Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Audiophile gearheads...

Vandersteen, Klipsch, Adcom, Musical Fidelity, Linn, PS Audio, Schitt and my 70's Pioneer stuff here at the house.

In the house, nothing.
In the truck where I can listen to what I want when I want as loud as I want.
You betcha
All Alpine equipment. The Type R 12s are lots of fun!!

I still have the same system I put together back in '76. Ha!
A Tandberg 2040 receiver, Kenwood 550 turntable with Black Widow tone arm and a pair of Polk 10's.
Still good sound reproduction.

There's many different directions a feller could take when assembling an audio system. Most of what has been discussed here I would consider mid-fi with a smattering of hi-fi. Paul certainly has good taste in audio equipment.

I'd recommend deciding on what you're looking for, i.e., mid-fi vs. hi-fi, Solid State vs.tubes or hybrid, & your budget. You must also determine if you are looking for a true audiophile experience or just simply want to be able to hear music at a reasonable fidelity. Do you listen to music critically, are you looking for clarity, imaging, soundstage, build quality? If so, you will likely be better served by a system that is audiophile quality. I can tell you that there is a huge difference. An audiophile grade system will reveal details that you may never have known existed otherwise.

I assembled my most recent 2-channel system, for example, with an eye towards some of the best units available from their respective eras (70s -90s), rather than the latest and greatest, which can be incredibly expensive, if audiophile-grade. For this particular system, I chose an Audio Research SP14 preamplifier, a McCormack DNA 1 Deluxe (upgraded) power amplifier (300 w), a Sony 620 ES II CD player, a Kenwood KX-1060 cassette deck, a Kenwood KT-7500 tuner, and a Dual 1225 turntable (which will likely be upgraded). I'm on the lookout for a REVOX B77 reel to reel. Speakers for this system are Paradigm mini-monitors b/c I did not have room for my Klipsch Cornwalls, nor my Heresys.

When I first powered up the system and got it dialed in, I sat down for a critical listening session and I was simply blown away, the hairs on my arms literally stood on end and all the buzz words mentioned above cane into play. The quality of sound was exceptional. The speakers disappeared and I could not point to a spot and state with any certainty that is where the sound is coming from, but I definitely could place the individual musicians. I was in audiophile bliss for the next few hours and literally had to tear myself away for dinner. I was very pleased with the system I had assembled and that first listening session was almost a transcendental experience. Those of you that have heard such a system know of what I speak.

Such parity and quality in audio system components is not particularly easy to achieve, but if you do your research you should come close. Note: most audio components will work together, but what an audiophile is looking for in a system, is one that is several steps above and exceptionally suited to provide a listening experience such as the one that I described above.

Should this audiophile route and the associated expense not be of interest, there are many other routes to pursue. There's nothing wrong with purchasing older equipment and assembling a mid-fi system consisting of a vintage receiver and a CD player, cassette deck, turntable, etc. There's also modern all-in-one systems and network streamers which can be connected to a vintage receiver's AUX input so you can stream from your computer. ...or a system can be as simple as connecting a smart phone to a set of bluetooth enabled speakers, and streaming Pandora, Spotify or music files downloaded from the iStore or the like.

With so many choices, the best bet is to determine exactly what you want from a new system and then go from there.

chunowatImeanmahn?

I have a Nakamichi receiver, deck & CD player, a Denon turntable & B&W speakers which have had the drivers replaced, with new B&W units.

Also have a bluetooth converter input to the receiver to be all to bluetooth music to the system.

It doesn't get used all that much anymore with a set of really good Audio Technics headphones getting by far the most use.

Someone mentioned buying some tube stuff............I wouldn't go that far as it's hard to find really good tube stuff, that you know is good & has some life left, & it's hard to maintain if needed.

Besides, there's just way too much better vintage & new stuff that will sound just as good or better with more trouble free listening time.

Speakers are very personal, but I've never, ever once regretted spending the money on the B&W's.

MM

Agree on the B&W's

A tube preamp is nice to have

I remember the Hafler amp kit.
The wife helped me solder it together.
I had a noise in the AM band on the radio.
I traced the noise to the 60 Hz full wave rectifier in the Hafler amp.
During diode snap off the exponential decaying sinusoid was varying in frequency ~~ 1 Mhz.
When I turned off the amp the noise was gone from the AM signal until the big Aluminum electrolytic capacitors were discharged 5 seconds later.
I soldered enough ceramic capacitors across the rectifier to act like a snubber. The AM band noise went away.

