Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

A crack habit would be cheaper.

It's a bit aesthetically challenging though.

Wha?! :)

Click the link below to see it in action! I was pleased it didn't catch fire...so I did a happy dance .... :)
http://s195.photobucket.com/user/davethebass1/media/CIMG0090_zpsbcc7ba2f.mp4.html

Wha?

no worky

seems odd with all that home made heath and robinson stuff they use a laptop as a source

where are the laser discs, lp players from the 50's and 8 tracks ?

Doh, sorry for broken linky, I don't know whats going on there. Photochucket seems to be be having a funny turn at the moment, I'll see if I can amend.

Re - Sources. A laptop and quality DAC make for a handy trouble free source when you've managed cram 6 PSU's, a 2 man-lift power amp and set of gigantic speakers into the back of a borrowed car! Over the last 11 years of going these types of get togethers I've used LP, Laptop, SB Touch and CD. Sometimes it depends on what others are bringing to a 'compare and contrast session' and other times physically what we can fit in the car.

FWIW, for LP/vinyl playback I use a SL1210 and a 60's Lenco at home in addition to a Vortexbox running Logitech Media Server to 2 SB Touch's, 3 SB Radios and Rasp Pi with a HiFiberry piggy back class D amp and DAC.

Variety innit's.

i'd love to attend one of these
forum outing to the next one ?

i call " shotgun " in brm's car

http://www.shotgunrules.com/

Invalid

Deed hasn't been set yet!

deal - after thursday, i will have absolutely fuckloads more time.

i have been tinkering and shuffling stuff around, as i am spending lots of time in the sw. i have been on my own during the week down there, so when not studying (!) i have been listing to vinyl. i started with the focus, the amptastic and the royd mistrels, with the sl1210, the pioneer and the tannoys in london (with a dac and a firebottle phono stage).

as i have been going back and forward (and buying a couple of new bits), i have been swapping speakers/amps/tts/etc around to see what i like and to see what i will settle with when i go back to london permanently. all of the stuff i have bought has been used, so in theory, i should be able to shift it on without much loss.

so - the main set up is the modded 1210, a croft valve preamp (with phono), a hybrid dual mono power amp, a dac and the tannoy eatons. this is sensational. the 1210 almost feels too good for charity shop vinyl that doesn't get cleaned, but it has been interesting upgrading it.

the 2nd set up is a sony ps-6750, with the pioneer sa-9500 and some royd minstrels. this is excellent, but the cart is probably the bit that lets it down. the minstrels are amazing.

rambling on, i have just swapped the tannoys for the minstrels and i am now pretty certain that with the sony tt, the pioneer amp and the eatons (which are incidentally all from about the same year), that i am getting 90% of the goodness, for a shitload less outlay.

don't get me wrong, the main set up sounds sublime at the moment, but i am not sure that there are worthwhile gains to be had from all the fancy valve gear, so i am thinking bout shifting it on and having a fuck around with some of the new room correction software, to see what i can get out of the old 70s gear. none of it really needs any maintenance (valves, etc) and it is only going up in value.

anyone had a play with the lyngdorf/tact stuff? or any of the dirac bits? i like the idea of playing with things without the box swapping...

I have a pair of bush floor standers.
Wait come back!
How much? £40, £50?

They're in good nick but they're not what I want.

getting lost round hackney yesterday stumbled upon No. 59 Wilton Way E8

saw a valve poking through the dark shutter, pressed my nose up against the window and it looks like a real hifi treasure trove, new possibly second hand possibly

lots of valve amps and bits and pieces all looking like " proper " stereo stuff
will have to revisit when it is open

looks like it doesn't really want to be know, not much on the internet either

Finally got around to upgrading a spare Rega 3 with the 24v motor, far better (old motor wasn't in a good condition). Anyone interested? Complete with RB300 arm and AT cartridge.

Old school

Finally took the plunge on an RCM (Project VCS) a few weeks ago. It's well worth doing if you have a fair bit of vinyl, new vinyl plays so well after a clean it's spooky. Also kills static.

If you are just starting a vinyl collection it will ensure your records stay in great condition but it's understandably a big chunk of change to drop if you've only got a few records.

I bought my wife a separate DAB receiver as she want's to listen to six music and doesn't want to stream it from he iPad anymore.

In my infinite wisdom I didn't realize / think that my building doesn't have an external aerial and it would need one.

Has anyone had any success running something like this with a ribbon aerial stuck to the window?

Failing that would an 'internet radio' stream in higher quality than the ipad? I'm sort of interested myself as then I could listen to WFMU.

We are in n17, if location has an inpact on digital signal...

I stream BBC radio and find the quality very listenable... This link gives the codecs used for different platforms.

Depending where you are you may be able to just get a telescopic aerial or similar. May not be great reception if you're in a big block of flats.

Internet radio is probably the same quality as the Ipad. They're both probably the same or slightly better quality than the digital radio though (from what I remember DAB bandwidth isn't particularly high and uses a pretty dated codec) depending on how you connect to the amp (if you're using analogue connections the receiver is probably better).

Back in the day the recommendation was that the best quality was through a Freeview box as the bandwidth there was higher (I ended up doing that for a while as Freeview boxes were a fair bit cheaper than DAB receivers).

@Steves @aggi

Thanks, I can get FM but not DAB with the ribbon aerial. Sort of at a loss as what to do next. I may try a telescopic but not sure that it will be any better.

You can get something like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001GXQUHM/ although I'm not sure if it will fix it if you don't have any reception at all. If it's just bad reception it may work.

Can anyone help me with setting up the arm and cartridge on my turntable? I'm just after some guidance.
I've got a Linn Sondek which has always sounded great. It's been stored while were doing renovation work. I've just set it back up and it sounds shit.
I'm guessing something has moved or been knocked. Stylus looks fine.
I've set up turntables in the past (mainly Technics etc when I was DJing). But everything I've tried with this hasn't helped much or not at all.

What do I want to search for on eBay if I want one of these smaller top-loading cassette decks, as seen at 1:39 in this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p3JGFDZbOo

I'll try my question here too as I didn't realise there were two hifi threads:

Can anyone help me with setting up the arm and cartridge on my turntable? I'm just after some guidance.
I've got a Linn Sondek which has always sounded great. It's been stored while were doing renovation work. I've just set it back up and it sounds shit.
I'm guessing something has moved or been knocked. Stylus looks fine.
I've set up turntables in the past (mainly Technics etc when I was DJing). But everything I've tried with this hasn't helped much or not at all.