kkerley33

Marksdad, I do not have much experience with the sonos system, but I do have experience using wireless music feeds via a media extender. Lets just say I am not please with the wireless route. I went back and hard wired my house with Cat 5 and put in a 1G network hub to do the switching. I still store all of my music on my Hard Drive...but my hard drive is a 500GB external Drive. From my perspective and a cost point, I would look at a decent used DAC, a D-Link or Linksys Media extender with Coax out and a networkable storage device with UPnP support. If you have a video source in your listening room, then you can easily pull the music from the UPnP harddrive which is external and only plugged into the network through the media extender. If you don't have a video source in your 2 Channel room, then you can buy a 7inch LCD screen for relatively cheap and mount it near your rack (and depending on how much you want to play with the media extender you can even have the latest sports scores and stock quotes fed to that screen). So sorry I cannot help you with the Sonos stuff and I don't know the price point, but my recommended solution can be done for under $500 if you already have a pre-amp and an a DAC. As for a RAID array...that is simply a way that most Servers are set-up. In its simplest form, the data is saved on two drives at the same time so if one drive goes belly up, the second drive in the RAID array can be put into service. There are different ways to set-up raid, but that is a simple explanation.

Harry, Glad to see your baby finally came in. I have now had two Anthem Pre 2L sales fall through so still running SS to my Amp 1. I am about to cut my losses and buy a Sonic Frontiers Line 1. One of these days I will have my Tube Pre... KAK

JBSL. I am making sure the wife is happy. She has been on a CD buying blitz as well. She likes to listen a lot "oldies". Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, etc so she is loving the new sound as well and with the recent gift of a turntable, my immediate need is a pre phono section. We have a vintage record store down the street that sells new as well as old vinyl and hardly anything in the store is over $12.00 with most LP's under $5 and they have a huge $.50 section as well. KAK

I don't know if any of you have caught this yet, but their are currently two auctions on Ebay for 1983 Klipsch La Scala's. That is not unique, what is unique is the fact that the auctions are on separate coasts but contain 4 consecutive serial numbers. The Left Coast Auction is boasting serial numbers 32Y005 and 32Y006 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120156737057 The East Coast Auction is boasting serial numbers 32Y003 and 32Y004 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120156734527 It's probably not a big deal at all, but I think it is kind of a rare occurance. KAK

JBSL, I just committed to buying an Anthem Tube Pre to match the Anthem Amp 1, and have already been looking at the Musical Fidelity X-10v.3 Tube buffers to run between my Ipod Docking Station and my CD player. Add to that the free Turntable I picked up, and I am looking for a Tube Pre Phono too. I keep telling my self baby steps and the wife says one thing a month. September starts in 45 hrs. LOL KAK

Glad to see someone else is still up this late. When I get everything set-up I will let you know. Still waiting to hear back from Fritz on that stuff. KAK

to be honest, I do not know what model garrard or BSR. All identifying marks/stickers were rubbed off accept what brand they were. I do not know if they are MM or MC, in fact, I do not even know what the difference is. I am not an LP guy, but I figured if someone was going to hand me a platter (pun intended), I would take it. My budget is to spend as little as possible and not ruin the sound. If I hadn't already committed to buying the Anthem Pre2L, I would have probably bought a Tube Pre with a phone stage in it. I would say my budget is $300 or less and I am looking used. KAK

Capo, Did you get up to check out the stuff yet? Your earlier post implied you might have but just checking. KAK

So this past weekend I picked up my Anthem Amp 1 tube amp and put it into the growing system which is still currently using an HK AVR45 as its pre. I also committed to buying an Anthem Pre2L, but haven't sent the money yet. So here is my predicamint. I decided this afternoon to help my parents clean out their Attic. While I was up there I found a BSR McDonald Tuntable and a Garrard Turntable in the attic. I hooked them both into my dads old system that had a phone section and played a pretty warped LP, but they both worked after sitting in a non climate controlled attic for atleast 15 years now. So after all was said and done, my father said I could take one, but he wanted the other set into his system. Question for all of you is this, I am going to take one of them (my wife likes to do the Flea Market thing so if she buys LP then she can feel a use out of our system) but which one should I take. Second, since I already committed to buying the Pre 2L, I shouldn't back out on the guy, but it is line level only. What would you guys recommend for an inexpensive Pre Phono stage. This is not going to be my main or even my second source so I don't want to drop a fortune. I looked at the Musical Fidelity X-LPS and think I can find them on Audiogon for under $200. Thanks for your help, KAK

Colter, Have you asked him if he has a sister? I thought I would see it somewhere? KAK

JBSL, I went down to buy the amp, he went to buy the LS's. It was an anthem Amp 1. Uses EL34's and throws out a very underated 40WPC. I ran it A/B vs a Harman 55 WPC Solid State Amp and the Tubes click for click blew away the Solid State in terms of output. (could be because factory default setting on the Tube Amp though is +24dB). I paid $500. Shep picked up the LS's. He is going to use one as a center for his HT. He now has 5 all around. I paid him half for the other, they both need a little work. The cabs were in a 7/10. Both had nicks on the corners, but were otherwise void of any gouges, cracks, dents, etc. They were painted black, but it was over lacquer so it will strip easilty. They were 79's..non-sequential serial #'s. One was also missing a tweet, but the owner gave us 2 Electro Voice T35's for replacements. We paid $500 total. What else you need to know. :-) KAK

Shepjk and I drove to Cincy today to pick up some La Scala's and a Tube Amp. He has the La Scala's at his place to finish out his La Scala HT and the tube Amp is up and running...its sweet. Guess its time to change the system profiles. LOL 2004 La Scala's w/AL4 upgrades, Anthem Amp 1, HK45, Pioneer DV-633A, Paradigm PS1200

What about the the La Scala's for $4000. Just as nuts. LOL

So how did the demo go Damon?

