maxg
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Posts posted by maxg
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My first stereo was...wait for it....a brand new Radio Shack record player with 2 tiny (tinny) matching Radioshack speakers. It cost all of 50 pounds back then (I think we were done personally).
Now you've got me thinking about it I think it is still at my parents place - I will go check it out next time I am in the UK.
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A picture is worth a thousand words....
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Good suggestions from JMON. I would add Heresy 2's to that list. They are smaller and more managable but from the same range (Heritage) and certainly not base strong. You should be able to pick them up for rather less than your budget (even new).
Of course any suggestion would be greatly helped if you could supply some idea of what music you listen to, what your room dimensions are and what other equipment you have / intend to buy.
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Apologies all for the lack of explanation. This is the amp I described in http://216.37.9.58/ubb/Forum3/HTML/000500.html
Technical description as follows:
2 monoblock tube amps with solid state pre-amp. All hand built by Tsakiridis Devices (2 brothers working out of a basement). One of the bros does the woodwork - the other does the electronics. I bought the pre only because I wanted to reproduce the sound they demonstrated to me.
For reference the monoblocks are Push pull, class A/B, 45 wpc. Each contains 2 tubes (6550WE, Sovtek, Made in Russia 99 09), the capacitor and the power supply are assembled by the Brothers. The whole design is as simple and straightforward as possible and each unit has its own power button.
The pre-amp has volume, input select (6 inputs - all analogue), power and mute(!) switches. There are 2 outputs (one can be used for Tape out if required).
THat's all I got so far. Except it sounds great - a lot warmer than the Accuphase with MORE Bass!!!!
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Now I can really drive my Heresy's - just wish you could all hear them is all....
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Hmmmmm.....Heresy's and KLF30's.....not an automatic mix IMHO.
I have Heresy's and a friend has KLF 30's (with modified XO to increase the bass and sensitivity to something like 106 db!). The sound is related but not that similar. I would have thought a pair of RF3's or KLF 10 / 20s would be a better match.
This is opinion of course, but generally both he and I agree that his bass is huge relative to mine, but my mids and highs are better (more live I suppose).
Of course the safest thing could be to get another pair of KLF 30's (if you can find them).
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You could always leave it on continuously. I never switch off my amps.
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If all you want to do is raise the speakers off the ground I would choose something solid to put them on. I dont think they were ever designed to be spiked (could spikes take the weight without ruining your floor?).
I would suggest a solid piece of marble, granite or similar one to two inches high - if your floor can take it that is -KHorns are not light on their own!
If you go much above that you may find the sound experience changes.
Dont let the horns touch the ceiling - LOL!
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On my old Yamaha 595a you also had the option to connect 2 sets of speakers. THere was a warning in the manual however about the impedance. There was a switch on the back of the amp to select between impedance settings.
The instructions were something like:
1. Single set of mains - 8 ohm speakers. 2 sets of mains - 16 ohm speakers.
2. Single set of mains - 4 ohm speakers. 2 sets of mains - 8 ohm speakers
No idea if the Denon has a similar function. Seems doubling the speakers halves the impedance. I left the system on setting 2 for safety and never hada problem.
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Not again!!! Not Bose - please. What is the fascination with these speakers?
I have heard a set with 4 little ones and a sub in a colleagues house. They are ok - nothing special, nothing terrible. They are just a means of producing stereo sound at a reasonable sound in a market packed with products that do the same .
Klipsch are not like this. Klipsch produce an evocative sound that aims at an entirely different experience.
I would no more compare Klipsch to Boss than a 50cc Honda to a Harley (the most American analogy I could think of).
If someone tells me they have an xyz system I say "that's nice." I do not react differently whether its a Sharp, Sony, Bose, Philips, Kenwood or whatever, it makes no difference. If they ask I tell them I have mixed components. Only if they are interested and want to hear my sound would I subject them to it. Why make someone feel foolish just because they are not an audiophile?
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We got a lot of systems for you to hear, here.
Actually if anyone on this forum is planning, or fancies, a trip to Greece - Home® of the audiophile just let me know!
Never mind the beaches - you can tan in front of my soon to be tubes.
Excited? Me?
2 more days to go.
48 hours.
2880 minutes.
172,800 seconds.
I am gonna burst!
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Congrats Bensilb.
Beers at your house tomorrow night then (will take me that long to get there.)
Now - which airline offers net access in the air? Just wouldnt want to miss a minute of this site.
