maxg

Moon, $7500 for a pair of the top of the line speakers is not too bad in the company that they live. You want to go find out how much a top of the line pair of B&W's cost??? FWIW I would say the KHorn is not the nicest of the Heritage range - it is the biggest and the baddest!! The nicest will depend on your application. If you have a small room then maybe the heresy is the right choice for you, larger but without corners - you choose the Belles or the LaScalas. As far as I know the Belles and LaScalas have very similar sound but the Belles look nicer. I am limiting myself to the current Heritage range only. If you are looking into 2nd hand equipment then you will want to consider Cornwalls, Forte's and Chorus speakers. Each have the pro's and cons although I have to say that I have never heard the cornwalls.

I think the ACA has contingents from both sides of the fence when it comes to music vs. system. It was enlightening to see those that attended the meeting at my house. They ranged from those that could only hear what they see in $ terms to those that heard only the music and many stages in between. I suppose in some ways the reviewers comments were a riot to me and truely put into prespective how personal audio is. I found his critism's of the system aimed at those elements of the sound I love and his praise heaped in areas I think weak. Others that expressed opinions were so varying in what they liked and/or disliked that my conclusion was simply I have to continue to trust me own ears (big surprise!!). As it happens I am trying real hard to get back to listening to music and away from listening to the system. This approach seems to be working, at least with classical music and I am finally recapturing the magic of Rossini, Mozart, Beethoven et al. Anyway as an aside I sold the Accuphase this morning (phew!!) so I am now able to spend if I choose. Time to go MC? Maybe a Denon 103 as an interim with a new phono stage? I wonder if a better arm fits on my TT (the Rega 250?) Decisions decisions...

Well now I have heard it all. Say it aint so. MH saying SET might not be the way to go the moment I suggest I might..... Didn't Arco pick up an Eico recently anyway? I wonder if I culd tempt him to bring that round as well... Frankly I have absolutely no idea how well my current amps perform against any of the much discussed items on this forum either generically or in my setup. The only thing I know for sure is that KT88 loaded kicks the butt of 6550 WE loaded and therefore wiped the floor with the Accuphase which is supposed to be a decent SS amp. Well anyway - money first - playing second. All this and I have Tony pressuring me to change my current cartridge / arm / phono stage setup instead. Which way is up again? And how is it the moment I see some money coming in I see more of the green stuff flying out the door?

Another go at reponding to Jazman - failed last time for some reason. Thanks for thinking out a proper response. If what you say is correct then the way forward is indeed forwards as opposed to stepping back in quality. That is a relief - my investment to date has not been wasted. Time to let Arco loose with those 300B's and 2A3's to put my long serving PP amps to shame. (Arco has been suggesting that upgrade ever since he heard the system. As soon as I get the cash together we will find out if he, and you, are right.) With a bit of luck and a following wind tomorrow I should be able to sell off the Accuphase and maybe even the Klipsch Heresy's....Of course that would leave me totally Klipschless for the first time in 4 years. Will I have to hand in my membership to this place?

I recall a thread from a month or so back that did this subject to death. The views polarised into 2 camps - the give me accuracy or give me death camp and the I dont care about accuracy I just care that it sounds good to me camp. There is, as is often the case in audio it seems, no right of wrong answer. If you cannot enjoy what you are listening to because you feel that it is not true enough to the original then accuracy is the path for you to follow. If not then welcome to the world of tubes and horns... FWIW the guy that introduced me into the wonders of audio is an accuracy freak. According to him the combo he runs (Quad 989's matched to Accuphase 407 integrated amp and acoustic solid TT is the most accurate combo available at any smei reasonable price). He may be right. I am sure it is a far less colored offering than my own system. I would simply never choose it... Horses for courses

I am a fairly broad minded kind of a guy but they were simply the most horrific degrading pictures of anything I have ever seen. I wish I hadnt. I realize that for those that didnt see you must be consumed with curiosity as to what on earth was posted. but you will have to take the words of those that were unfortuate enough to have been subjected to them that you are lucky indeed. I for one have had nightmares all weekend and feelings of nausia are a constant companion whenever I think of them.

Dubai, No joy to date on the DSOTM Greek pressing. I had a hunt on Saturday morning but drew a complete blank. The only PF album I found was "a collection of dance songs". Why is it whenever you are looking for something it goes to ground? There is one shop not too far away I have hopes for. I will try to get down there next Saturday as I am hoping they also have some Stones albums for me (not to mention Al Green). Will keep you posted on progress..

