New audio setup

[grumpybaldy]

New audio setup

Nice set up! I love my audio kit, bit like cigars for me worth spending money on to properly enjoy and chill out with. One day I?m having a man cave off a garage with a listening and smoking den!

Currently I use a Rega P3 or Sonos streamer into an arcam DAC then a Rega Elicit-R into Tannoy XT8s which I am trying to convince will do me for a long time now. Have a few custom built valve headphone amps too based on various schematics.





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I can't stand people who don't take these things seriously

[ha_banos]

I've set my system up all wrong! And what a difference it makes!

Use mostly for movies and less for music. I've always been a bit unhappy with the 2 channel unprocessed performance compared to the surround sound. Recap. I've a Yamaha AV processor and separate power amps. Main speakers are old kef reference model 3. And a velodyne sub.

Finally realised I'd had the bass gain tuned right down because of the sub. But this is effective on the pass through mode on the processor I use for music.

I've now reset this and the main speakers are really singing. They almost reach the levels of the sub! I was worried the amps were just not able to drive the speakers.

Don't know if anyone cares or relates. But I'm so happy! The music brings me a grin again! 😁

What a doofus!

[gav_sw20]

What size have you got your L and R set to as that makes a massive difference? They should be set to ‘small’ ideally if you have a sub.

Having an amp with room correction is the best thing you can purchase IMO to improve the sound in you’re average living room with windows, curtains, wooden floors etc... This really only works for surround with movies though.

My Arcam AVR has Dirac Live and after calibrating / fine tuning it properly the sound is night-and-day vs. an AVR without it. Movies really come alive especially the overheads and sub(s).

The best change I ever made was buying a separate Amp solely for hi-fi and buying a Beresford Speaker Switcher so I can switch amps for 7.1.2 movies and 2.0 Vinyl / Tidal / CD but using the same set of speakers. I’ve got a tube-amp (with upgraded Gold Lion KT88 tubes) for 2.0 hi-fi duties and it absolutely sings especially with acoustic tracks. Well mastered albums like Dark Side of the Moon & Nirvana MTV Unplugged sound ***** epic through them.

Ironically I’ve just been listening to DSOTM in the garden with a HdeM EDL.

[ha_banos]

What size have you got your L and R set to as that makes a massive difference? They should be set to ‘small’ ideally if you have a sub.

Having an amp with room correction is the best thing you can purchase IMO to improve the sound in you’re average living room with windows, curtains, wooden floors etc... This really only works for surround with movies though.

My Arcam AVR has Dirac Live and after calibrating / fine tuning it properly the sound is night-and-day vs. an AVR without it. Movies really come alive especially the overheads and sub(s).

The best change I ever made was buying a separate Amp solely for hi-fi and buying a Beresford Speaker Switcher so I can switch amps for 7.1.2 movies and 2.0 Vinyl / Tidal / CD but using the same set of speakers. I’ve got a tube-amp (with upgraded Gold Lion KT88 tubes) for 2.0 hi-fi duties and it absolutely sings especially with acoustic tracks. Well mastered albums like Dark Side of the Moon & Nirvana MTV Unplugged sound ***** epic through them.

Ironically I’ve just been listening to DSOTM in the garden with a HdeM EDL.

The Yam has a room setup mode YPAO that I've run through. Which sets speaker distance and size and eq. Which limits the fronts for music. Like you say the best option is bound to be ditch the receiver for music. But I think now setting the fronts back to large and removing and sub gain has made a big difference using their pure direct mode.

I'll look into the switcher...

But yes the recording is everything.

And I'm loathe to try a tube amp in case I like it...

[gav_sw20]

The Yam has a room setup mode YPAO that I've run through. Which sets speaker distance and size and eq. Which limits the fronts for music. Like you say the best option is bound to be ditch the receiver for music. But I think now setting the fronts back to large and removing and sub gain has made a big difference using their pure direct mode.

I'll look into the switcher...

But yes the recording is everything.

And I'm loathe to try a tube amp in case I like it...

Ah yes, forgot the Yammies have their own eq correction.

This is the amp / speaker switcher - http://www.homehifi.co.uk/S/tc-7220.htm

It’s not pretty but does the job and mine is hidden to the side of my rack anyway.

I’m a fan of B&W speakers and have a pair of CM6 S2 up front with the rest of that range for centre, surrounds & rears. For me headphones will always give the best sound and £250 will get you into a decent set whereby you can listen as loud as you want without annoying the neighbours.

Tube amps need not be expensive and there are some decent companies now making them for under £1k. Upgrading the valves is what costs the money, but you can swap different valves (aka tube-rolling) to match different types of music.

[ha_banos]

That sounds like a step too far for me gav_sw20 , not going to pair valves to music!

A couple of AB amps, running my old kef ref model three's with some good recordings is enough. And to be honest it's the recordings that matter.

On a related note, anyone discovered the NBR music channel on you tube? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS7...6YlJWJHRbzAZMw

[gav_sw20]

That sounds like a step too far for me gav_sw20 , not going to pair valves to music!

A couple of AB amps, running my old kef ref model three's with some good recordings is enough. And to be honest it's the recordings that matter.

On a related note, anyone discovered the NBR music channel on you tube? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS7...6YlJWJHRbzAZMw

Doesn’t YT massively compress music though?

The Sampler Download (c/o Steve Guttenburg) here will show how well your speakers sing - https://www.marecordings.com/

Click on the blue Sampler Download icon on the right and it downloads a zip from memory.

[simwells]

Doesn’t YT massively compress music though?

The Sampler Download (c/o Steve Guttenburg) here will show how well your speakers sing - https://www.marecordings.com/

Click on the blue Sampler Download icon on the right and it downloads a zip from memory.

YT audio quality depends on the video quality for some reason, think 1080p compresses to 192k aac so a way off lossless but most would be happy with it. It’s certainly a lot better than the sound used to be on that site!


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[ha_banos]

Some of these MBR tracks are coming up with 48k stereo audio stream and sound pretty good i think. They are not a bad background music!

Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: opus, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp (default)

Opus is still lossless compression (as in file compression, not dynamics compression) but not bad to listen to.