Fido

I purchased a Dual 1229 on ebay a few years ago. Seller assured me it was in mint condition but had no dustcover and the Shure V15 type 2 in bad condition. Took it to the local vintage repair shop where they made it worse than when I received it. Finally found a true master outside LA who completely refurbished the 1229 and I found a Shure v15 type 3 on ebay and bought a new stylus and it sounds fantastic. but... it wasn't something that worked right out of the box. I love it but vinyl can be a commitment no matter how you get into it. I alternate between my vinyl and streaming Tidal depending on the mood and music I only can get on vinyl

I didn't even audition the 300 when I auditioned my EVO 400 because I wanted this Integrated Amp purchase to be my last amp purchase if possible. But - having 8 power amp tubes makes rolling a lot more expensive - I love the sound of my EVO 400

How do you like the KT 120s compared to the EL 34? - I have only heard my 400 with the EL 34s that it came with

Awesome space! congrats

I have lived in San Juan Capistrano for over 40 years - Before that I lived in Dana Point. My family had a house on the beach in Laguna when I was growing up. Im a water baby for sure. Surfed, body surfed, scuba dived etc etc etc - this is the hottest I have ever felt it in all my years here. 98 degrees at 5:30 PM - dang! My wife and I ride our bikes to Kiiller Dana almost every day - and it gives us our fix and we love the beauty of it all. The Dana Point Marina

Actually we have a number of cities adjacent to each other here in Orange County. Directly next door to our house is the City of Dana Point with Doheny State Beach and the Dana Point Marina - a block the opposite direction is Laguna Niguel so for those people that live here we often just call it the oc. Many people might think I live inland in San Juan Capistrano but I am much closer to San Clemente ----- but - I dont live in San Clemente. Shiva just says he lives in Southern California lol

we live right next door to San Clemente in San Juan Capistrano - just went body surfing at T Street and the water was about 64 degrees - very cold but refreshing - we ride our Bikes to San Clemente almost every other day down to Pier Bowl, T Street and sometimes all the way to Trestles.

Someone on the AVForum responded that the latest bluOS software update gave the option of disabling Audio Clock Trim and by doing that it appears to have fixed my static problem. It was driving me crazy. I had contacted the BluOS people but due to Covid they are all working remotely currently and have not responded as of yet.

My Node 2i just started having some static coming thru it. Nothing in my setup has changed. I checked to make sure it was not static thru my Dac by plugging in my CD player to my Dac via the coaxial cable. Ran the RCA cable from the Dac and zero static. Plugging the Node 2i bypassing the Dac and going RCA outs to my amp and no static. By process of elimination it appears the static is coming from the Coax out from the Node 2i to the coax in of my Dac. Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing the stati in my scenario?

Most of my musical tastes are aligned with Tom Petty, The Beach Boys, Foreigner, Styx, Jackson Browne, James Taylor and many more classic rock groups along with Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga etc etc etc --- I find 90% of what I like to listen to on Tidal but when I cant find it there I log on to Spotify - Been very happy with the quality of Tidal more than Spotify but lower res is OK when you cant find it in hi res on Tidal

I have no clue what you are talking about???????????

My entertainment center has cane grills on them and sometimes my remote cant clearly see my Yamaha AVR - I bought a remote sensor that I could mount with much better line of sight and it was approx $10 on Amazon and it works great - now I can mount the remote sensor anywhere I want https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014EDRJB6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I used to use Spotify and it was free to me on the family membership we had but once I got Tidal I have pretty much switched over. I have made so many playlists of music I love now and most of them are not MQA but they are hifi or CD Quality and they sound damned good. I can not hear the difference between CD quality and MQA making buying an MQA Dac not a requirement for me. I think MQA might be a tad bit of hype but again I just could not hear the difference with the Blueos Node2 in MQA or the files in CD quality. I also have Tidal on my computer and play it thru my KEF LS50 Wirless speakers I have in my office and cant hear the difference on that system either. I found much more music I like on Tidal than I could find on Spotify but if I cant find it on Tidal I will head over to spotify. I have almost 300 vinyl records and thought that was great but I now have over 200 playlists probably the equivalent of over 600 albums. I pulled my cd player out of my stack.i dont have to skip songs etc and there are many playlists that have music that were never released on vinyl. For me the Denefrips Dac made everything less grainy or electronic sounding and I dont mind listening to streamed music now. Before the Denefrips Dac I totally preferred vinyl.

I love my Forte speakers but I realize the system sounds so much better because of the HSU Subwoofer I have playing along with them. Even though people say the the Fortes have good bass I find that those lower two octaves make everything sound so much better. My HSU sub sounds fantastic but its really what feeling the music and the increase in mid base clarity and punch that having a subwoofer adds to the entire equation. Feeling the music is so important because at a live musical event you feel the music.Its awesome to have a similar experience in your home listening space and I could never imagine having a stereo without the lower octaves shining thru. Shakey is right when he said adding depth to some material but add to that that almost all music sounds better to me when you have a sub to underly everything.

