whell

You know, the wires that connect the cartridge to the headshell. Anyone got an extra set of these? I'd also be interested in a good condition "Bayonet" mount headshell, with the wires in good shape of course.

I may not be up on my Maggies, but aren't those the "entry level" Magnepans? Might not really be a fair comparison between those and your Belles.

No harm, and in fact sometimes desireable. You might have to play with placement a bit to see what sounds best: tweeters inside, tweeters outside, etc.

www.elitistaudio.com []

I'll trade you my Adcom 535L for your MC-30's.... []

If you're looking for reccommendations, here's mine. Those in the know don't classify this amp as "sounding like tubes", as it seems to have a sound all its own. All I know is that on my system with my RF-7's, its the best sound I've ever had in my house, and the best my RF-7's have ever sounded next to a listening session with Craig's VRD's. http://psaudio.com/products/hca.asp This is the PS Audio HCA-2 amp, the first generation of their "Hybrid Class A" digital amps. This little beast rocks with a vengance, and at the prices that they are available for on Audiogon, its as close to a "no brainer" as I've ever had. Yup, you're right, its not an integrated amp. However, for the price of this and it's companion pre-amp, you're still in a compretitive price range with some good quality tube integrateds, and the price/performance ratio is very compelling.

I think the asking price is pretty reasonable. You might offer $260 shipped and see if it'll seal the deal.

Michael - You seem to be hopping around a bit. At the very least, it appears that you're looking to buy something that you've not personally heard when connected to the RF-7's. If true, a VERY optimisitc assessment of this method would be that you might get lucky and buy something that yields the sound that you like. More realistically, you can waste alot of time and money buying equipment that might end up not sounding the way you want. I've got RF-7's and I love them, and may never part with them. That said, I've run a number of amps through here before I settled on my current set up. The RF-7 is a great speaker, but it can be finicky about what you use to drive it. Personally, and particuarly because you said you were on a budget, I'd skip the Scott and the vintage Rotel. You'd be buying the Rotel on the hope that it was still opperating at spec after all these years (that's a 1970's or early 1980's piece of gear after all). With the Scott, it most likely will need to be inspected/adjusted by a qualified tech (there are a few here on the board that would provide this service), but not without costing as much or more than your purchase price. Bill H's advice about looking at integrated amps is spot on. You tend to get alot of value for the $$$ with integrated amps, and careful selection will yield a good match for your RF-7's. Here's one that's a kissing cousin to the one Bill reccommended, and it might be in your price range: http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?intatran&1131197276

Stop bugging Craig, my gear's next up on the Queue, and I don't want anyone to distract him. I think Craig has a set up similar to Santa. Little rock 'n roll elves work on the VRD's and do the repair work, and Craig just hangs out on the computer. Some strange stuff goin' on up there in Burton, MI.

I had a parade of speakers through my living room that included Time Windows, Magnepans, KEF's, Monitor Audio's, RF-3's and finally RF-7's. The speakers that I auditioned are reflective of the price range that I am limited to, and the RF-7's ended up being way up on the very high end of that range when I bought them used in a local sale. My listening room has the ability to grab most of the sound reproduced from my system and strangle it to death. In that enviornment, and after experiementing some with positioning and amplification, the RF-7's were the clear winner in my opinion. The other speakers sounded like small little voices in the wilderness in comparison. But that's in my room, with my system. YMMV.

PS Audio HCA-2. Can be had for a very reasonable price used on Audiogon (in the $600 range or less) now that PS Audio has released the next generation of amps. The HCA-2 is a real winner: a "Hybrid Class A" amp that doesn't generate heat, as it also used digital amp technology. Its very warm, no grain in the highs, and some of the best bass I've ever had with an amp. I'm using one now and loving it.

I love my RB-5's. You got a GREAT deal!!

