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Hey there, Been out of commission from this forum for a while, but I keep coming back when I need help. I recently bought a Pro-ject Audio Experience TT, factory fitted with the Ortofon Salsa high output MC cart. After many hours of listening, I realized that I really didn't enjoy that cart as much as (gasp!) my cheaper Shure Mx97e, which i just adore. However, I think, while replacing the cartridge, I think that I may have yanked one of the headshell wires too hard or something, as when I finally spun an LP on it, I get a loose connection in the left speaker. As in, sometimes music plays "fully" and sometimes there's a crackly sound from it. I'm wondering a) If it's possible to replace just the wires in the headshell, or do I have to go through the entire tonearm? This is their Carbon tonearm, with a little screw at the bottom of tonearm that seems to connect the headshell to the 'arm. Any ideas? -Fauzi

Wayne, You're absolutely right on both counts. Shawn is one helpful guy! From what I've seen, he has gone out of his way to take the time out to help out us less fortunate ones... He was the one responsible for the many many hours that I spent (continue to spend, actually) enjoying my Lexicon MC-8 each month. And you're also right that the Lex is one amazing machine. Your comment about Yamaha... Yes, it is THAT much better. I have yet to try all the setting in there, and I am further still from understanding the ones that I have tried. But it has been an amazing learning experience, and, I can safely say, my one audio purchase that has made the most significant difference in my system. Glad you like it... Be prepared to spend hours and hours tweaking! Good luck. Fauzi PS: Do sign yourself up at www.smr-forums.com... It's an awesome forum for Lex owners and can be quite active at times...

Hey! Thanks a lot for posting this up, indyklipsch! All this time, I've been thinking that the sides in a 7.1 setup should be slightly ahead of the seating position, off to the sides. I love the way it sounds with the speakers ahead, when in the dolby site it says that they should be slightly behind the seating position. Is it just a matter of individual preference, or am I going against how most dvd's are mixed? Any tips? Fauzi

Cal! Hope you're enjoying the screen, man! Just wanted to bump this thread back up. I finally got my screen too... I got the Contour Electrol, 119", High Contrast Cinema Vision Tab Tensioned screen... tried pulling out all the stops, and got an amazing deal. However, it's been installed for about a week and a half, and the smell just refuses to go away. It's almost as strong today as it was the first day that it was installed. Since my HT is in the basement, it's much much tougher to get the darn thing out... Have you encountered this yet? It's giving me a headache like I've never had, and my wife is giving me the "I told you so" look! Let me know what you did if you did run into this problem! Thanks, man... I'll try posting some pics up once the room is a little more photogenic. Regards, Fauzi

Cal, Hmmmm... interesting. The only reason that I'm having to go Tensioned (god frignibitick it Q@!#!@#!) is because I need to have a motorized screen there... and from what I've read, unless you have a tensioned screen, the up and down really starts putting a strain on the fabric. Plus, it does stay flatter... and it looks waaaay cool... Congratulations are a liiiittle premature as I have yet to place the order... but the good thing is that it's lying with the dealer in stock and all I have to do is finalize the price and pick it up! Hey, from your research, you think that fabric is good for the LCD Panny? -Fauzi

Cal, I'm so glad to read your post about Dalite, because I'm in teh process of negotiating for a Motororized, High Contrast Cinema Vision, 119" (drooooool), tab-tensioned Dalite (16:9)... very similar to yours, only motorized (because of WAF!!!) and High Contrast Cinema Vision, rather than Pearlescent... Dude, is tab-tensioned a) really worth it and really that much pricier? There's a difference of almost a thousand bucks... Of course, this could be cause I'm in Pakistan, and things are just never normal here. Help out, man... I really appreciate it. And once again, congrast on the screen. BTW, I'm going to be using it with a new Panasonic AE900... Thanks, Fauzi

Hello all, An uncle of mine just gifted an old TT that he said still plays. It's HUGE, quite sturdy looking, and still plays. It has the Pioneer badge on the wooden base and he said that it's from the early 80's. Couldn't see any model number, and didn't have time to take pics.. Promise to get both of them soon. Any idea about Pioneer TT's? The sound is quite a bit short of remarkable, but that could be because of the cartridge. I plugged in my favorite LP (Roger Waters - The Pros and Cons of Hitchhinking) and it just sounded "muddy". I wonder if it's worth trying to improve it or would that be a waste of time. Also, I'm new to TT's, so let me know if there is any specifc parts that you need photographed to be able to give advice. Thanks, Fauzi

Sorry folks.. didn't have time to put up pics... but tonight hopefully. Meantime, I'm kind of torn between getting a Dalite Tab Tensioned (just because it's supposed to be better) and a non Tab-Tensioned (just because that's all I can afford!) Any experience with how much of a difference the Tension makes? The price difference is significant.. almost $1,500 in the same size screen. Help out folks... I'd appreciate it! Thanks, Fauzi

