Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Put together a little budget system for our small flat, as a stereo and for films etc.

Cambridge Azur 540r AV, old by todays standards but capable and has a toroidal transformer which is apparently unusual on a lower end AV? Either way it consumes a fuck load of electric and is doing a brilliant job of heating the flat (running 1 pair of front mains its sat at 65-75C), apparently 100w per channel (when running just front mains?).

Wharfedale diamond 8.2 passive
Cambridge flat cable running biwire
Marantz CD46 cd player
Sony blu ray/playstation/tv etc all hooked up on Toslinks or digi coax.

Seems to run OK, sounds plenty good enough for the £90 total it owes me

But, no remote for the AV, and I have some setup issues. Anyone know a universal that will work with it? Cambridge + richer sounds are both shooting blanks for a replacement. Biggest annoyance is when running stereo from any source the output for the sub (not connected as don't have one or intend to have one) flicks in and out depending on whats playing, which I've found out is triggered by it automatically deciding whether it thinks my speakers (100w/6ohm) are large or small.

Anyone on here got any experience of TDL studio 1 speakers?

I have Studio 2. Awesome speaker. If it is the metal dome tweeter, it can be a little harsh but you can avoid this with careful pairing. The transmission line bass is fabulous.

Are those cheapo black box d/a converters any good? I need to get the audio from the ps4 in to the amp. I don't see how, excluding some horrible flaw, a d/a converter can vary that much...
Also, it'll only be for netflix and video games so it just needs to work.

Nice! There's a pair of Studio 2s I'm looking at at the moment, missed out on some studio 1s the other day on ebay, they went for £230 which seemed quite reasonable compared to how much they go for elsewhere, but was a bit rich for me.

My housemate heard my rtl2s and has gone and bought a pair of rtl3s off ebay, looking forward to hearing them, but would love to hear a pair of proper TDL studio speakers. Oh and I've been offered a set of Studio 4s for £900 :S

Anyone up on media slave/ servers? Esp on a budget/free! I have a fully working Galaxy S1 that have been using as a going climbing/underground/party phone but realize could use it as a media slave. Quick glance of google play and nothing jumps out as being the obvious choice for the task.

Bubble UPnP, Kodi

They are very big, that's another thing I forgot to mention! 4s must be like the twin towers in your living room

Cheers will take a look!

Jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

Whats that, transmission line (well Mass loaded quarter wave pipes to be precise...) + Twin Towers you say:

Studio 4s probably can.

Fostex FE167 per-chance?

indeed :)

Get in! I've got a pair of Planet 10 'eNAbled' FE167's here in the workshop loaded in Fonken enclosures.

Fave Fostex enclosures so far are these Saburo's. Big cab + likkle special FE126's = Fun.

Awesome!

Would love to have the space for a proper set of horns (fnar!) - the room/placement for those speakers isn't ideal but they still sound better than most things this side of 2k :)

I realise the difference between 'monitors' and hifi speakers now, these diamond 8.2's are flat as a fart, infact less than flat, they have zero mid range and are utterly non-engaging. Unless you sit about 3' from them, in which case they at least have a little detail but its feint.

Amp runs -80db to 0db/max, defaults to -50db when turned on, which internet people complain is too loud, but for me, nothing really happens till at least -40db, just for causal sitting around not actually loud (one room away you can barely hear it) I'm in the -30db to -20db range. For something thats meant to be 2x100w, this does not feel right.

Nope - speakers really do break in. It is somewhat dependent on the construction of the drivers, but the surrounds/cone do bed in over time. It was very noticeable with the Fostex's - they needed at least 100hrs before they were listenable.

A quick way to bed them in was to wire them out of phase,pointed at each other and playing pink noise.

So wire one backwards then play into each other, loosen them up?

I guess mechanically it makes sense that the rubber suspended rim can change a little, but these are used speakers that a guy used in the rear of a surround setup so figure they've seen at least some use.

yup - although if, as you say, they are used then they might just not be great :P

My general advice is to either DIY some or buy some decent vintage speakers - there has been very little technological improvement in speaker technology in the past 60 years.

Awesome!

Ta! They were a challenging build to say the least. There's a lot going on inside...

Re Monitors and speaker run-in Mr Brickman. Yeah, IME true 'monitors' only ever sound great up close as you've found. There should be ooodles of micro detailing though. I do believe in running in speakers FWIW. They're electromechanical devices with suspension systems in that need flexing (breaking in?) before they start to shine. Fostex are renowned for it. If I don't use any of my speakers for a while I 'liven em' back up again before really listening to them. There was a test/running in file you could used to download for free on't web that seems to work well. I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT. danb beat me to it.

Edit 2, found it http://realtraps.com/test-cd.htm use it VERY carefully. Start with the volume right down and keep an eye on cone movement, its LF content will shake the living daylights and stttrrrrrrrrrrrretch the suspension systems on single driver speaker systems where there's no crossover to get in the way. Seeing as 4 out my 5 pairs of regular speaker systems are single driver its all I ever use but there maybe other test tones downloadable out there too to give the mid and HF drivers a workout in multiway speaker systems of which I only have 1 pair, Celestion DL8 circa early 80's.

Ace! I'll give some noisy sound-offs a go when I'm out later. They do have a bit of punch when required, watched a film last night which regularly saw the dog jumping up and scurrying away.

My uncle used to be really into his audio stuff, had best part of £20k in a musical fidelity pre/power mono block amps, counterpoint players and processors and then some speakers that I've never heard of before. What I loved about it was even at incredibly low volumes (you can easily hold a conversation at the other side of the room over it) it was so clear and engaging, you just wanted to re-listen to everything you'd ever heard before to discover what it would really sound like

Final piece in the jigsaw, new system is up and running

So. How much did they rip you off for that? They don't seem to dare to tell you on the website?

the smack heard 'round the block

I think you missed the price list section...