"and the answer to this reply is always a new subject slightly with no interplay with the ideas you bring up in the actual post." Now you force me into repeating the manoevre. It is the way the mind works my friend - off on tangents the whole time (mine anyway). Actually I have no problems with people collecting records, or audio components for that matter even if the music that can be produced is not their main aim. My main pondering is why they would get deflected from their, presumably, original mission of listening to music and delve off into other related fields. I suppose there are some that get more enjoyment out of owning 20,000 albums than listening to say, a favorite few hundred. This is again tangenital to my real, more personal concern, that I am not getting as much out of music as I used to. Time was when I would put a record on (or even a CD in what seems a past life) and listen to it in its entirety. Now I hop up and down changing records between tracks just to see how some other piece of music sounds on my setup. Hell - I even find myself waiting impatiently for a piece of music to finish so that I can change it. Where is the sense in that?

The funny thing about the whole audio Vs music topic as you put it is that I recently came across a collector of vinyl (tens of thousands of records) who seems to suffer from vinyl Vs music syndrome. It seems he buys records with little if any intention of actually listening to them and probably has thousands in his collection that are truely in mint condition!! What strange games our minds play with us. You start off by getting in to music and then you get sidetracked into either the eosoterics of the play-back system or into the medium itself. Why is it so difficult to stay with the music?

Its funny but every audiophile who visits makes much the same comments you do Kelly on the placement issues. Then they listen and are generally somewhat surprised. Though I say it myself, despite the poor placement, the push pull amps, the 1975 design speakers, the fairly lame TT and all the rest it does play remarkably well. Even Arco was kind enough to pass positive comments on both the current sound and the level of improvement since he last visited. I am thinking that the best solution here would be to put a shelf up on either side of the TV (which does, by the way, have to stay exactly where it is) and place one amp on each. In one fell swoop I sort out the hum problem and isolate the amps from the speakers. The added benefit is that I am further raising the amp away from prying little fingers. I wonder if I can get SWMBO to agree....??

Well if you feel that strongly I will borrow Tony's mat and see what difference it makes... Frankly I just wanted the mat to stop the static and make the record stick firmly in place whilst playing - both of which jobs it seems to do very well. Sonic benefits from mats....from both you and Tony...well I am game to try I suppose. How much are these things anyway?

With a bit of luck I will get out Tomorrow to hunt for vinyl (wife and baby permitting). If I stike lucky I will let you know immediately. I hadnt forgotten!!

I have just seen what you mean. My god - that doesnt even qualify as pornography. There seems to be no depth of obsenity that cannot be plumbed by some. Frankly if the moderators do not act quickly this site will be closed by the authorities. I understand it is based in the US afterall and there are laws on portraying this kind of thing. Stomach churning stuff.

Not a bad idea Aristidi. But I was hoping to keep the amps up high and out of my daughters way.

In my experience there are certain bands that are extremely difficult to find really good recordings of and U2 is certainly one of them. I think Island Records has a lot to answer for. The quality of some of their recordings on Cd's is frankly appalling. Sadly their vinyl is often not much better. I have Boy, Rattle and Hum and a few others on vinyl. Whilst it is certainly better than the equivalent CD's I own they are far from great recordings. Irritating isnt it.

Keith, I am green with envy. I have paid more than you did for the whole lot for just 2 or 3 albums recently. What a find!! Jim, I see you have a Neil Diamond there. Not that I would ever admit it publically but I have always loved his voice - especially "Coming to America". I did pick up an album of his but it is not good, digitally recorded, and rather flat. It has robbed all the magic from his voice. Must get out there and get me some more vinyl. I havent bought a thing in weeks!!

Such lists of music to sample. Such joys in the listening. Strange to think that most of us fell in love with this stuff listening to a transistor radio under the bed clothes. Also interesting to note how much of the music is really old stuff from the '60s and beyond. I wonder if any of us can really claim we enjoy that music, on our high blown systems, more now than we did back in the day when we had the above mentioned device pinned to our ears and our parents thought us asleep. Of course the sound is infinitely better. Entire vista's of the nuance of sound (not to mention the bass) have opened up we never knew existed, but the magic we felt.... It may have changed, but has it really improved? More and more these days I find myself picking up details in the performance rather than absorbing the whole. It is becoming harder and harder to listen casually and I find that only at the end of the day when I am falling asleep in the chair that the old appreciation really returns. And here is the worst part. Deep down I have the feeling that the solution is to take a step down from the system I have now make a concious effort to reduce the quality, if you will, so that I will free my mind from examining the detail and get back to the performance. Am I alone in my maddness?