Hello all, After just over two years of researching, picking fourm members' brains, looking for good deals, spending money, wondering if I did the right thing, listening to my wife's complaints... I'm finally jumping in and finalizing my HT room. I contemplated building a separate dedicated room for this... however, ideal though the idea was, it was just not practical at all. So it's come down now to sharing our drawing / living room with with projector, 96 or 100 inch screen and tons of equipment... all of which have to be hidden. A few specs on the room, and then I wanted to ask a few questions. The room is actually a very loooong room, 12' x 30', with the short wall actually having a recessed "niche" along the entire wall. In other words, where the room ends, the 12' wall actually extends beyond the end of the room, and kind of becomes a "stage" that is 3' above the floor and 3' deep. So it lends itself beautifully to placing a screen in that niche. If only my wife would see it that way! I'll take some pics later on tonight and try to attach them to this post. So far, I have decided on the following equipment (some yet to be purchased.) - Processor: Lexicon MC-8 - Amps: 5 channel Rotel (surrounds) 2 channel NAD (mains - going to be upgraded sometime soon.. do I hear Bryston?) - Speakers: Fronts: Klipsch KG 2.0 Sides: Klipsch RS-25 / 35 (yet to be puchased) Center: RC-3 Rears: Kef surrounds (Don't remember the model) Sub: Rel Stampede III Projector: Panasonic AE-900 Screen: 96' or 100' Dalite Brilliant White motorized I plan on putting the fronts and center on the front of the "stage" floor. My questions: (Now for the crux of the matter!) a) My room is extremely "bright." The walls are concrete and the floor is marble. Aside from dispersion / diffusers and other room correction stuff, is there anything that is hgiher in WAF that you can think of? Of course there are sofas and other seats in that room... but other than that. The small KEF speakers are to be mounted towards the back of the room... almost 30' from the screen. Keeping that and the room size in mind, do you think the above equipment will be able to do the room justice? I mean, will it fill up the room? c) I know that corners are the best for sub placement, usually. However, the way the room is going to be set up, that might not be possible. So the only reasonable place that i can think of will be under the rear speakers, behind a sofa. Since this is a downward firing woofer, and it'll be non carpeted under it, the effect should still be there. Any views? d) I plan on ceiling mounting my projector inside a wooden designed enclosure. In that enclosure, I plan on having a UPS for the projector also. Any suggestions on a UPS? Or will a regular computer UPS suffice? Any tips and suggestions will be highly appreciated as this has been a labor of love many years in the making. I'm sure I'll keep this thread alive with the amount of questions that I have! Will keep posting pics if people are interested. Regards, Fauzi

Chris, Hey!! Thanks for the reply. I don't expect it to be a step up from the KHorns at all... In fact, the reason I'm doing this is because I'm shifting the KHorns to a dedicated Theater / Listening room, with my (LOVELY!) Lexicon Pre pro, and a nice power amp (to be purchased.. I really loved them with the Mac, but I want to go separates with them for sure, so with a separate listening room, I think, for the first time since I've had them, I'll be doing my Khorns justice. I've been headed that way anyway... I've recently upgraded them with DeanG's crossovers, and got them really nicely repaired from the outside... And the way they sound now in my (extremely) bright living room... Well, a dedicated room is the only way to go. Once they shift, however, I'll be left with a living room with a speakerless McIntosh SS Integrated 6400. So back to my question: Will this amp drive the 7 series confidently enough? It's a 100 watts of very clean power, which is what has been feeding my KHorns to date... But since they're such efficient speakers, I can't help but wonder how the B&W's will take to them. Thanks for the link... will check it out. Anyone else with experience running the 7 series with Mac SS? Fauzi

Hey there, I have just recently started seriously considering buying a pair of B&W 703's brand new after hearing a couple pairs of B&W speakers at friends' places. It's an amazing sound, and crisp and clean, unlike many other speakers that I've heard. So now that I'm shifting my Khorns and KG's into a dedicated home theater, I need to start investing into a nice 2 channel system. My integrated McIntosh MA6400 that used to power my KHorns is left over and I was wondering if they would be a good pairing with the B&W's. Anyone have any experience with combining the two? My initial thoughts are that it might end up being a KILLER combo... but would the mac be too underpowered for the speakers? Are they really power hungry? Any help would be HIGHLY appreciated. Regards, Fauzi

