http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/i...6a5ec5c429.jpg

This is my current stereo setup at the moment. I have 4 speakers connected to an amplifier (ignore the small computer speakers). The top 2 speakers came with my JVC HiFi which is about 5 years old. The bottom 2 are the real beauties, they're Wharfedale laser-range speakers that my uncle brought home from England about 30 years ago and i currently have them, and i must say they still sound fantastic and they make the floor vibrate which i ****ing love. Old analog equipment just rocks.
The amplifier (bottom right in picture) is a Toshiba which i also got off my uncle, i think it's just as old as the Wharfedale speakers, and it has analog bass and treble knobs which is great.
Then i have my JVC HiFi (near top right) which is just your typical 3-CD, 2 cassette, radio and remote control job, i got this as a xmas pressie one year. This is connected to the amp using a headphone-socket to phono socket lead. I can use this lead to connect anything really, i plug it into my mp3-player and laptop as well.

Best of all none of this equipment cost me a penny :D

For a handmedown system, thats actually pretty awesome, although I'd say its still a ways from 'hi-fi' by modern standards...particularly since making the floor vibrate is actualyl a BAD thing in terms of accurate sound reproduction...

I suggest you read this, it'll give you a thorough grounding in the basic concepts of hi-fi reproduction. http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...tml#post516785

(Note - bass and treble knobs are actually detrimental to full reproduction of sound. They add another degrading link in the signal chain. Many higher end amplifiers come with a true bypass button that disables them for this reason.)

I'm running a JVC RX-315 receiver, a JVC XL-F152 5-Disc changer through a stereo set of Panasonic "Super Woofer" speakers that came with some combo stereo that I never had. I also have an old (maybe late 80's) Fisher Studio Standard deck set and the original speaker towers, but none of it is hooked up because it's too big for my room.

That's just my stereo though....as for my computer....it's all about the $22 Logitech 2.1 set.

http://www.extremepc.co.nz/images/6660_1_0.jpg

sounds pretty good for being just two 2" drivers and a 3.5" ported woofer box. I'm amazed by it. :bowdown: Logitech.

Here's mine again, just upgraded a lot of it. (Please view the Pic, none of this makes sense without it.)

Screen - LG 32LH7000 (Full 1080P 32" and it looks the business, IMO.)
Speakers - Mordaunt Short Mezzo 2's (If you recall, the first set went faulty. Had no problems with the second set.)
Amplifier - Kenwood R-SE7 Pure Class A amplifier. (Great little thing.)
Outboard DAC - Cambridge Audio DacMagic (Fantastic little magic box)
Interconnecting Cables - USB to the DAC from the PC, and from the DAC to amp, running Cambridge Audio Azur Reference phono cables.
PC - Athlon X2 4400+, 8600GT, Antec P180 case, 2.3TB of storage

Console - 360 via HDMI to the Screen. Am going to get it plumbed into the amp ASAP. (Now Playing - Red Faction: Guerilla, and Star Ocean: TLH)

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/2503/photo0002i.jpg

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Now playing on Winamp: Mattias "IA" Eklundh - The Road Less Traveled
via FoxyTunes

Word:pimp:

working on this for my car. pods for a pairs of speakers on each door.

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/4950/s7300272.jpg
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7201/s7300274.jpg

Why are the photos dated 2007?

I have two polk audio speakers a super old reciever that is super small and instead of a big cd player I use one of those small portalbe cd players

What kind of sound system rig do you have?
 

Amazon is about the only MP3 service that sells completely DRM free MP3s. DRM is the the Digital Rights Management program that allows music services to spy on your use of the music they sell to you. Shop Amazon if you want to have privacy and control over the use of music that you purchase.


Regards

Sam

this is my living room... since that pic we have added a ps3 and a wii
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/inde...mageID=2077913

Rhapsody also sells DRM free music. ITunes digital rights management program completely destroyed the hard drive of my computer a couple years ago and I won't even install any kind Apple, iTunes or Quicktime software on my new computer.

I yahama all the way for me!

I stumbled across this website that made me cream myself

Audiophile's Guide to the Galaxy - Magazines, Help, Show reports, Links, Speakers, Turntables, Used equipment, and more...

seems fair at first, but they seem to reccomend the starsound technologies caravelle speakers as being particularly good.


