Unpack. Peel. Took fooking ages. Guy at Harman reckons you could read your newspaper in the reflection. He wasn't exaggerating. Still, at £1600 I would hope so. And how they will live. Sound. At first I was in a rush and decided to put them on my 60p with no calibration. They sounded the same as before. Disappoints. Then I spent ages breaking down the whole rack and rewiring it all. Have removed the 60i, that's going in the bedroom with the sonus. Any way, connected it up on the 100p and calibrated them. Loaded up some ladies and holy f*****g balls. These things worship female singers. It was then I could totally tell the huge difference between £650 speakers and £1600 ones. Christina Perri's Jar Of Hearts nearly had me in tears. Dear god. Have ordered some NOS Atacama SE4 in graphite. I don't like their new stands with the chopping block as a base. BTW I now understand why Revel pack those speakers in separate boxes and don't tape them together for ease of getting up the stairs. They are _god_damned_heavy.
I'll see your CD63 and raise you an Arcam Alpha 7se and a Rotel RCD-970BX, still proudly sat in my rack.
Nice. I don't know what happened to my original Marantz thing (the one that Philips made, clunky old thing), but in my rack I have a Meridian 508 which is going strong. It's annoying because it uses the same remote codes as my Auralic Aries.
Not putting mine in the rack. Got a 1" thick oak board it can go under the TV stand. Which reminds me when I'm ordering my forever speaker wire later I need to get a optical cable for it. At least now I won't have to wait to listen to new cds. I usually have to take them to the pc at mum's rip them and remember to bring back the files.
The AV32. It has 5 DACS lol. Mine is the 96khz DAC version, not the dual processor 192. Mostly because I was told that it made hardly any difference and the 192dp is *very* problematic. It likes to overheat and melt the internal molex connector. Stands are this model. Only much darker. Reason they don't have a pic is because they are NOS. Cost me £74 inc. So £30 cheaper than their cheapest now and much better looking IMO.
Atacama speaker stands, well there's a blast from the past. I had a pair from the 90's that I used with some Sony APM-121 speakers (the ones with the square honeycomb drivers)
Well I have had a right result as far as they go..... I Googled "SE4" and the same image kept coming up. However, I kept digging and it seems they are 40cm hence the name. With the base and plates on they are 45cm, the same as my centre stand. If they had been SE6 or higher I would have had a big problem which would have meant basically breaking down the entire system and moving everything.
Finally picked up a genuine Amptastic Mini 1 with a dedicated PSU. Surprised how good it actually is. It might even sound better than my bi-amped Arcam AVR300! Not done a head to head yet. Anyone recommend a DAC pairing? Ideally something with 2 toslink inputs.
No **** ! 41kg. They're short asses too, though absolutely spot on for my room. I opened the package and was confused, like, why have they sent me extra plates? then I realised they hadn't, the bottom has two ffs. Talk about overkill to the extreme. 6mm and the 3mm cover. Then the poles are 5mm box section fully welded all around the back. They even have spirit levels built in lol. I got my speaker cable yesterday. Went with Audioquest X2, 'cause it was on sale for about £4 a meter. Not going any dafter than that, it's not worth it. What I didn't realise was it is directional (as I got mine from a roll not in a box) and I was crapping it that I would have to redo the stupid TMC connectors which are a PITA. Thankfully it seems I lucked out, because I got it right on both without even knowing it lol. Just need to add my bananas later. Need some isolation pads, as the stands didn't come with any and neither did the speakers. I am not putting piano finish on that rough stand top. Yesterday I moved the 60i and Sonus Faber Principia III into the bedroom. Which was a superb upgrade.