Thats great advice - I took my dad to a local high end audio store and we picked out the Fortes together along with some NAD equipment. He had a home on the Beach in Laguna and when we got the stuff home and i set everything up for him he was ecstatic. When his wife came home she freaked out seeing the gear "in her beach cottage" - lol. She hated those speakers so much but he listened to them almost every day for about 20 years. I was close with my dad and loved that he enjoyed his music so much. He's been gone for almost 20 years now and of course I miss him just like he warned me I would.

I have a system I think sounds amazing and my wife and I were listening to one of my favorite playlists on Tidal yesterday. Its 9 hours of acoustical covers I have collected over the past 4 months and it often left the hair on my arms standing straight up. I have my late fathers Forte 1s with Crites crossovers and Dave As LMAHL tweeters.A couple of years ago we had some cane grills put together to match our entertainment center. I mostly stream or listen to vinyl on my vintage Dual 1229 turntable. When listening to two channel I play through a Primaluna evo 400 using a Blueos Node2i and a denefrips dac or my turntable playing thru a Musical Fidelity MX phono stage. The Forte 1s sound fantastic on their own but turn on my large HSU subwoofer and the bottom register makes even the midrange sound WOW! Dave As LMAHL were a major upgrade to the sound of my system. Having said all that being on this Forum has made me wonder if I might prefer the Forte 3s for what so many people say is exceptional midrange they present. I mentioned them to my wife and she said she thinks our system sounds fantast. She loves our sound system as it is, as do I. The question here is when is GOOD good Enough? It seems very easy to get caught up in spending a lot of time and money trying to wring out that extra 2% of performance when in a few days of listening will still sound great but something you would just settle into as being your new norm. I am sure other have thought about this at some point in their audio journey.

I wasn't around the mansion in the 60s. I was the personal photographer for Hefs wife Crystal for about 10 years and she always wanted to shoot up there at the Mansion and I hated the drive but being her photographer was good for my business.I got bored shooting with models and when Covid started taking off I permanently retired from photography and I have not missed it at all.Its funny if you think you are decent at something you stick with it even after the passion may have died out long before.

I love Blacks --fantastic place to surf and people watch and just so damned beautiful

I went to UCLA and used to do a lot of my photoshoots at the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills but I would never ever want to live in Los Angeles!!! I hated the drive from the OC to anywhere near LA - Sometimes it was OK but a 45 minute drive with no traffic could end up being a 3 hour drive in heavy traffic. Life is too short to endure that.

Yes they ruined one of the best surf spots ever by building that stupid marina. The shot I posted is Killer Dana and people still occasionally surf there but Doheny only breaks on a direct south swell now. We ride our bikes to Killer Dana and Beach Road daily except when we head down to the Pier Bowl in San Clemente or T Street to get some body wamping in. Surfs up Daddy-O

Being California natives we have a totally different take living here than people in the rest of the country but every state I have been to, and I have been to most of them, has pluses and minuses. Its so funny to me when people act like the only thing California has going for it is the weather. BUT... weather is pretty damned good where my wife and I live almost 90% of the year. I live near Laguna Beach and its gorgeous here - one mile from the Dana Point Harbor - stunning - my wife works in Laguna and has a great job. I have surfed in the morning and driven to the mountains to ski Big Bear in the evening. We ride our bikes over 325 days a year. Traffic sucks but I am retired so I dont have to go anywhere if I dont want to. .I have been thru many cities in the US and almost all of them have bed commuter traffic at some point in the day. I hope no people want to move here. Haters are going to hate! and yes - the weather is amazing here.- 15 minutes ago

450 C was much better than running phantom in my setup and you dont even see it in the entertainment center below the TV

I replaced my KEF center channel speaker almost two years ago with the RP-404CA and the difference in quality was quite noticeable from the moments the 404 was connected. Maybe there is something defective withe your speaker. I run mine thru Yamaha AVR and run my center channel a tad louder than my mains because I like the dialogue centered on the TV but the 404 blends seamlessly with my Fortes. It is quite clear and sounds very very good but I dont boost the bass way up on the center channel speaker because my subwoofer gives me plenty of bottom end either listening to 2 channel audio or 7 channel surround. Good luck with sorting out your 404 -

I have Forte 1s as my mains and an HSU Subwoofer - after much looking I bought a Klipsch RP-450 CA and it sounds so good. Dialogue is crisp and clear and so much better than the small KEF I was using before. Had a friend over watching TV and she wanted to know how our TV sounded so good??? The Heresy surrounds didn't hurtle over all experience. It barely fit in my entertainment center and it sounds so good , IMHO