Later I found an electric blanket was making noise in the FM band that was amplified by the Hafler.
I threw out the blanket.


I had a Conrad Johnson tube preamp.
$600 in 1980 money... seems silly now.

Hell, Im still using the Bose 301's that I bought in 1983!

those late 70's era Marantz receivers bring high dollar

I had a 4430 four channel early 70's with the Walnut case. Good looking unit and nice sound.

Sadly, my Harmon Kardon 670 bit the dust. Can't find anyone that could fix it. Tried one guy who used to be a HK service tech, and whatever he did didn't last long.

I have a Sansui 9500 in its original box in the closet. It hasn’t had any speakers connected for a dozen years or so. Any suggestions?

Hook that sukka up!

Hopefully it's capacitors haven't aged out.

I bought it shortly after returning from the gulf war. Had the most money I ever had at 20 years old. Lived in the barracks. Bought the Sansui and a Kenwood 6 pack plus one CD player.
I don’t have any speakers. Have had many over the years. Nothing much worth while.
I have kept it all these years, it might be time to resurrect it from the back of the shelf basement utility / storage room.

What speaker?

Does anyone fix aged out capacitors?

Google search "vintage audio electronics repair" and several options turn up. I can't vouch for any of them because I didn't use their services. It's just something I looked into a bit a while back when I was considering what to do with a piece of vintage equipment.

Thanks mathman, hopefully won’t need it.

I need to find some speakers. And find out

When my daughter moved away to Gainesville to work on her PhD a few years back, I gave her a bunch of my living room furniture to take with her with the intention of replacing it with nicer stuff. After thinking about it for a while, I thought I'd rather have a stereo fill that void instead of new furniture. So like a lot of things that I do, I made a big time-consuming project out of it just to give me something fun to do in my spare time. The final result could have been a lot simpler but I intentionally made it more complex than it needed to be because I enjoy this kind of stuff.

The first step was finding some scrap oak to make a rack out of:



I milled it down on the planer & joiner:



Clamped it together with 1.5" cherry plywood shelves:



The final result before applying varnish. It's solid, heavy & has an isolation cone on the bottom of each leg:



I built some speaker stands too that weigh 50# each & have isolation spikes under them that go through the carpet to the subfloor:



All of my music is ripped to FLAC & stored on a pair of Ubuntu servers. My primary server has a solid-state drive and manages my music library using Roon. I have the majority of my music stored on an NFS mount on the secondary server on my home network. I have port forwarding enabled on my internet router so I can stream my library from home directly to my iPhone when I'm exercising or out running around town.

It would have been way easier to cobble this together by just buying readily available stuff off the internet. But this was the middle of the pandemic & I was fighting off boredom & isolation so I decided to deal with as many craftsmen as I could just because I felt like it. I either exchanged emails or talked on the phone with the people who were making the major parts of this system. The music from my media server goes to a Mystique R2R ladder DAC from Mojo Audio designed by Benjamin Zwickel. This is powered by a linear power supply by Teddy Pardo. From there it goes to a Music First Audio passive line stage that I got Jonathon Billington in England to custom wire for me specifically for my setup. I can now redirect the sound as my first option to my deHavilland KE-50A KT88 tube push-pull monoblocks that were CNC machined & hand wired by Kara Chaffee. I called her up to talk to her about her Super 40 monoblocks and she sold me her personal KE-50A's off her rack instead. I think I got the last KE-50A she made before she retired. I can then toggle the A/B switch to redirect the sound to my solid-state First Watt SIT-3 amp whose static induction transistor was designed by Nelson Pass. The third & final option is I had a tape-out wired into the line stage to bypass attenuation & send unadulterated sound directly to my Pass Labs HPA-1 headphone amplifier also designed by Nelson Pass that have a pair of Audeze LCD-3 headphones attached. The speakers are a pair of Super Alnico High Output monitors built for me by Louis Chocos at Omega Speaker Systems. While talking with him on the phone, I asked him to veneer them in ebony macassar which I really like.



For someone who doesn't have cable, watch much tv or stream anything, having a nice stereo is definitely a plus. I love my Bluetooth Beats & my Bose SoundLink. They definitely have their place. But when I'm sitting for hours writing code, I much prefer to have my music come from this system. Plus, in the winter, the monoblocks make pretty good room heaters.

Now THAT is audiophile quality stuff.