I have the Pro-ject RPM 4 TT with the Pro-ject 9 arm and the Pro-ject K4 cartridge. The TT is sited rather close to the right side amp as can be seen in the picture: The problem is that when the volume is at a reasonable level there is a buzz in the right channel. The buzz is at its worst when the arm is in the rest. As soon as I move the arm over the record the buzz reduces dramatically BUT IT NEVER DIES AWAY COMPLETELY. Obviously the easiest thing to do in theory would be to further separate the amp and the TT. The problem is that I dont have any other obvious way to arrange the components. Last night I wanted to verify what the source of the problem was. I was unsure as to whether the buzz came from the cartridge itself or from the thin cables running down the length of the arm picking up current by induction. Having tried rotating the table both towards and away from the amp I am now sure that the cartridge is to blame. As the headshell nears the amp it gets worse and as it moves away the humm decreases. So what to do. I thought that placing something between the amp and the TT might sort the problem out but even using a solid metal tray the difference is negligible. Anyone got any bright ideas?

Not you too Kelly... http://www.aca.gr/equip15.htm This is a review of the non felt mat on the aca site with comments by Tony who spent over an hour explaining the sonic benefits to me. As it happens I threw out my felt mat that came with the Pro-ject about 2 hours after getting the TT in the first place. For some reason it seemed to attract static like a moth to a flame. As I am proudly Mr. Cheapo when it comes to all things audio all I did was swap it out for the rubber mat that came with my old, old Sony TT and it worked a charm (not a static problem since - however many records I play in a session).

So, if I understand what you are all looking for it can be summarised as naked, young, female and no doubt blond. Never being one to refuse a fellow audiophile's reasonable demand here you all go. (Enjoy before the sensor edits this post)

I used to pop in there ocasionally but I notice it has been off-line for the last couple of days. Anyone heard anything about its demise? TIA

That sounds like quite a score you got there Keith. If those albums are in reasonable condition they should sound amazing. I have a few Decca records from that period (but without the London label) that represent, to me, an object lesson in how to make a recording. BTW - did you get any mono classical recordings? These can be extra special too.

And lagging behind as usual.... OK - speaker impedance. I seem to remember seeing that the Heresy 2, in common with the RB5 it seems, has a large peak of impedance going up to something like 38 ohms. As one who has never fully grasped the implications of what that actually means I took it to be the reason behind the following observation: Initially I ran my Heresy's from an SS integrated amp, the Accuphase E211 - 90 wpc into an 8 ohm load. Later on I bought a pair of pp monoblocks eventually rolling the tubes for KT88's. This lead to an output of something around 45-50 wpc again into an 8 ohm load. Aside from the sonic benfits (in terms of quality - whatever that means to my ears) there was a major difference in the performance of the 2 systems in that: The Accuphase would drive the Heresy's down to 63 Hz at normal listening levels but no lower. The tubes drive the Heresy's down to 47 Hz with a major peak at 50Hz. I have assumed that the impedance loads would be responsible for this. This would imply that that SS amp coped less well with the increased peak than the tubes - which flies in the face of what has been written here. The question, therefore - finally, is that if I am wrong and it wasnt the impedance that causes this effect - what was it? A further observation (based on nothing scientific - simply my hearing) is that having switched the Heresy's out for a pair of aging Sansui speakers I notice that there is, simply, a lot more music being played. It is almost as it the Heresy was selecting parts of the music and omitting others. The end result was very pleasant but it was not a complete portrayal. This has only become apparent now that I have switched. Impedance issue? Result of a sealed unit design in a relatively small box? Something else? I am fairly sure it is not an issue of amplification. I have heard the Heresy's on around 5 amps and 3 receivers. None portrayed a greater proportion of the actual music, although some did portray it nicer than others.

Thinking about it, and despite Mobile labeling him light, I have a Bruebeck recording of Take five on 180 gramme mint vinyl that is well worth a spin. The drum solo on the title track alone is worth the money I paid for the album.

I learned quite recently that my wife's first word was not daddy or mummy but shoe. I think it was a warning...