Cool Newbie? Me? Not for long!
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Great minds Doug - or is that fools seldom differ?
You remind me of another Dougdrake that used to hang around here - but you are a cool newbie rather than a no-life, gazillion posts kind of guy, and I like that (LOL - just kidding).
Roll on the day when I have to change my name. Maxg2-the sequel, what do you think?
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What is a beanie baby?
As for the statues - they are not of Greek origin - some friends picked them up on a tour of the far east (from Cambodia I believe).
As of Friday this week these pictures will hopefully be out of date. My new pre-amp and tube monoblocks should have arrived - new pics to follow.
Happy days!
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Shortish day at work. Home by 5.30 (yippee!). Walked the dogs, Listening to Suzanne Vega's Tried and True (love that album).
About the time "Blood makes noise", does - if you know what I mean, Tony calls (audiophile nut).
"Get your speakers ready we are going to listen to an amp."
Arguing is useless. Switch off amp and cd - disconnect speakers (must get some banana clips).
Tony arrives in his stationwagon. Throw speakers in the back and set off. He hurls a Greek audiophile mag in my lap with a review of the tube monoblocks we are about to hear. Ho hum.
1 and 1/2 hours later we arrive. Wasnt that far - wasnt where Tony thought it was either (he never carries a map).
We are in a real rough part of town. The dogs carry knives, the kids carry dogs. The somehow not-condemned building we enter is filled with half-clad street urchins running, shouting and dealing. We head down to the basement. Room, barely 12ft by 12, all walls covered in black sound insulation (love what you've done with this place!), floor littered with amps, preamps, tubes, power supplies, cables and 2 chairs that have seen better days. Opposite 2 magnaplanar electrostatic speakers are unceremoniously dumped into the hallway and breeze blocks used as a base for my Heresy's.
Suzanne into the CD player. Power up amps and pre - music, bass, my god the bass! The words Heresy and booming bass are not often used in the same sentence but these amps are driving them hard and clean.
Various CD's later we discuss price. Monoblocks (45 wpc) - $510 - the pair! Preamp - $350, all brand new (the pre is not tube but they build it themselves). Now I dont know what prices look like in the States for this stuff but over here these are "free with a bowl of cereal, prices". I paid 3 times that for the Accuphase E211!
So I cancelled the order for the USS Enterprise Amp that has been discussed in other postings ($1250 plus $1100 for the mods I wanted) and ordered.
Should arrive later on in the week. When they do I will photo them and post. If I like them more than the Accuphase (which I think I will) I will keep them and maybe sell the Accuphase. If not Tony's girlfriend will take them for her RF3's.
Anyway, will keep you all up to date on developments, as ever.
BTW - once we had ordered we re-instated the Magnarplanars. These are the first Electrostatic's I have really listenned to. Not what I was expecting. Less airy, more boomy and less defined than the Heresy's - maybe the amps arent up to it - I dont know, but very disappointing.
Regards
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"My recently purchased Rotel amp gets rather hot as well when it's idling. Althought Rotel couldn't tell me at what power output Class A ends and Class A/B begins. RB-1080 with 200wpc consuming 500 watts; doesn't sound like too bad of a mismatch (I think "
hmmm - that is odd. I had the same unit and never noticed it running even warm. May be a problem brewing there for you - mine was on 24*7.
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I had a quintet setup with a KSW 10 subwoofer with similar problems connected to a Yamaha 595. I added a pair of KSF 3.1 monitors to the front running off speaker A and retained the fronts of the quintet running off speaker B.
This worked surprisingly well and filled in the sound nicely. I eventually placed the qunitet fronts directly on top of the monitors.
Good luck
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Hollywood plus definitely makes a huge difference to the load on your system but unless you are tryin to do other things on your system at the same time you shouldnt need it.
What resolution are you running at to play the DVD's? I noticed on a Celeron based system that in 800*600 mode it played back perfectly but fell over badly at 1078*762.
You may also want to play with colour depth. 16 bit / 24 bit - depends on the video card and driver as to which will work better.
On the subject of drivers check out you have the latest versions for your video card - it can make a huge difference.
Good luck.
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A friend of mine has decided to build his own speakers. The target is to build a set of bookshelf speakers on a par with the Heresy 2's I have (or better - so much optimism) with more bass (27 Hz cut off).
