Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

denon envaya is good wired
never tried it bluetooth though

For wired I'd be tempted to go with Minirig(s) http://minirigs.co.uk/

EDIT: Looks like you can get a Bluetooth minirig now

What's the sound quality like? We have a Yamaha amp for the house (will airplay/spotify connect through the internet from anywhere, which is nuts!) but this looks good for travel/the garden...

What's the sound quality like?

Pretty good from what I've heard of her's, depends on the quality of the speaker you're using it with of course. I'd imagine with a high sensitivity floor stander it'd go 'loud enough'. I ran it with a home made Frugelhorn 3 as an experiment and it was pretty good, as loud as my 2A3 Valve amp running in Single Ended which isn't saying a lot admittedly at ~2.5W!

Aggi, I'm always confused by Bose. I'll be in a shop or a cafe and I'll think, oh these sound good. But the Sound Dock I have stinks. Way too bassey, way too directional. But, yeah, I'll have a look at the Soundlink. Thanks.

Yes, I'm not a fan of a lot of the Bose stuff but the little speakers are nice. I'd say the soundlink mini sounds a bit better than the colour but it uses a proprietary charging cable.

Saying that, I'd say the Minirig sounds better than either of them (although I haven't tried the bluetooth version).

I think I might try to build a valve amp. Can anyone recommend kits/schematics?

I think I might try to build a valve amp. Can anyone recommend kits/schematics?

Depending on what you want....Got deep pockets? :-) I scratched my 1st appalling valve amp about 10 years ago but had the advantage I'm an Electronics Tech by trade. Later I built one of these -> http://www.world-designs.co.uk/kt88.htm

Its OK for a reasonably powerful (by Valve standards) Amp using Valves that are still in mass production but not cheap, £1150 for the basic version. there's a simpler PCB based amp that uses the sweet EL84 Valve here, same company http://www.world-designs.co.uk/el84.htm

TBH, I sold my KT88 PP amp to fund a pair of very exotic output transformers when I got deeper into pure DIY (not kit based) Single Ended Valve audio. Madness lies this way, beware!

There's also AudioNote and Glasshouse Kits worth Googling for info.

Have you worked/had experience of High Voltage rails before? Gotta be VERY VERY careful working on this sorta stuff, you really can get killed in the face (twice!) if you connect with HT rails.

Hey, thanks for the comprehensive reply. No I've not got particularly deep pockets, it was originally seeing the Chinese Douk audio DIY kits on ebay that got me thinking about this, they're £200-£300. Crap, I imagine.

I've not got a HUGE amount of electrical experience and none with high voltage rails.

So this would appear to be a bad idea for me? I'm not after something particularly powerful or complex, but I would like to learn how these things work and I like making stuff.

I do currently own a Trace Elliot VA350 bass amp, very similar to this one. In fact, I got in contact with the chap who did that overhaul diary to give mine a service. A very nice man he is, too but he lives up in Norfolk so I was unable to 'sit in' and watch him fix it whilst I asked stupid questions, which I would've liked to do.

I'd love to learn more about this stuff and I like tinkering, but I appreciate I could get killed in the face so would appreciate advice on how to learn and build without dying. I will do some more googling!

That VAMP cube thing is genius idea. Think I'll have to purchase one. Can revive the old tannoy bookshelf speakers I have. The left one is knackered but the right will make a nice mono sound system. Probably will fit on the bike rack too...

Old Trace Elliot bass heads are great. I've got one of the uv light ones.

Finally ordered my new system last week. Yamaha RN-500 & Q Acoustic's 3020 speakers. Still need to get cabling.

Nice! What you got? I've got three of them, although only two have the UV. Got the VA350 (all valve), AH600SMX (valve preamp, SS power amp) and V-Type preamp (valve) with 300w TE SS power amp.

Here's a picture!

AH250. All solid state but sounds mean with my VT bass pedal, and loud for its rating IMO.

No problem Mr Recall.

If you haven't got much experience with Elektrickery I think building a Valve amp would be too risky TBH. I am Mr H+S! But alls not lost....Howsabout a DIY Solid State amp kit? Back in 1969 John Lindsey Hood came out with a Class A biased Transistor amp design that some folk still rave about, I admit I've never knowingly heard one meself but the 'JLH amp' crops up numerous times in HiFi conversations. Being a SS amp it'll have lower HT rails and could be a sfer bet than diving in and 'doing-a-valve-amp' straight away.

A quick eBay search throws up -> http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-X-MINI-JLH-HOOD-1969-CLASS-A-3W-AUDIO-POWER-AMPLIFIER-KIT-/151388877083?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item233f7af11b

Simple and dirt cheap to get you started. It wont be the worlds greatest amp, but its a cheap project!

Chip amps / gainclones are a good intro to DIY amps - very very simple and actually can sound very good.

^^^@prole I'm about to order that Yamaha RN-500. Let me know how you like it?

I may have misread but are people actually recommending using old valve bass heads as audio amps?

No, I think we just went a bit off topic.

Nope, definitely not recommending using it as an audio amp, but can recommend using it as a bass amp!

I was talking about building a valve amp for audio purposes and explained my only experience with valves is owning the aforementioned TE head. Turns out it's probably best I stay well clear of building one.

Ah right. I did wonder*

I'm a guitar amp nerd too and have boxes of exotic valves and dusty tone machines from the 60s and 70s. I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to stero equipment tho. I've just got the nod from Mrs Apone to install a turntable in the living room (having finally given up my CD collection as part of operation "turn-music-room-into-a-nursery". Going to buy the aforementioned amp then shop about for the turntable. Imagine i'll browse this thread.

*Although I did once provide a whole day of tunes at a rooftop barbecue with an ipod and a 1969 5w Fender Champ. It actually sounded surpsisingly good.

Fair enough, I'll leave valves well alone for now :) I do like the idea of putting a little SS amp together. Thanks for the suggestion - I'll look into it and may come back with some more stupid questions!

I did plug my ipod into the VA350 once, running into my Peavey 210 and 410 cabs. Went as loud as I dared. Christ, it was ridiculous.

Apologies for the continued diversion away from the topic, but here's an extract of the email from Ken, the amp tech I took it to:

Finally, I've just hooked the amp up to my signal generator and
oscilloscope, to check that she's throwing the right shapes and to
measure what kind of power she's able to put out. The shapes are good

• nothing ugly or horribly unbalanced and no sign of parasitic oscillation - and the figures tot up as follows:
  
  

VA350 working into a 4 Ohm dummy load.

1kHz Sine wave injected into the Line Input and the signal generator's
amplitude increased until the VA350 reaches the threshold of clipping.

At this point, the RMS AC Voltage at speaker output was measured as
39.6

Power calculation goes as follows:

39.6 squared = 1568.16

1568.16 divided by the 4 Ohms of the dummy load = 392.04 Watts

Loud enough for you? ;-)

^^^@prole I'm about to order that Yamaha RN-500. Let me know how you like it?

I'd get in quick if you are. I ordered mine from Creative Audio and they said they will be getting another delivery in soon, but after that the prices may go up as Yamaha are struggling to keep up with demand.

Really? I had a stock equiry in with SuperFi a while back then chickened out when it came back into stock. I may just bite the bullet. Would be nice to see if i'm getting my appealed tax fine refunded first but... he who dares...

Could just be marketing guff, but I was going to buy it from them anyway even though they were waiting on stock because their deal was good.