And the final spec list. A buddy asked me to do this, but it's pretty much finished now any way so I may as well. At the top, the PC. Quad core SOC celeron with 350w SFX PSU, 8gb RAM, Asrock ITX board and EVGA NU sound card. The hifi. Tag Mclaren AV32 96 sp. Tag Mclaren 60p (rears) Tag Mclaren 60p (centre, bi amped) Tag Mclaren 100p front speakers. Speakers. Front - Revel M105 on Atacama SE4 stands Rear - Quad S1 mahogany on QTF 800mm stands Centre - Quad L on Fisual Dynami stand Subwoofer - Earthquake Couch Potato Wires. Tacima mains conditioner LAPP Olflex power cables Purefonics RPIEC Rhodium plated power connectors Clear plugs RCA - Audioquest Tower Front speakers - Audioquest X2 dark gray with Nakamichi banana plugs and Cyrus plugs for the amp Rear Speakers - QED from amp to wall plate, QED through wall, Vibe for rear speakers. All Nakamichi plugs, both banana and spade. Centre speaker - QED flatline bi wire Nakamichi connectors Other PS4 pro Xbox Scorpio Ed (so 1x)
Saw this on Ebay last night. It was £200. New, IIRC they were £300-£400. It's a Linn Centrik. Very unusual dust cap design. I guess it's to disperse sound or something IDK. Any way, it's NOS. I decided to add it to the watch list and then forget it for a while. Then when I got up I got a seller offer of £150 so I decided to buy it. It's a bit big, lol. Will have to work it in somehow, but it will finally be enough for Youtube and stuff. Plus it won't reflect the TV screen, which is a bonus.
OMG. At first I wanted to cuff slap @Arboreal for continually telling me how excellent Linn were, and thus making me spend more money. However, he actually solved a problem I could not, without even realising it. I am running a TMC biamped into the centre. Split mono in, one channel goes off to the tweeter, one off to the mid drivers. That way I get a load on each channel. Hence why I had to use a 165mm high centre speaker, as the wider ones with more drivers (which are smaller in height due to smaller woofer drivers) and the stand. Hence it looks like this. It sounds great, and I have not walked into it (yet) but it is not what I wanted. What I wanted was either this. Or this. Because they are slimmer and would fit under my TV stand. Meaning not only are they wider at dispersing sound (which I want, see my complaints about most TV only coming from the centre) but are also slimmer so fit under the TV Stand without needing a hefty stand. The only issue? neither of those centres (Klipsch and Polk) are bi wire, meaning no bi amp, meaning no good. I hunted for days trying to find one that sort of size that was bi wire but nothing. Now when I ordered that Linn earlier it looked huge. What I did not realise was it is incredibly deceptive. Those drivers are only 80mm, meaning the height is 130mm. I have 150 under my TV stand. So I no longer want to slap Tree, but hug him or something. He managed to push me into finding the speaker I did not know existed until I looked lol.
It's all libel! I have so not being badgering V-T, honest. I do miss the Linn kit, but it wasn't getting used. We are mostly listening to music in different ways these days, and probably not for the better. Single 'smart' speakers?...harrumph, nothing wrong with a good stereo setup to feed both ears in a decent sound field.
OK so yesterday I finished the system. Other than replacing the rear cables with the same as I used on the front, of course. But that's a cheap outing. On Weds the clear plug came for the 90' IEC. Sadly the 90' plug didn't but that came yesterday. It's for the sub. To replace the hair wire they give you with it. Any way, the centre came. That was after a sodding good clean. It was dusty as all heck. New, I reckon, but yeah I think the box had been sitting open for years. Any way you will notice one pair of what Tree calls the "Linn silk panties" and a broken neoprene loop thing. Linn were so obsessed with the grille cloth not affecting the sound that they made it as thin as humanly possible and a stretch fit. Sadly (it's a very common issue) over time the retaining loop snaps. Thankfully I'm a water cooler, innit, so super glue to the rescue. I was also right about it being absolutely perfect for my needs. And. So much better. I also found out that the AV32 has a crossover for the centre, where you can run it as usual (crossed over as a mid) or at full range. So I changed it to full range, the result is everything that only uses the centre sounds about a thousand times better.
