jdm56

The worst part is that awful Clark Griswold moment when your wife and progeny are more or less quietly waiting for dad to sort out the technical snafu...and waiting and waiting. Then the snickering starts and your youngest smarty-pants son makes some smarty-pants comment about your technical proficiency or lack therof. The flop-sweat starts to roll. Your wife then valiantly defends your honor and manhood to said smarty-pants son. Your daughter wanders off to read her vampire novels for the seventh time. Your wife meekly suggests that perhaps an "all in one" system might be best. Eldest son yawns and adjusts his junk in front of God and everybody. Then finally, after everyone has left dad to wallow in his own irrational desperation you discover that when you last rearranged the system (four months ago. You're really a 2-channel music guy.) you didn't connect the digital audio out from the DVD to the proper input on the receiver. Not that I would know from experience or anything. I'm just saying.

....Thanks for posting, Robert. I think you just gave me a glimpse of myself a few years on...God willing. Thanks again, and take care. ...

The VideoWave is an interesting product, but I can't imagine there being a big market for it at that price. I guess it would be a cool option for Joe Moneybags who just doesn't want to bother with components, speakers and wires. Hmm...maybe there is a market for it!

I'm glad you've found a good match for the big horns. I wouldn't have expected a Yamaha receiver to be particularly synergistic, but that just shows you how little I know! Your posts always make me miss my '98 AK3 k-horns. Man, the k-horn has got to be one of the most beautiful loudspeakers ever created. I wish I'd had a proper room for mine in the new house! I'd still have them!! Oh well, life goes on...I've found audio happiness with my current set-up. Your horns are oak, aren't they? My '98's were. My favorite finish, of course! Yours are gorgeous, I must say. Enjoy!

Yeah, I know there is still good 2-channel stuff out there on the pre-owned market. My only access to that is the internet, which is fine. And I have got some good deals. But even that market will gradually dry up if the new retail keeps dwindling at the rate it has. Maybe we're headed "back to the future" where hi-fi will mostly be home-brew like in the earliest days of the hobby when there was practically no ready-to-wear audio gear out there. You rolled your own or you stayed home. That might not be such a bad scenario, actually! Regarding the knowledge level of 2-channel audio in mainstream retailing, yes it is definirely a joke. Of course, it always seemed to me their knowledge of what they were selling was pretty limited in all areas. (No offence: I know there are exceptions!) Of course, I don't claim to be an expert at anything, but still it would be nice if a salesperson knew what a tape monitor was and how it was supposed to work. Oh well, I guess I'm just showing the early signs of "grump old man" syndrome. In the over all scheme of things, I guess it's not really anything to get my knickers in a twist about. The gear I have today would probably last me the rest of my life if I need it to. At tleast if I don't last too far beyond the "three score and ten" of the bible!

a little update: I did get the NAD pre-amp. Maybe I'll write a little about it after I've lived with it for awhile. Still waiting for Affiliated Electronics to refund my PayPal account...or at least 75% of it. I still find it a bit depressing, the change in the audio retailing landscape over the last 30-40 years. From a time when even smallish towns of 40-80,000 people had multiple "audio emporiums" and plenty of music stores selling LP's, cassettes and then CD's, to the scene today where audio has almost disappeared from the scene except the for large cities where BestBuy and the big department stores rule, and a few high-end shops still survive. Many have morphed into custom install businesses, not even having a showroom. If the trend continues, selection will dwindle even more. Product lines will shrink. Shoot, they already have! There are numerous culprits. Home theater being one of the biggest. Used to, people had a TV, period. And they usually had a stereo that was completely separate. Now they just have a TV and a home-theater-in-a-box. And they're happy. Many don't even have the htib, since wide-screen tv's are all stereo and have built-in speakers. And they can play CD's on their DVD players and in their computers. That's good enough. The situation isn't quite as bleak on the music retailing end, but it too is in a state of decline, thanks to all the competition from gaming, video and downloads. Seems like most kids these days think music should be free and I guess for a lot of them it is. I don't know how these file-sharing sites stay up and running. I'd think it would be a fairly simple matter to shut them down. But I digress. I guess the real puzzler to me is this: Do people just not care about quality anymore when it comes to music reproduction. I know kids do still listen to music, or at least mine do, but they seem to prefer listening to their ipods and zunes, and with crappy ear buds. Kids have always driven the pop music market, and today they seem to put a lot of things ahead of music I know audiophiles have always been a niche within the larger music-loving population. But today that niche is smaller than ever. Weird, weird, weird! I never dreamed it would come to this. In Joplin's BestBuy the other day, the only pure audio products were almost all portable: boomboxes and i-pods basically. I think I saw one turntable, one CD recorder and one CD changer. Maybe one or two cheap two-channel receivers. So apparently, in Joplin, MO, a town of about 50,000 people and the metropolitan center of populace of probably three times that, there is literally no place to buy quality audio other than special order from a custon installer. And that without seeing or hearing it first. What a situation. I hope things can swing back the other way at some point soon. Some of the new affordable 2-channel gear mentioned in this thread is encouraging at least. But will it ever get back to being comparable to what it was like in the "good old days" of audio? Probably not in my lifetime. Oh well, I guess I'll go fire up some tunes and plop down in the sweet spot and "and just drift away".[]

