Audiophiles hifi appreciation thread old and new

Wow, that looks nuts.

JBL OnBeat Xtreme. Clever DSP and amps, which apparently adjust the sound to account for the FR of the drivers.

Yep, if I were in the market I'd be buying one of them.

Anyone come across Peachtree's decco amps?

http://www.peachtreeaudio.co.uk/integrated-amplifiers/5-decco65-amplifier-5025941132103.html

I've been after a nice looking dac / valve amp for a while and this ticks those boxes just wondering how its sounds to tick the most important box

After looking at that peachtree stuff I found their Deepblue system. looks like the mutts nuts!

After a lot of snake oil and working in studios, I'm still certain that you can't beat a good pair of headphones and some Autechre.

My cassette deck broke the other day. Sad times. So today I bought this monster.
It's bloody amazing!

One of these... not sure if it's high end enough for you but looking for £20...

This for free this weekend.

Hi, I need some help with finding an Amplifier that is designed for Karaoke. My father is looking for one that has good reviews. I have no clue. I have looked at ebay, amazon and some websites so far. Most have poor reviews.

He friend got him a Auna one for 70 quid, but he is finding a lot of background noise and the 400W isn't strong enough.

The price range is around 100-350 ish and must be suitable for 2 mics. Thanks.

How on earth is 400w not strong enough?

You can use any amp for karaoke, question is, if he wants to plug the mic's directly into an all in one unity of somekind, or into a mixer plugged into an amp.

If via the mixer, then literally any amp can be used, a home hifi thing, a PA amp, a studio monitor amp - anything..

If you want some kind of all in one unit, then all in one PA systems can be found, where there is a amp and mixer built into the back of the speaker.

<350 is plenty of money to get something good quality that will work. No need to hunt for bargains, walk into a music shop and just purchase a small PA system.

I personally would avoid getting something too loud, because PA speakers sound harsh as fuck in a home environment.

I would go for a mixer as DFP says, and for a power amp something old and heavy by Yamaha or Crown, designed for pro-audio rather than hi-fi. A good sign is if its got 19" rack mount flanges in the sides rather than free standing.

PS: there are different ways of measuring wattage. An easy way for manufacturers to big up their stuff is to write peak wattage (looks more impressive than RMS), with no reference to distortion levels. Any old amp can deliver 400W transient, but the waveform will look like a siesmometer and sound like hell. My Beard valve amp can deliver 100W RMS with less than 1% distortion, which if you are brave enough literally moves air in the room and can make my patio doors flex from a distance of 6 metres.

I'm on the hunt for some floor standing rosewood/teak speakers... anyone have any going or recommend any? Sub £200 please thanks.

If you can find Mission 782 or 783 second hand (check for ferrofluid leaking from the tweeters, a known fault which early ones were recalled for) they tend to be pretty under-rated, as do most Castle speakers. If you can find anything from the TDL RTL or even better Studio series you are onto a good thing.

I'm on the hunt for some floor standing rosewood/teak speakers... anyone have any going or recommend any? Sub £200 please thanks.

You can probably get some Wharfedale 10.4 for about that price.

I would go for a mixer as DFP says, and for a power amp something old and heavy by Yamaha or Crown, designed for pro-audio rather than hi-fi. A good sign is if its got 19" rack mount flanges in the sides rather than free standing.

PS: there are different ways of measuring wattage. An easy way for manufacturers to big up their stuff is to write peak wattage (looks more impressive than RMS), with no reference to distortion levels. Any old amp can deliver 400W transient, but the waveform will look like a siesmometer and sound like hell. My Beard valve amp can deliver 100W RMS with less than 1% distortion, which if you are brave enough literally moves air in the room and can make my patio doors flex from a distance of 6 metres.

I see, I guess Wattage is like the Mega Pixel battle, which isn't the be all. I have no idea about anything on music you see, and am just posting what he is telling me, and he seems to not know much either LOL.

How on earth is 400w not strong enough?

You can use any amp for karaoke, question is, if he wants to plug the mic's directly into an all in one unity of somekind, or into a mixer plugged into an amp.

If via the mixer, then literally any amp can be used, a home hifi thing, a PA amp, a studio monitor amp - anything..