Anyway he is off building boxes and whatnot and talking unintelligibly about drivers, crossovers and the like. Who knows what it will sound like in the end but it keeps him happy in the meantime.
During the process I asked a question which has been on my mind for a while. Why are most speakers box shaped? I cannot imagine this is the optimum shape for a speaker (presumably Norh agrees with me).
Anyway my idea was to take a single tree stump about 50 cm (19.5") in diameter and 1 metre (39") high.
Cut the thing in half for 2 speakers and hollow out in each 3 separate comparments as follows:
Thickness of wood to be retained 2cm (3/4") all round.
Section 1 : For tweeter (horn of course) 15 litres volume required, therefore 10 cm high.
Section 2 : For Midrange horn - 15 litres volume, therefore again 10 cm high.
Section 3 : 24 cm remaining space for the woofer, or, about 39 litres of air. This should be enough for a 12 inch woofer in a sealed (not base reflex) setup.
This leaves a 2 cm top and bottom with similar between each section to ensure proper isolation.
Internally there will be no corners as each space is cylindrical (and curved up to the sidewalls if I can).
Questions:
1. Anyone care to guess what this would sound like?
2. Would I need any further insulation between tweeter / mid / woofer?
3. Would I need any sound absorbing materials inside at all?
4. How come no-one else is doing this?
5. Am I barking mad?
6. Presumably no 2 speakers would sound exactly the same and all would be influenced by the choice of wood. Do you think that could be a marketing angle?
7. Do I have too much time on my hands?
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Hmmmm Speaker Break-in. Good question. My own opinion is that the sound a speaker plays will vary over time. Rubber mounts loosen up even speaker materials themselves (for woofers mainly) should undergo some form of change.
What I cannot tell you is which sound is "correct". Is a speaker that is new closer to the sound originally intended by the designer or is the "broken-in" sound the one that was intended.
I can tell you that as I cannot be sure what the change is I took my audiophile friend's advice and broke everything in. This was a terrible chore having to play my system constantly for 200 hours (not), and now I have the awful situation where my wife constantly asks why we have no music playing (on the odd ocasion when silence reigns).
Maybe I have more bass now than at first - or maybe I just got used to it - who knows? Who cares? I just love my sound.
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Head over to www.elusivedisc.com for any audiophile cd you want.
The site is not the easiest to use but their selection is very good.
Check out the titles under JVC xrcd, JVC xrcd2, JVC TBM xrcd and JVC TBM xrcd 2.
I am also in the process of trying to find out where you can buy some audiophile Turkish music. Although fairly bizzare some of it is unbelievbly fantastic musically and some of it will really work out your system.
Will update this site when I find out availability and pricing etc.
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Started with the quintet and a KSW 10 sub. Added a pair of 3.1 monitors. Replaced the lot with one pair of Heresy's.
Current plan: In the process of buying a holiday home. Want to move the current setup (Marantz, Accuphase and Heresy's) there. Then want to buy a pair of Belle KLipsch's and run them with an SACD and tube monoblocks.
Maybe then buy a second pair of Heresy's and a centre, add 3 more monoblocks and a decoder, DVD and DVD/a, cover all speakers in a marble jacket, a 15" sub (KSW 15 or newer model), a pair of electrostatic headphones (STAX - sorry - they are the best in the world), build an audio room.....
Sorry - 2 more prozac and I will be fine.
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Thanks for the positive comments. Yes - it is a phone on top of the heresy. I dont normally leave it on there - my wife had just used it. Well spotted!
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quote:Originally posted by YC:maxg:Do you like the accuphase amp?Why do you want to replace it?
THe Accuphase is a great amp. By far the best Solid state unit I have heard (except for larger Accuphases), but, I recently heard a tube setup that blew it out of the window (60 wpc).
I am looking to get a monoblock version of that and then will face the pre-amp issue as I cannot use the Accuphase as a pre-amp unless I use the tape out.
Suggestions please
in Home Theater
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"Someday you could even follow maxg's lead and sheath your RF3's in Grecian marble"
Just to let you know it is on hold at the moment. A couple living up the road have a rather nice pair of Belle Klipsch that are rather big for their living room (12" * 12). They have come and listened to the Heresy's and are considering a swap. I will probably have to throw in the Accuphase amp to sweeten the deal, especially as their existing amp (a Luxman) is failing to drive the woofers on the Belles and will certainly have similar problems with the Heresy's.
Still, a pair of Belles on my monoblocks should be nice!!
Will keep you posted!