gig of music on my hard drive tho. :)

welcome to foo

Vinyl+tube amps, or ipod.
/thread
:)

I spin wax, and I like analog stuff. I like tube audio, but can enjoy a good SS receiver as well:


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-w4Rk1jWS-rw/TfOqpcH0S6I/AAAAAAAAA7A/F8IDxs13QQY/s800/IMG_1479.JPG

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-If05mXBxG_E/TfOq1VeHRSI/AAAAAAAAA7U/FeqWCAtWFvk/s800/IMG_1485.JPG


Disregard the cartridge on there, I changed it five minutes after the photo was taken. I desperately need to get updated/more photos of my gear. I have three more systems.

2A3 SET mono blocs under driving some old Polks.

You really need to post pics of this.

Ah, how can you be an audiophile listening to MP3s? You are listening to digitally compressed and extracted sound tracks - unless you are listening to lossless - which is a compromise inandofitself.

The heart of my system is an old Marantz 2275. Love the warm, lush sound from those '70s Marantz.

Ah, how can you be an audiophile listening to MP3s? You are listening to digitally compressed and extracted sound tracks - unless you are listening to lossless - which is a compromise inandofitself.

The heart of my system is an old Marantz 2275. Love the warm, lush sound from those '70s Marantz.

I've been comparing the 16/44.1 analog output from my CD player with the ripped lossless FLAC files played through coax through an out-board DAC. The latter actually sounds better because of the better DAC. FLAC is lossless, while MP3 is lossy.

Been into High-End Audio for many years as my current system consists of:

Dynaudio custom built full towers
powered by a Krell KSA300S Class-A amp
through a Krell KRC-HR preamp
source through a Esoteric X-05 & Cambridge 840C CD players
wired through with Synergistic Research cables

I miss listening to quality sound. Maybe one day I'll be able to afford to get back into it.

I sold a [60's?] Marantz receiver on CL before moving last summer. Also sold a pair of monstrosity Altec Lansing (1950's) speakers. They weighed a ton and sounded just ok to me. Maybe they needed better input. I'm not that much of an audionerd. Didn't have the space for equipment that takes up that much room. They went very quickly via CL. Probably could've got more for them. They were from an era when you could buy one speaker at a time. Given the number of offers and the reaction and speed with which the buyer came to get them, I prolly should've asked for more. Ah well, my back thanked me.

My B&W 630's are plenty big in size and sound. Those added to my Velodyne SW and Boston rear and center make for more potential than this apt complex would tolerate. It'll be nice to move them to a more deserving stage.
http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv310/skijor/IMG_0339.jpg
http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv310/skijor/IMG_0329.jpg

MP3's are for suckers; it's all about importing the unadulterated AIFF's.

PC > Musical Fidelity V-Dac > Mapletree Audio Ear+ HD headphone tube amp

OK this is a new concept to me; you have an external DAC going into an analog amp that you plug headphones into?

OK this is a new concept to me; you have an external DAC going into an analog amp that you plug headphones into?

headphone amp, not regular amp. there are plenty good ones out there for this type of setup.

It's all about the room: http://mindsmack.tv/images/officePhotos/AudioRoom2.jpg

Those JBLs are running through a ProTools 9 HD3 rig. But they'd sound like crud if they weren't placed in a good-sounding room. Now *that's* how to listen to music.

It's all about the room: http://mindsmack.tv/images/officePhotos/AudioRoom2.jpg

Those JBLs are running through a ProTools 9 HD3 rig. But they'd sound like crud if they weren't placed in a good-sounding room. Now *that's* how to listen to music.
something funny just happen in my pants....ooooooooohhhhhhhhh

headphone amp, not regular amp. there are plenty good ones out there for this type of setup.

I was looking at a site for a headphone amp, and they say it's for high impedance headphones, 32-600 ohms. I was curious so I checked my earbuds that I usually use, their mfr says 18 ohms, and then the headphones that I also have that I started using the earbuds in place of, and their mfr says 300 ohms. Is there a reason you would need a higher impedance to get better results from a specific amp?

It's all about the room: http://mindsmack.tv/images/officePhotos/AudioRoom2.jpg

Screw this audiophile nonsense, are those Emmy and Oscar statues in your control room?!?!

There's too much magical thinking in the high end audio world for my taste. That said, I do like music to sound good and my Magnepan MG 12s driven by solid state NAD amps from the 90s and a good quality Denon DVD/CD player does that, without the nonsense.

There's too much magical thinking in the high end audio world for my taste.

Not at all like bicycles.

The speakers I built. Had to settle with bookshelf as wife didn't wat "those ugly towers". Technically, with the stand, they take up as much space as a tower.
Driver - Seas ER18RNX
Tweeter - Seas 27TDFC

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb377/tizeye1/MISC/DSC_1272.jpg

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb377/tizeye1/MISC/DSC_1273.jpg

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb377/tizeye1/MISC/DSC_1277.jpg

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb377/tizeye1/MISC/DSC_1283.jpg

http://i1202.photobucket.com/albums/bb377/tizeye1/MISC/DSC_1285.jpg

Not at all like bicycles.

It's several orders of magnitude worse in audiophilia. Case in point. (http://www.machinadynamica.com/) No, that web site is NOT a parody.