Ideally, you should be able to draw an imaginary straight line from the centerpoint of the HF horn for your L, C and R front speakers, that would be level from your left channel speaker, to your center channel, to your right channel speaker. This line would also be about "ear level" when you are seated in the sweet spot of your listening room. That's the ideal. The ideal is not always achievable, but you can still experience good results. My center channel speaker sits above a level imaginary line from my L to R front speakers. While all three speakers are equidistant from my listening position, I have the center channel pointed slightly downward to compensate for its extra height. I have had pretty good results with this set up.

And for those of us whose needs fall somewhere in between building a system they can afford, and having a system that pushes the limits on quality sound reproduction, my little TD-145 that I picked up for $200, and included a good condition Shure V15-III, has been a happy little over-achiever for me. Its all stock, with the TD-16 tomearm. The only thing I've done is add a little damping to the base.

For $2K, this one is might be worth a look, and you could probably talk him down a bit: http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?homeproc&1132110177

I had Time Warner Cable a couple of years ago with the digital cable box. I had the ground loop issue, and tried the back-to-back balun solution, and the isolator solution. Unfortunately, these iterfered with the cable signal just enough so that I lost the digital cable channels above 700, which happened to be all of the "digital music" channels.

Grounding appliances makes great sense to Underwriters Laboratories, since for a fairly small investment, you get a safety-related benefit. There is little to no audible benefit of grounding audio components. Rather, it introduces the opportunity for noise to be audibly reproduced by your system, and compromise the listening experience. Lots of folks out there dig the sound of their old 60's & 70's Marantz tube and SS amps, and not one of them came from the factory with the 3 prong power cord.

I have to admit that I thought you folks were crackers when it was suggested that this ebay Thorens would fetch over $1500, but there it sits today at over $2000 with over an hour to go. This table hails from the '60's, and I'm confident that is has been extensively updated. But with the time-value of money factored in, there's no way that this table was going for the equivalent of $2000 in 2005 USD back then. And is it also safe to say that $2000 won't buy you a modern turntable with equal if not better performance? Color me stunned, or maybe just thoroughly uninformed.

Are you looking for something used or new? Lots of great values on the used market within your price range.

First, read and follow the directions in the owners manual regarding speaker placement. Second, what did the RF-7's replace? Where these speakers also harsh and/or lacking bass? Check the sonic characteristics of your listening room, and correct any deficiencies that might rob you of bass, or create reflections that might result in the "harsh" sound you describe. Did you audition the RF-7's before you bought? Did they sound bassless and harsh during the audition? If not, then the issue is likely elsewhere. I'd see if I could correct any issues with propper placement and gettting the most out of your listening room's accoustics before spending any more $$$$. For what its worth, my experience with my RF-7's: smooth and punchy, with good bass extension. I can easily do without a sub for all but watching DVD's, and sometimes watch DVD's in stereo w/o the sub, and still get deep, enjoyable bass! The only harshness I note is on lousy recordings.

One Saturday afternoon, Audio Flynn stopped by with his van, loaded up my RF-7's, and we went back over to his place listen to his Chorus's, and my RF-7's, being driven by a pair of NOSValve's VRD's. The whole experience pissed me right off, because I've not been able to get my RF-7's to sound as good as they did on that fateful Saturday!!

I have to admit that all the talk about tubes in this forum made me very inquisitive about the possibility of adding a tube pre or tube integrated to my 2 channel set up. For lots of reasons, paramount the amount of extra work and tweaking than this untrained, uninitiated audioputz would have to do to get more sweat than enjoyment out of my system made me think twice, and I decided to keep what I've got. I think I'm hearing some of that resignation/frustration in Todd's comments from first hand experience with his Dynaco. Nothing wrong with tubes if you have confidence in your knowledge about tube gear, and what to do if you think you hear something amiss. However, solid state is alot more "set and forget", it seems to me, than tube gear.

The V15 III is my everyday cartridge for my Thorens TD 145. Its a great match for the Thorens, and with all the sonic attrirbutes you describe. Very happy with it in my modest 2 channel system.

I remember dropping a picture disk or two on my turntable, back in the '70's when they first came out. I remember one in particular - Heart's "Magazine" LP - sounded like #@$&!