Well it looks like the seller finally came to his senses. He lowered the BIN again and they sold. Guess he had a change of heart. http://cgi.ebay.com/1975-HERESY-Klipsch-Vintage-Loudspeaker-System_W0QQitemZ250154832616QQihZ015QQcategoryZ50597QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem He originally had a BIN of $1350, lowered it to $950 and finally $575. KAK

Oldtimer, Thankfully your Can of Corn theory is what rebounded the stock market in the last hour today. The wise investors were waiting for all the day traders and weak kneed to sell off to "stop" their losses. Then the wise investors cost averaged theirs shares and bought more. Typically though, cost averaging is only a good idea when the current price is below your purchase price. If your stock is still up from when you bought it, you might as well just put a stop loss on it, not panic and try to weather the storm, hoping for a turnaround. KAK

And thats Canadian Dollars...not that it matters much anymore these days LOL. Wonder if the bonehead seller from Ebay will keep checking this thread. Hopefully there is no-one dumb enough to pay that price...sticking him with the listing fees . KAK

For 200, you are probably going to have to go to the Gon. CD MFG's that I have had that had variable Analogue Output. Pioneer Yamaha Phillips Sony I also believe some of the Pioneer LD players had volume control. Any CD player that has Karaoke should also have volume control. It is not going to give you the volume range that a pre-amp does, but will probably do the job for a smaller listening room. KAK

Damon, Pricewise, that is very reasonable. Let us know how it sounds. I personally would have thought something from integra...especially with those specs would run a bit higher. The Stage One is setting a high standard for sound though. If possible, let us know how the A/B comparison is on Music and internal DD/DTS decoding. KAK

Lowered BIN Wonder if that has to do with the fact that I sent him the link to this thread after I posted his response. [:$] KAK

Damon, That looks like it has all the bases covered. About the only thing it is missing is a firewire connection. LOL What are those running "up north". The shop in town only has the 9.4. I had not seen the 9.8. BTW, what are you using for AMPS. Kyle

JBSL, You can buy a relatively inexpensive sound card with digital or SPDIF out and install it in to your current computer or you can just purchase the Airport Express, use Itunes and run it through an outboard DAC (if you have a two channel set-up) or your recievers DAC if using an HT Receiver. If you go through the soundcard route, you will want to mount it as far from the Power Supply as possible as it will add interference. I just did take another look at the airport express. It did have Cat-5 connection on it, but I do not know if that is to connect it a wired network or to use it as a network adapter to connect another computer that is not wireless. KAK

Sorry All, but I couldn't resist acting like an "interested buyer" and seeing if this guy was serious. I sent him an email asking why the high price and if he was accepting offers. Here is the response. I would give the Cabs a 6/10. They are beat up pretty good. LOL Dear kkerley33, The price is the price. $650.00 + $650.00 = $1300.00. The price also reflects VINTAGE quality from 1975. - technoglobe KAK

JBSL, I have been doing some research. The Ipod's have never had a Digital Out. I stated that from the beginning of this thread and am readily aware, but it was not of importance to me because the Wolfson DAC that Apple is using is the same technology that Myryad is using in their CD players and HT receivers. It is a quality internal DAC. My biggest complaint has been the low level build quality of the Docking solutions that are available from the market, excluding the Integrated solutions from HK, Pioneer, Yamaha, etc, etc that still take the signal through A/D and D/A conversion. My hope was that one of these solution would SIMPLIFY the signal. The Airport Express option you showed me does offer me an alternative though as I could stream the Audio in Digital Form directly from my PC and By-Pass the need for the Ipod all together. I am sure though that there would be some some signal loss through the Wireless transfer of the Data Stream. Another similar alternative to this is using a Media Extender from my PC (I stream Audio from my PC to my PS3 to my system in my Den this way and it works rather well for a mid-fi system. Since I am looking at other tube amp options, I am probably going to give the Psiber Audio PAS-3 an audition. They have a 30 day return policy. It gives me the integrated ipod interfrace and optional inputs for a CD player, dac or Tuner. The only question is how is its sound quality. I still may be better off with a higher end line level pre-amp and a retail solution ipod dock. The MSB digital out upgrade for the IPOD is not an option at $2300.00 and would still require an outboard DAC. Unfortunatly I am not able to find an airport express adapter for the Ipod to use it through the Airport Express. That said, the iphone is wireless capable which may mean that future Ipods will have wireless capabilities. Since Microsoft is doing it with the Zune, I bet Apple does it with the Ipod. KAK

Gee, I can think of a lot more things to do with $500,000. To start, that is 6700 Kegs of Beer or 200 New La Scala's or 2 Cinema Quality Home Theatre's or 10 years off from work to listen to music KAK