Wow, that new Yamaha 2-channel gear looks nice! ...and a whole lot like their stuff looked thirty years ago, too, which I consider a good thing. It's really good to see them bringing that to market. I hope they have much success with it. Harmon-Kardon has some killer 2-channel that until just recently was available in Europe and Asia but not here. But I did see some pieces online from a US source a few days ago. The star was a 150W/channel integrated with on-board DAC.

...which gets back to my rant: There were only 2-3 dealers this component was available that I could find. At least "factory authorized" dealers. What a joke that is. Authorized to do what? ...fleece the customer? Oh well, live and learn. I guess I'll end up going back to Crutchfield for a NAD C165BEE or to Audio Advisor for a Parasound Halo P3. There's not many other options. I do think I'll take another look at some of those "micro" components from Pro-Ject. They're kind of cool....and I like the Belles Soloist 3 but I don't think it has a tape monitor either.

It seems like we have a a fairly broad spectrum of price/performance points in the home theater area and the super-duper, high end 2-channel seems to have many options, provided you've got the bucks; but what happened to the affordable 2-channel? It seems to be on the endangered species list. If you want a good stereo receiver, your options are mighty few. Most of what you'll find are aimed more at secondary system status -offices, bedrooms, vacation homes, etc. I think you could count on one hand, the number of stereo receivers on the market that an audiophile would not be embarrased to own. (Actually, I can think of two: the Outlaw RR2150 and H-K 3490. Denon probably a couple, too) And the situation with integrated amps is not much better. Separates? You can almost forget it. Let's name all the sub $500 preamps on the market today...Emotiva and... ... ...well, there's Emotiva anyway. What a far cry from the "good old days" of the seventies! I guess I'm showing my age. And while I'm ranting, whatever happened to tape monitor's? I know, nobody uses tape recorders anymore, but they are still handy to use as external processor loops. I guess nobody uses equalizers either. BAH...HUMBUG! What fuels my rant? I bought an Adcom tuner-pre from an outfit called "Affiliated Electronics" in New Jersey. I was assured by "Boris" I could use my EQ in the tape loop. WRONG! There is no tape "loop". Merely an input labeled "Tape" and an output that carries whatever source is selected. Granted, this arrangement would be OK for a recorder, but not for an equalizer. So I wasted my money...of which Boris wants to keep 25% as a "re-stocking fee". Yeah, right. Restocking his liquor cabinet, most likely. BTW, just in case I still need to say it, I would recommend an extra degree of caveat emptor when dealing with Affiliated Electronics of Hillsborough, NJ. Rant over. Have a wonderful evening!

Take them home! Love them and care for them. Be their audiophile and they will be your speakers. They look like monsters and I'd love to hear a pair.

Wow...klipschorns, klf20's and RF7's. Color me impressed! How does the RF7 sound compare to the k-horns?

