Re: What's now in your hi-fi?

41
lotharsandwich wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:05 pm I'm interested in what people here think about speaker stands. We have some nice small-ish speakers (ELAC Debut--whatever the cheapest model is) and want them off the bookshelves where they've been living. Commercial speaker stands seem to vary wildly in price and it's unclear to me what's worthwhile for speakers like ours.

Can anyone recommend or warn against any particular model or approach?
Buying used makes a ton (or at least ~30 lbs) of sense, although I had no luck with this route when I was in the market for speaker stands a decade ago. Details are hazy at this point, but I think part of the problem was that I have small speakers (Linn Tukans) and needed fairly tall stands to get them to the appropriate height for my listening station; 20" or 24" stands are easier to come by. I eventually ended up with these Canadian-made 28" Target HS70 guys, which I scored for around $70 less than what MusicDirect wants for the current version. Very happy with them.

In addition to filling them with sand, the other thing I've found makes a dramatically audible difference is properly coupling them to the floor. My apartment has wall-to-wall Berber, so I had to actually stand on the bottom plates to get the spikes to penetrate to the floorboards. Bass resolution improved significantly when I did that. Oh, and coupling the speakers to the top plates with Blu-Tack, but I reckon everyone already knows that.

Re: What's now in your hi-fi?

42
Isadore Nabi wrote: Sat Jul 10, 2021 2:51 pm
lotharsandwich wrote: Fri Jul 09, 2021 4:05 pm I'm interested in what people here think about speaker stands. We have some nice small-ish speakers (ELAC Debut--whatever the cheapest model is) and want them off the bookshelves where they've been living. Commercial speaker stands seem to vary wildly in price and it's unclear to me what's worthwhile for speakers like ours.

Can anyone recommend or warn against any particular model or approach?
Buying used makes a ton (or at least ~30 lbs) of sense, although I had no luck with this route when I was in the market for speaker stands a decade ago. Details are hazy at this point, but I think part of the problem was that I have small speakers (Linn Tukans) and needed fairly tall stands to get them to the appropriate height for my listening station; 20" or 24" stands are easier to come by. I eventually ended up with these Canadian-made 28" Target HS70 guys, which I scored for around $70 less than what MusicDirect wants for the current version. Very happy with them.

In addition to filling them with sand, the other thing I've found makes a dramatically audible difference is properly coupling them to the floor. My apartment has wall-to-wall Berber, so I had to actually stand on the bottom plates to get the spikes to penetrate to the floorboards. Bass resolution improved significantly when I did that. Oh, and coupling the speakers to the top plates with Blu-Tack, but I reckon everyone already knows that.
Thanks for the advice, everybody. The used options near me seem to be mostly for portable PA speakers , so I don't know what kind of luck I'll have there. Poking around at the Music Direct link reveals that Elac actually makes stands specifically for the speakers I have, so perhaps I'll try those. I also found some entertaining DIY plans online for pouring your own concrete column (!) for use as a speaker stand, but that may be more than I can attempt anytime soon.

Re: What's now in your hi-fi?

44
Need a receiver, looking for suggestions.
It's not the main rig, it's for a turntable in the bedroom/record library.
Very low volume mellow listening, I don't need anything fancy or heavy duty.
I'm looking at tons of cool old Realistic and Radio Shack type shit on eBay but nothing's quite perfect.
There's a cool Pioneer I found but it might be overkill.

Looking for:

- used
- small form factor (about 12" wide max.)
- cheap is great
- phono stage required, nothing else needed but FM would be cool.
- only one set of speakers required
- must look cool, it's in the bedroom.

There's loads of these out there, let's hear it...

Re: What's now in your hi-fi?

46
Teacher's Pet wrote: Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:03 pm Need a receiver, looking for suggestions.
It's not the main rig, it's for a turntable in the bedroom/record library.
Very low volume mellow listening, I don't need anything fancy or heavy duty.
I'm looking at tons of cool old Realistic and Radio Shack type shit on eBay but nothing's quite perfect.
There's a cool Pioneer I found but it might be overkill.

Looking for:

- used
- small form factor (about 12" wide max.)
- cheap is great
- phono stage required, nothing else needed but FM would be cool.
- only one set of speakers required
- must look cool, it's in the bedroom.

