Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Wow - looks amazing

Beautiful speakers, what Tannoy model?

1978 Cheviots in walnut. Re-coned, re-capped and refinished, plus a bit of internal bracing, tuning and lots of damping.

Thanks, that's kind of you to say,

It is a bit, it's a trade off, i'm not really an audiophile, the way the room/house looks is more important to me than getting the best of of the system,

Thanks for the other comments too,

Thanks,
I sold a lot of it, I'll pick a copy of the Jon Hassell up and have a listen,
I kept, all my favourites he used to play, David Darling, Jan Garbarek, Ralph Towner etc,
I found a letter about Eberhard Weber from ECM in one of the sleeves and framed it,
He used to go to a lot of the concerts ECM put on, I got dragged along,
We went to see The Hilliard Ensemble with Garbarek at Sheffield Cathederal, before we went in he let me smoke a large joint in his car, little did he realise, he was actually passively smoking it too, we were both stoned as judges through the whole concert, was incredible,

wow! what's that power cable! incredible

Quite! I'm not convinced by the audio benefits of expensive power cables, but sell me a lime green one with multi-coloured zip ties for a reasonable price, and I'm all over it.

Re-coned

When you say re-coned, do you mean complete new drivers or did you get new cones fitted to the drivers? Asking because I run ancient speakers and although they were high quality units back in the day I’m sort of surprised they’re still holding together!

That hi Fi rack is crazy good. The back panel with holes drilled in just the right places to hide all of the cables and provide the visual illusion that there are no cables.

Loving it.

This particular flavour of Tannoy (HPD) used foam surrounds rather than rubber. They deteriorate and need replacing every 15 or 20 years. The pair I bought had never been done. You can either replace the foam (just the gasket surround between the paper cone and frame) or replace the whole paper cone, surround and coil assembly - everything that moves basically. I opted for the latter for various reasons. Got the cones from Lockwood in north London, as far as I know the only place in the word still making them, and did it myself. Quite easy if you take your time.

tl:dr - if your own speakers have rubber surrounds they’re probably fine, if they’re foam and you can actually see holes or push your finger through them, re-foam them, or get Lockwood, AudioGold etc to do it.

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Thanks for that, good to know. I didn’t know you could buy replacement surrounds. I’ve actually binned two sets of speakers in the past when the foam surrounds perished. I hadn’t even considered that they could be replaced.

My current ones are a crimped resin impregnated fabric. With those I expect one day they’ll start to crack or become disbonded. For now they’re fine though, which I think I’m surprised about given they’re nearly 30 years old.

An that kind of surround lasts forever! I’ve got a pair of 60 year old Tannoys in the workshop that’ll outlast me hopefully.

In theory you can get new foams for any speakers, just depends if someone makes exact ones or something that’ll be close enough.

Quite nerdy but I really enjoyed this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc2LA9kC-4U

Shame they don't get the simple stuff like channel balance right though. Ruined the OMD reissues.

Check out the vinyl junkies thread for more of the same thing though.

I have my records, hifi and speakers in front of a radiator too, but I opted to move them 2 or 3 foot out for fear of temp changes messing with them.

Am I over reacting?

Maybe not with the vinyl depending on a lot of factors. I wouldn't store mine near a rad though. Hifi kit is usually able to handle heating up under its own steam. Not sure what would suffer in a speaker, maybe plastics.

Thanks! it's home made from MDF and threaded bar.

I have an Audio Technica VM95ML here at the moment - absolutely fantastic. highly recommend it, if anyone is after a relatively inexpensive mm cart.

Can also recommend the Shibata version VM95SH. Been running one for about 18 months with great results.

Thanks for that. Lathe cutting is a black art

@Airhead @Dogtemple
With all the variables at play, it's amazing that any LPs sound good.

Vinyl Junkies thread you say 👀👍

See you on the other side :)

Can anyone recommend a headphone amp for a desktop setup? I’ve been looking at the Schiit Modi 3+, or the JDS labs Atom Amp+. I’d like to build a valve amp, but I’ve got enough projects at the moment.

Not really high end hifi but wasn't sure where to put this. Managed to score this beauty on marketplace. so chuffed as been after one for ages.
In good nick & such a great design. Been sent off to local engineer to bring it back to life.

Also the guy had a nakamichi dragon he was restoring it was a lovely bit of kit

Very nice. I do hope it will be planted on your shoulder for the whole of the summer.