Ping, Shawn!! You have a PM!! -Fauzi

Hi there, A pair of Carver Silver 7T's, apparently in pristene condition is up for sale here in Pakistan for the equivalent of about $900. I tried looking this particular amp up on the net for reviews just to get a feel for them, but was surprisingly not able to get any sort of consensus, aside from the fact that they're ugly mothers. Any experience on this forum with these amps? Was planning on running KG's with them, but might eventually run them on JM Labs Electras that I'm planning on buying. This is the non tubed version, btw... monoblocks. 575 watts each. Beasts, apparently. Please help with views, as time is short. Thanks guys, Fauzi

Scooterdog!! I second your Avia recommendation! Avia Rocks! I wrote kind of a review on it in my post titled, eerrrrr... "Avia Rocks!!" Fauzi

tychicum / Dr. Who, Forgive my ignorance, but I'm still learning about subs, as I just installed a brand new REL Stampede in my setup and am working REAL hard to get it going Why would you want to set the crossover on the sub to be 40? Aren't you better off controlling the crossover of *ALL* the speakers from the receiver and setting the x-over on your sub to be the highest setting? Otherwise, aren't you setting yourself up for cascading crossovers, where the receiver and the sub itself will confuse each other about where exactly to split the highs and the lows? I don't have much experience with the KSW line, but my REL is set at 110 Hz, and is tapped into the same signal as my mains, as well as a separate LFE connection. And my Lexicon pre/pro crosses the surrounds off at 100 and the fronts and sides off at 80. Therefore, the signal below 100 is sent from the rears to the sides, and below 80 is sent to the sub. All this while, since the sub is connnected inline as well, the sub is catching all the signals from the main below 110 Hz. Since the KG Bookshelves that I have can't go that low anyway, I find that, since the sub is tapping into the same signal as the KG's, the match is just wonderful. My point is that if had set the crossovers on the sub any lower, wouldn't that create tremendous confusion in frequencies? Or have I missed something? Entirely possible! [] Fauzi

MPNX2, I've heard nothing but good things about the Outlaw, so you may want to check these out. My suggestion (because I'm a die hard fan) is go Lexicon. Their new (well, not new anymore) receiver, the RV-8 has gotten TREMENDOUS reveiws, and having used their little-brother-to-the-flagship MC-8 pre/pro, I know how flexible Lexicon can be. Plus Logic 7 just rocks!! I'm not sure, but a toned down version of L7 is featured in teh HK receivers also... so you may already be familiar with it. I was just going through Audiogon for you, and I didn't see any RV-8's... I did see a couple MC-8's for sale for a good price... you can add amps to that and perhaps even still stay within budget. http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?homeproc&1155505654 Other than that, a good price for the RV-8 (used) would be around 3,500. I don't have blue book access to Audiogon, so I don't know for sure, but that would be my guess. Good luck! -Fauzi

Kde, Sorry to hear that you didnt' get much out of the DVD. I found most of the CD just not helpful at all... but there were certain sections of it that I have mentioned in my post that just made it more than worth my while. I can't begin to tell you how much my display has improved since I've done the right calibrations. I don't know of too many dvd's that have such useful calibrations for your HT in one place. Good luck, Fauzi

Steven, I LOVE the REL! The flexibility on that sub is just brilliant, and I love the little remote they give with it. It just makes the adjustment so much easier. Frankly, I haven't had that much experience with subs in general, but I can't imagine it getting much better than this. Oh well... I gotta stop watching movies now.. my wife's gonna disown me soon! Fauzi

"The frequency sweeps are entertaining as well, I'm easy to amuse..........." Speedball! LOL!!! On a serious note though, I found a huge gap between the sub and my Center channel. Since I'm still new to this "business", it took me a loooong time to figure out how to not only effectively adjust the crossovers for the center, but also the surrounds vs. the L/R mains. In the end, I ended up recognizing the flexibility of my sub, where you have a line level connection along with the LFE input. But entertaining it was when a glass swan fell off the side table when the bass got down really low... and I found new rattles in my room which (maybe it's my imagination, but) are getting worse. [] -Fauzi