There's loads of these out there, let's hear it...
OK, for turntables, for cool looking ones, I would go with the Music Hall/Project/Rega types. Music Hall MMF 1.3, Rega Planar 1, Project T1. U Turn Orbit. Look for used on Ebay. Minimalist, some are very cheap. Audio Technica and Denon also make some OK tables. But they are not as cool and minimalist as the other ones I mentioned. check Audioadvisor.com and crutchfield.com.
Amp- Sony STR-DH190. 50 watt receiver with phono section. Not 12" wide, but not very deep. $168. It works. It sounds good. It does bluetooth so you can stream shit from your phone. it has a phono section. Did I mention it is $168? crutchfield.com
Speakers.. go on ebay. type in bookshelf speakers. there are hundreds of them for around $100 a pair. Pick something that looks cool. Don't buy Bose. Polk is OK. Klipsch is OK. JBLs are cool. Sonys and Yamahas eh. I dig Paradigms. There are a billion super cheap computer speakers, try and stay away from those.

Re: What's now in your hi-fi?

47
So I have finally completed my 30 year goal of Active Linn Isobariks at home. I sourced a Naim NAXO active crossover built specifically for Isobariks, which is powered by an outboard Naim HiCap power supply. From the NAXO, the six separate signals go to three Linn Klout stereo power amps. Each channel in the Klouts powers the bass, mids or highs on either the left or right speaker. sounds damn good.

Both the NAXO and HiCap are 20 plus years old but both have been restored/refurbished/recapped in the last 3 years or so. The Klouts are all 20 plus years old. One has been recapped and refreshed in the last 4 years. The other two still need to be done.

Sources are my ancient Linn LP-12 turntable, and a Bluesound Node 2 streamer, (Tidal Hi Res) through which I also stream my CD library which resides on a local network hard drive in .flac format.

Its HiFi heaven over here at the MBG house.

Re: What's now in your hi-fi?

48
motorbike guy wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:32 pm So I have finally completed my 30 year goal of Active Linn Isobariks at home. I sourced a Naim NAXO active crossover built specifically for Isobariks, which is powered by an outboard Naim HiCap power supply. From the NAXO, the six separate signals go to three Linn Klout stereo power amps. Each channel in the Klouts powers the bass, mids or highs on either the left or right speaker. sounds damn good.

Both the NAXO and HiCap are 20 plus years old but both have been restored/refurbished/recapped in the last 3 years or so. The Klouts are all 20 plus years old. One has been recapped and refreshed in the last 4 years. The other two still need to be done.

Sources are my ancient Linn LP-12 turntable, and a Bluesound Node 2 streamer, (Tidal Hi Res) through which I also stream my CD library which resides on a local network hard drive in .flac format.

Its HiFi heaven over here at the MBG house.
Sounds rad! Congratulations.
Records + CDs for sale
Perfume for sale

Re: What's now in your hi-fi?

49
enframed wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:46 pm
motorbike guy wrote: Tue Aug 17, 2021 12:32 pm So I have finally completed my 30 year goal of Active Linn Isobariks at home. I sourced a Naim NAXO active crossover built specifically for Isobariks, which is powered by an outboard Naim HiCap power supply. From the NAXO, the six separate signals go to three Linn Klout stereo power amps. Each channel in the Klouts powers the bass, mids or highs on either the left or right speaker. sounds damn good.

Both the NAXO and HiCap are 20 plus years old but both have been restored/refurbished/recapped in the last 3 years or so. The Klouts are all 20 plus years old. One has been recapped and refreshed in the last 4 years. The other two still need to be done.

Sources are my ancient Linn LP-12 turntable, and a Bluesound Node 2 streamer, (Tidal Hi Res) through which I also stream my CD library which resides on a local network hard drive in .flac format.

Its HiFi heaven over here at the MBG house.
Sounds rad! Congratulations.
Seconded!
"lol, listen to op 'music' and you'll understand"....

https://sebastiansequoiah-grayson.bandcamp.com/
https://oblier.bandcamp.com/releases
https://youtube.com/user/sebbityseb

Re: What's now in your hi-fi?

50
Have any of you bought or demoed the Bowers & Wilkins 607 S2 anniversary edition speakers? I'm debating between those and the KEF LS50 meta in the not to distant future (Next Sunday A.D.)
While the forum was MIA I bought a Cambridge audio AX100. Running it with my B&W 685's. This thing has the worst Blue tooth connection I have ever used in my life. 100 watt's sounds good. The eq is fixed, meaning the bass control turns up 100Hz. Why 100Hz? Seems kind of arbitrary don't you think?
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