Yes, I've looked at it. It's pretty nice, but I just haven't given in to going the receiver route...yet. I know they appear to be a lot better value than separates -even the cheapest separates like I'm looking at. For 2-channel purposes, I'm using my Pioneer receiver as a pre, driving my Adcom GFA-5500 with the Bose EQ in between. It actually works well, but I'm still getting some audible hiss that I think getting that EQ in a proper tape or processor loop would eliminate. But I have become spoiled by the Pioneer's remote tone controls, so I hate to give up that little bell...or is that a whistle? Anyway, at the prices I'm looking at, it's hard to find a pre that will do all I want. The Adcom has the remote tone and balance, but I'm not sure it's tape input will keep my EQ in circuit when other inputs are selected. Thanks for the heads-up on the Outlaw. It and the H-K 3490 look to be killer values.

OK. Thanks a lot. I appreciate the info and the picture. The sub-$1000 stereo pre-amp category is tiny. I didn't realize how tiny until I started seriously shopping. Let's see, there's the Emotiva. Then you have Adcom, Vincent, NAD and Parasound. And I just discovered the Belles Soloist 3 which looks pretty sweet. That's all I can think of. There are probably more out there somewhere. I guess I'll just keep looking!

I read somewhere that it defaults to the CD input everytime you turn it off and back on. Is that true? Do you like the remote? Any issues there? Any quirks come to mind? I'm looking at Adcom, Parasound and NAD, but they're all over twice the price of the Emotiva. Which actually makes me a little suspicious of the Emo. But it does appear to do most things I want a pre to do. I'd like remote tone and balance controls, but only the Adcom has those, and I'm not terribly confident about Adcom's long term prospects. They seem to be changing ownership on an annual basis. Thanks, Doug

Anybody around these parts have the Emotiva USP-1 pre? Any good? -Thanks

I only want 2-D cuz I only gots 2 i's. and no I haven't been drinking. But I have been up all night (WORK). So yes I'm a little loopy.

Me loves Pandora. Me also loves k-horns. Me loves plagiarism. ha-ha Sorry MLK, I just got started and couldn't stop. But seriously folks, Pandora is cool. I'm surprised it's free actually. I did try the paid version until I realized I couldn't get 192kbs with it on my Squeezebox. Even 128kbs sounds good, though. Don't know how it can sound as good as it does at that bit rate.

Yup...money-driven dopes at the wheel in the recording world; in the radio world and in the retailing world. no wonder the music bidness is in the ditch. nothing wrong with making a buck, for sure, but back in the old days a lot of the people in the music bidness were there for the love of the music. not so sure that's the case today...[]

So why isn't everybody an audiophile? Is the audiophile brain different? Or at least, why isn't everyone a music lover? Maybe being an audiophile is a mild form of insanity! I know I'm sure crazy about Holly Cole.[]

Oh, she would never hit me with an iron skillet. She much prefers stainless steel for the light weight and easy clean-up.

I agree that there is something subjectively "good" about la scala bass, but the problem to me is there just isn't enough of it. It's been called "fast" bass, which really makes no sense if you think about it, although I can understand why one might describe it that way. I know it always depends on set-up, but my experience with the LS2 was that the bass was shelved down below the mids and rolled off hard at 50Hz. The Polk LSi9's I had for about five minutes sounded bassier to my ears. I'd describe la scala bass as clean and mean, but way too lean.

I had this picture on file...doesn't really show it all, but you get the idea. I bought these when we built the new house in '99. They were cheap and "all wood" (some of the thinnest veneer I've ever seen!). They've done the job but are definitely not too classy (which is what my wife says about me, too).

None of the above. When I was 15, it was discovered that I had a small pre-cancerous polyp in my bladder. In the hospital, before I was taken down to have a cystoscopy I was given a shot in the butt with ...something fine. I mean WAY fine. I never felt better in my life. I had no muscle control whatsoever, but I didn't care. And it wasn't just physical. Everything in the world was just absolutely golden! I just plain...felt...GOOD! I never did learn what was in that needle and it's probably just as well because I would have wanted more. It was so good that I still remember it and it's been thirty-eight years ago!

Our wives would separate us and make us go sit in opposite sweet spots.

I have had the experience of putting up several ceiling fans....leave it in the box and crank up the tunes. [] Yup, me too. That's why it's been setting there so long![]