It's several orders of magnitude worse in audiophilia. Case in point. (http://www.machinadynamica.com/) No, that web site is NOT a parody.

How do you feel about cables?

Screw this audiophile nonsense, are those Emmy and Oscar statues in your control room?!?!

Heh, I wish! They're ProMaxes and Tellys, and they're my coworker's, not mine. An updated picture *would* show the Emmy he just won that I assisted on, which now sits on top of the center channel speaker (gotta show it off, of course). He's been doing this for 20 years, and I've been in it for five. It's great working with him.

Our control rooms are duplicates of one another, but where he has the view of the iso booths I have actual sunlight coming in. I think I've got the better deal :D

The speakers I built. Had to settle with bookshelf as wife didn't wat "those ugly towers". Technically, with the stand, they take up as much space as a tower.
Driver - Seas ER18RNX
Tweeter - Seas 27TDFC

Nice-looking build! Wish there were some way to hear them.

How do you feel about cables?

There's nothing special or magical about them.

Are we going for horsepower here? If so then I have you all whipped.
http://home.earthlink.net/~robertwjones/IMG_3540%20resized.jpg
50 JBL Vertec 4889 (2 x 15", 4 x 8", 3 x 2" Per cabinet) plus 16 JBL Vertec 4880A (2 x 18" per cabinet) Powered by about 1/2 Million Watts of Crown I-Tech HD Amplifiers.
http://home.earthlink.net/~robertwjones/IMG_3553%20resized.jpg
Bringing the thunder :)

sweet!

but can you turn them up to 11?

sweet!

but can you turn them up to 11?

but of course, not that anybody could stand the resulting SPL

Yeah, but try unleashing that sound in your home. Internal demolition ;-)

Yeah, but try unleashing that sound in your home. Internal demolition ;-)

That rig took up a whole tractor trailer, to get it into my house would require quite a bit of demo. :)

Our control rooms are duplicates of one another, but where he has the view of the iso booths I have actual sunlight coming in. I think I've got the better deal :D

Ha! Agreed. I was interviewed for an article on studio ergonomics in Recording Magazine ~15 years ago and one of the points I mentioned was to not necessarily avoid windows just because of their potentially negative impact on room acoustics; their positive impact on creativity and frame of mind usually outweighs that. "Never underestimate the power of a glimpse of sky."

I think of sound reinforcement, studio audio, and personal audio, or audiophile, environments as very different animals.

Anyway, mostly Linn for music, Yamaha/Paradigm for home theatre, and a Mackintosh/Paradigm for the office.

Ha! Agreed. I was interviewed for an article on studio ergonomics in Recording Magazine ~15 years ago and one of the points I mentioned was to not necessarily avoid windows just because of their potentially negative impact on room acoustics; their positive impact on creativity and frame of mind usually outweighs that. "Never underestimate the power of a glimpse of sky."

So true! I wanna see that article now...

Powered by about 1/2 Million Watts of Crown I-Tech HD Amplifiers.
http://home.earthlink.net/~robertwjones/IMG_3553%20resized.jpg
Bringing the thunder :)

mmmm, Crown Amps...

mmmm, Crown Amps...

Racks upon racks of them :)

My system Krell & Dynaudio:

http://i1041.photobucket.com/albums/b420/speedemmonn/DSCN6564.jpg

http://i1041.photobucket.com/albums/b420/speedemmonn/DSCN6565.jpg

http://i1041.photobucket.com/albums/b420/speedemmonn/DSCN6570.jpg

It's kind of ironic seeing the nice home stereos here, my home stereo is a 25 year old Onkyo receiver powering two JBL Bookshelf speakers. I only listen to music at home occasionally and then at low volume.

http://i1041.photobucket.com/albums/b420/speedemmonn/DSCN6565.jpg

What is this? An air-cooled amp?

It's kind of ironic seeing the nice home stereos here, my home stereo is a 25 year old Onkyo receiver powering two JBL Bookshelf speakers. I only listen to music at home occasionally and then at low volume.


I think of sound reinforcement, studio audio, and personal audio, or audiophile, environments as very different animals.

You're absolutely right that they're entirely different beasts. My friends always ask me what to get for their personal systems and I simply shrug, telling them I have no idea and instead to go read reviews online. If they're building a studio with floating floors, however...

I have a really similar setup to noise boy for home stereos: a 10 year-old Yamaha HTR-5730 AV receiver with two JBL bookshelf speakers. A friend recently gave me his Boston center channel speaker so I don't have to deal with absolutely crap 5.1 -> stereo mixdowns now that I have HD TV and a DVD player that does 5.1. Having done quite a few surround mixes for broadcast in my day it frustrates me to no end when I can tell that the surround mix has been done with no regard for stereo or mono mixdowns during the process. That's just laziness on the part of the mixer.

If I want to really listen to something at high quality at home I'll plug in my old AKG 240s.

What is this? An air-cooled amp?

Well this is a Krell KSA300S pure Class-A amp, and yes the heat sinks on the sides are air cooled. This amp can produce enough heat to keep my living room (16'X27' 10' ceiling) warm. This amp weights in at 185lbs. It can produce enough power to arc weld the frame on your bikes. This new in 1996 sells for $9,500 USD.