russ69

Been a fan since 1967. Comfortably Numb is the best track...many other favorites.

Cause you can get up to 55mph, really quick.

Nobody wants a car with a 600cc motor in it (OK some guys like skate boards). We want big block muscle cars. What we need is a different topic. P.S. I'm happy with my 25 watt tube amps.

I'll play the devil's advocate. Some very broad statements have been made and I'm not willing to buy into all of them. Comparing speaker A to speaker B can easily be done if the differences between the two loudspeakers is great. A crappy loudspeaker is a crappy loudspeaker no matter what room you put it in. On the other side of the coin I have heard large systems in small rooms that sound fine. My rule is that a good loudspeaker will always sound better than a poor loudspeaker regardless of room size. Even if the large loudspeaker needs a bigger room to perform to it's potential. Why not? No harm done.

I'm not seeing the problem....

The guy might have some more credibility if he took his cocktail from the top of the speaker. If you do that at my house, you are asked to leave.

Nice plumage!

She will like the H3s. It's a very neutral speaker. I'd pass on the tube amp (I'm a big tube guy) but it's for someone that wants to make audio a full time hobby. Your choices and most of the recommendations for a solid state integrated amp are nice picks, you'll be happy for a long time. For someone that wants audio as a hobby it would be RF7s and tube amps for me.

I'm not a tube expert but I have some Tesla EL34s (pre JJ) and they are really nice. I'd take a chance on those.

Check the drivers first but maybe a bad tube in the Eico?

Maynard, I agree but for a first timer into tubes I like to recommend a well known brand mid-level integrated amp that can be serviced without problems. 2K is about the lower limit in my self imposed rule set. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy my 100 buck Wave AV8 amps but I can't recommend something like that to greenhorns.

OP, what exactly is missing in the sound of your system? Cleaner? Brighter? warmer? More or less detail?

The biggest improvement would be the addition of a subwoofer. There are many affordable models available. You can upgrade your receiver but until you get up in price quite a bit the consumer grade receivers sound very similar.

Oh yes. A good integrated starts at around 2K and it's kinda like owning a foreign sports car. You need to keep on top of the maintenance and tubes will need to be replaced at some point. But when you are humming along...there is nothing better.

Put a piece of Blu-tack on each corner. So far I have not seen any damage from Blu-tack.

There are a lot of "special" recordings out there to WOW other people when you show off your system but if you are looking for a test recording for something you are going to try, I recommend that you simply use the music you like to listen to. You may as well use the music you are likely to play.

The Oppo is a top choice. For a deck with a strong top end that works with tubes the Marantz CD5005 might fit your budget. Any Cambridge for smooth detail.

Bookshelves? Make sure they are tall enough to hold big books. Otherwise that is a bad place to put a speaker.

If I had a pair of Klipschorns, I'd use a pair of Quicksilver Horn Monos and a Cary SLP-98 pre-amp. A sweeter combo cannot be found.

Actually that is a good guess. Sometimes a fuse fails but it's not fully visible. The issue is in both channels so that would narrow the fuse location. I'd replace so you can eliminate that issue.

Separate components are an upgrade. How large an upgrade is dependent on your component selection. I put tube mono-blocks high on my list.

Most of the time a person would be happy with this kind of LF response. Paul got that right.

Stereophile suggested that the 4 ohm taps sounded better. Your pre-amp is still very fresh, perhaps some more hours will improve things even more.

Wasn't the MC275 around when PWK said the world needed a really good 5 watt amp? Sometimes even the best of the best just doesn't work out. You may have a combo that just doesn't do it for you?

You are probably pretty close but sometimes integration is better a little higher up than you would think. Remember a crossover is a slope not a hard cutoff.