If you want some kind of all in one unit, then all in one PA systems can be found, where there is a amp and mixer built into the back of the speaker.

<350 is plenty of money to get something good quality that will work. No need to hunt for bargains, walk into a music shop and just purchase a small PA system.

I personally would avoid getting something too loud, because PA speakers sound harsh as fuck in a home environment.

I think my dad just assumes more Watts, more performance.

I think he wants an amp with a mixer in built. He has already made a mistake of buying a mixer that he thought was an amp built in. He got someone to buy him an amp but apparently it's terrible.

He has set a figure of 350 because he has no idea about technology and assumed that you need a special amp/mixer specifically for karaoke. I have no idea myself until your input. I appreciate this, thank you.

If it's a case any Power amp can be purchased, it's just a matter of finding one with 2 mic sockets then right? Also when you say find one too loud, what unit do I look for in terms of that? I am very ignorant when it comes to music, I don't really listen to any! (Yep people do get shocked about that)

I don't live with my dad and rarely see him so that's why I don't really know much about what he has exactly.

Try the Behringer Eurolive series. Cheap as but good quality and ideal for kareoke I'd say. The B205D is 125W RMS with 2 mic/instrument inputs, CD input, mixer and a basic EQ. It also has the facility to send the output to another one, so for £300 you could buy two and link them if it ain't loud enough. Anyway, that's the kind of thing you want.

This is the amplifier that he has right now, if it helps. I shall be seeing him next week so will take a look at what he has and make a note of the model numbers. I'll take a look at that Amp right now Matt. Thanks

Now I know it's not a true 400W with your education guys.

auna-AMP-2 Home Hifi Karaoke Amplifier - Silver: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

Hello folks, I'm looking to get rid of a relatively modest amp-and-book-shelf-speaker setup as I am moving home to NZ.

The amp is a Cambridge Audio Topaz AM5, and the speakers are a pair of Mission M71i.

Will be on the classifieds shortly but I thought worth a go here first. Shoot me a PM if you are interested....

/spam.

I'm clueless with what power speakers my amp can drive... can anyone shed some light?
http://www.hifiengine.com/library/pioneer/sx-550.shtml
thinking...
https://www.facebook.com/Yamaha.ns200

Should be fine - Amp wattage is pretty irrelevant for HiFi usage.

Those speakers are reasonably sensitive (90dbWm) and have a reasonable impedance (6ohms)

20W amp into 300W speakers? I'd probably not try that.

Always worked on that your amp should be bigger than your speakers. The idea behind that you'll be tempted to turn the amp all the way up, the amp will clip and you can get DC voltage across the speakers coils. This is a very bad thing and worse than overdriving the coil.

You might struggle to find modern 20W speakers in bookcase format but you could get some active speakers and use a line level output from the amp to power them.

20W amp into 300W speakers? I'd probably not try that.

Always worked on that your amp should be bigger than your speakers. The idea behind that you'll be tempted to turn the amp all the way up, the amp will clip and you can get DC voltage across the speakers coils. This is a very bad thing and worse than overdriving the coil.

You might struggle to find modern 20W speakers in bookcase format but you could get some active speakers and use a line level output from the amp to power them.

Will be absolutley fine,

Wattage ratings in HiFi are an absolute joke.

99% of listening is done at 1W or less in typical room

The speaker rating of 300W is the MAXIMUM power they can (theoretically) handle (for very short - transient signals) measure using the infamous Peak Music Power Input

This is from a car audio site, but explains things reasonably well: http://www.bcae1.com/2ltlpwr.htm

Input appreciated... despite it being contradictory! Third opinion? I'm tempted to just try them... I don't ever push the volume...

Third opinion - listen to danb!!!

Third opinion - listen to danb!!!

Haha,

Chris - I reckon you could do a lot better than those Yamaha's for the money - are you buying new or 2nd hand?

Do you like DIY? You can make enclosures for speakers very easily (just big wooden boxes) if you are reasonably handy and will have speakers that cost 1/10th the price of what you would have to pay to get a similar quality sound....

Ha. Cheers all. Yeah found a second hand pair. Tempted to make my own as it sounds fun but I'd prob make a mess...