Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Are you set on new?

Not for the phono stage, probably for the turnstile unless it's pristine (as it's a present).

Also a bit short of time before Christmas.

Can I ask a Luddite question? What do you get from adding a pre-amp to the front of an amp with a phono stage apart from another gain stage?

Do you mean adding a phono stage in via the line outs on an integrated or adding a pre amp into the power amp side of an integrated?

Assuming the former, you’d only do it if the phono stage was better than the one in the amp (or if you needed mc)

Aggi - hifi fora would be a good place. Chuck a wanted ad on one.

Dedicated phono preamp can be optimized to the replay curve of your cartridge. Generally not needed unless you are a vinyl nut.

Yeah dunno, just wondering really. My setup sounds great playing from Spotify but not happy with the sound from my turntable. Hard to tell if’s the budget turntable, my crappy vinyl or what.?Thought I might try a phono stage before I look at new turntables...

Rabbit hole!!!

The phono stage in your amp should be ok. I would be looking at your tt/cart for the biggest improvement.

Yeah that or just bin off vinyl!

Look to the quality of the source, is the traditional advice

One of my amps (vertically bi amped) went bang and started smoking. It seems it’s also affected the speaker, as the cone will no longer move, but is stuck fully depressed.

I assume the speaker is fucked, it’s a tannoy Dorset t185 so limited to no chance of replacing driver.

Merry Christmas!

Hmmm that's bad luck

Yeah. Not had much recently, last month the other amp had a fuse go on the motherboard.

Costly to fix up that big old Tannoy unf

Is anyone interested in my B&W CC6 centre speaker? It has one damaged corner on the box and a ding on the tweeter dome, unfortunately. Still works beautifully though. I have the dust cover for it, although the yellow Kevlar drivers are a thing of beauty.

I can do a forum good price.

I bought a cheapo Wi-Fi repeater to solve issues with connection to the back of our house.

Renamed the resulting network to match existing (as per instructions) and all hunky dory and whizzing away except the (only) Sonos device in the house which seems to be sporadic at best..

I’ve googled and apparently latency is my issue.. much discussion of Mesh etc..

I have a few possibilities as far as I can see.. all more speedy than I wish, anyone got any experience of this or an opinion on how proceed;

1. Plug-socket network device thing and connect the Sonos to router like this?

2. Buy additional Sonos speaker for the room with router, hard wire this and let this communicate with the existing speaker?

3. Sack the repeater and buy something which creates a mesh network

Something else I’ve not thought of..

@Aroogah, @freddo, @Chalfie
and any one else who has recommends.
For some reason my audio monitor a100 amp/wifi thing won't power up after I turned it off whilst we were away for christmas, so whilst I fiddle with it to see why it's not working, I need a replacement amp, to power my speakers, with optical and analogue inputs. Great sounding, small footprint and under £150.

Any thoughts.

i'm kind of fucked off the a100 has gone up the swanny possibly, and not looking to spend masses to possibly replace it.

Bummer dude. I can loan you an old 70s pioneer receiver to tide you over if that helps. No optical tho obviously....

Just optical and RCA no phono required?

£150 ish gets you this
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/audio-and-headphones/audio/hifi-systems-and-speakers/jvc-ux-d427s-wireless-traditional-hi-fi-system-silver-10155865-pdt.html

I’ve been enjoying the Tangent Ampster which may fit the bill:
https://tangent-audio.com/products/9-electronics/67-tangent-ampster-bt/

@iamalex looked at the tangent, definite possibility.
@Chalfie, needs optical and phono, was being a doofus with me inputs. Need just an amp as have some quad 11L's for speaker duty.

was thinking about this one. only thing is it doesn't have phono inputs,
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B015ZHZG1K/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A28DPMZ26F13GH&psc=1

@cornelius_blackfoot
I think @ChainBreaker has used those little speaker amps before.
I'm certainly looking at one for the bedroom/office setup.
You'd need a small phono stage.

Another question:
chromecast - can they be powered and output via usb?

Powered yes, output as in audio output? No.

Thought not. I have one, but I'd quite like the thing it's plugged into (amp) to be able to power it. There are probably hundreds of good reasons not to do this.

I've had a Sonos Play 1 in my bedroom for years, finally got around to getting another (voucher and Jan sales) for the kitchen. Just set it up as a stereo pair in the bedroom to see how it would sound, stuck on Aphex Twin Blue Calx and I'm blown away. I know it should be obvious but it's so much fuller. Needless to say I'm gonna need another for the kitchen.

Only reason I need a phone stage is so I could connect pioneer ddj to it, but that says it has 1x RCA port. So maybe I don’t...