Hey there, I just spent some time fiddling with the Avia Guide to Home Theater in my system, and man oh man was it an amazing experience. A little background: I had gotten a Lexicon MC-8 after saving up for months and months, and finally hooked it up to my 62" rear projection Toshiba, coupled with a whole variety of Klipsch speakers. I finally settled on KG Bookshelves up front, paired with an REL Stampede sub, an RC-3 and different surrounds. Once I got over the initial excitement of "Wow, dude!!! I have a Lexicon processor!!", I started realizing that perhaps it wasn't all that it's cracked up to be. I was missing punch, dynamics weren't there, the sound was diffused from where it shouldn't be... in short, I just wasn't getting a good experience. Enter this forum, and things started to change drastically already (see my posts titled, "I didn't know what I had!"). Armed with an SPL meter, and an earnest desire to do good (!),... well, "Wow!" was all I could say. Anyway, I plugged in the AVIA cd last night, and it was just a brilliant experience... HIGHLY recommended to all those that think their HT is finely tuned. Drawbacks: - It's geared a little towards the complete novice, so if you've been frequenting these forums on a regular basis, you are sure to blow past the advice sections. - It's geared towards 5.1 systems. So there is no way to calibrate your rears with this dvd. Plus Points: - The spearker calibrations that it does have are just amazing. The regular 5.1 channel pink noise that comes in all pre/pros / receivers is also obviously a part of this DVD, and you might actually be better off with the built in internal noise of your equipment. Aside from that however, the calibrations are amazing. They offer a lot of different calibrations, including tones to check to see if your fronts are timber matched. - The best part about speaker matching is how it handles the sub in your system. Again, it's geared towards just one sub, so keep that in mind. My favorite part of this is that they provide a frequency sweep from (I think about) 2KHz to about 30 Hz for each channel, to let you see how big of a frequency drop off (if any) there is in your system between each separate channel and the sub. - Their calibration for video is also simply stunning. They have different test patters to help you set the various adjustments in your display (White Levels / Contrast, Black Levels, Sharpness, Tint, Color, etc.) Breathes new life into your display, because after being done with this, it's a whole different experience watching movies on your system. Anyway, I'm sure most of you have heard of and / or used this dvd for your systems. For those of you that haven't, you NEED to buy it. One word of caution: You WILL need and SPL meter with it so be sure to keep it handy. There are very few times that you hear / see such an apparent difference after some changes in your system. This is a must have for all HT theater lovers. Any interesting experiences you people have with the Avia? -Fauzi

Forte2me, I've been following this thread for a few days, and wish you the absolute best in your purchase. I just had a veeeeeery small suggestion for you. Following the direction this thread is taking, it kind of sounds to me like you're starting to get convinced that separates is the way to go, but you don't have the money at this point, so you may be compromising at this point by buying used off of audiogon, ebay and the like and perhaps not getting exactly what you want. My sincerest suggestion to you is this: WAIT. Save up, and get EXACTLY what you want. Otherwise, there's always the chance that you'd be watching the latest dvd with beer in hand on your 3806, and in the back of your mind, just before you fall asleep, something would pinch about how you could have gotten separate components... "Man oh man, does this Denon sound gooood!! but... err... perhaps the Rotel pre / pro.. could it be better than this?!?!" We've all been through it... you're slightly more prone to it, because you're getting a ton of advice to go both ways. I now know that the only purchase that I've made that I know for a fact that I won't even THINK about changing for the next MANY MANY years is my Lexicon MC-8 pre / pro. And that is only because of the fact that I had been wanting that darn thing for over a year before I had finally saved up enough to buy it. Now I'm sure the Anthem is an exciting piece, and the Mark Levinson would be a wonderful addition to my HT, but to my mind, this was EXACTLY what I wanted and it ended up being EXACTLY what I bought. Just my 2 cents... Good luck, whatever you decide. Should you decide to go Lexicon, start saving now!!! They're great units!! -Fauzi

Vande, The AVIA Guide is available on Amazon under: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/630551982X/qid=1151646432/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-5157002-2236061?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=130 Check it out. Some people swear by it. Some claim that it's not as helpful for 7 channels as it is for 5... But it can't hurt to check it out. Good luck! Fauzi

Doc, "He already has the matching RC-3 II center channel " Eeps! My momma always told me read the entire thread carefully, BEFORE blathering off my mouth! -Fauzi

Hey there, Thanks for taking the time out to answer all the questions I had. Unfortunately, SMR has slowed down a bit these days. Hopefully the forum changes take place soon, and the forum gets rolling again. I had asked about the amp, becuase I remember reading in one of the threads on the 2 channel forum that you were selling a Lex amp... I think it was DeanG's "FS: Peach" thread. Just thought I'd ask. -Fauzi

Vande, Check out my post on this forum titled "I didn't know what I had!" Take my advice, run out get an SPL meter, and calibrate your speakers using that. It took me literally 5 minutes (well, 3 months and 5 minutes, if you count the time between when I started looking for an SPL and when I finally picked one up! ), and you're already on your way to getting HUGE improvements out of your setup. Keep in mind, if your speakers are all timbre matched, then you are already half way there... And most receivers out there today, no matter what price range, can give a VERY decent illusion of being immersed in the sound... so, to answer your question, no I don't think your rears are being under powered. Get an SPL meter... best 50 bucks you'll ever spend. And order Avia's Guide to Home Theather online from Amazon. I have not yet used the DVD though I have it... but the reviews you get from people about it, might be worth the investment. Good luck, Fauzi EDIT: You may want to look in a nicer center, if it comes down to it. I think you can pick up an old Ref series RC-3 for within 200 bucks if I'm not mistaken... though I can't comment on how good or bad a match it'll be.