I had a look at the website for said speaker company, and my experience pronounces it 'Faux-scientific snakeoil'

I mean seriously, all their stuff looks cheap, and they've spent more time on touting the benefits of their crazy resonance technology than they have on anything else, in hopes of trying to convince the world it works.

I'm not convinced.

Here's my temp setup. Just got the major stuff up, but am waiting on getting a new place so I'll have room to put my drums and spread things out properly:

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5289/tempsetup.jpg

Looks cool dude, what are the specs on all of that? (PC, Monitors, speakers, etc.)

Are those speakers on top of the monitors hooked up, or are you just using their weight to damp the cabinets on the lower set?

Btw, I notice the dust cap on the right monitor is dented, or it looks it...you can fix that with some light suction if you're up for it. A vacuum cleaner set to its lowest setting with a little moisture on the end should grab it and pull it right back out again. Good as new!

Thanks man.

- The speaks on the bottom are Alesis MK2 active studio monitors.
(The right one fell off a desk the first day I had 'em, but it didn't change the sound noticeably, so I never tried to repair it)
- The top are just some PA speakers I use for A/B referencing.
- The red sub under the desk is an iKey 10" sub, with crossover to my monitors at about 50 hz.
- My soundcard is the one with the black faceplate on top in the rack above those audio processors. It's an Echo Audiofire 12 with 12 bal/unbal inputs/outputs. Firewire, 24bit converters and up to 192khz sample rate.
- The rest of those processors are just EQ, compressor, FX unit, and an enhancer. All Behringer. Mostly for live application, as I get better results with good software when recording.
- You see the obvious stuff in there. Mackie 16 channel mixer, Access Indigo2 synthesizer, RP500 guitar pedal, Crate bass amp, and on the right there's a 4x10 Peavey valve king half stack, a Fender KXR keyboard amp, on top is a crap Line-6 Spider head. All that is pretty much live app.
- There's like two other items in there, a groovebox and a Tascam digital track recorder, neither of which I use anymore.
- Guitars, drums, instrument mics not pictured.

Guitars:
Ibanez RG3520ZE electric, Ibanez AES acoustic/electric
Bass:
Fender jazz (vintage-ish, was my dad's, but he doesn't even know the actual model)
Drums:
Built kit, fusion sizes, 6 piece, scores of cymbals
Electronic kit - DTXpress 2 (piece of crap. I plan to integrate it into my acoustic drum setup eventually, for some effect options, kinda like Danny Carrey does. At that point, the PA & speakers will be used to drive them.)


The PC: (Built rig)
- Win XP pro sp3
- Mobo: MSI NVIDIA® nForce 750i SLI
- Core2duo E8400 @ 3.00ghz
- 4 gigs Kingston RAM (obviously only utilizing 3.25 of it)
- Nvidia GeForce 9600 @ 512mb
- dual monitors, (1 acer, 1 LG) 22 inch, both at 1680x1050
- 2 internal harddrives 150GB each, 2 externals 80GB each
- Porn.

The music software:
Sonar 7 Producer edition
NI Reaktor 4, and 5
NI Absynth 2, and 3
Waves Platinum bundle
Crap load of other VST's and VSTi's.

I think that's about it.
:)

O.o wow freebase, that's a pretty incredible set up there. You must have a couple musicians comin' in n' out every once in a while.

Thanks. :)

Nah, not lately. I do like recording people but I don't have the proper accommodations at the moment. Eventually though. :D

I lol'd.

----------------
Now playing: Soundgarden - No Wrong No Right
via FoxyTunes

UPDATE TIME!

Just upgraded my system again. Got rid of some bits and pieces, simplified it, set it up in my new house (With a much bigger, much better listening space), and generally improved it. The DAC is fed via USB from PC.

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/9533/...rreference.jpg
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/6129/walnutmezzo2.jpg
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/9225/dacmagic.jpg
http://nadelectronics.com/img/resamp...lifier-3-4.jpg


The new amplifier KICKS ALL KINDS OF ASS.

I'm looking for a newer amp at the moment. How many speakers can it cater for and what kind of money was it?

It was £279 new, it caters for one pair of speakers.

I actually have a couple of audio rigs in my home. There's two that could be qualified as 'audiophile'. And then there's one that just sounds fine on my bedroom.
Can't post links now since I don't have 15 posts yet, but I'll make that up to you later.
The not-so audiophile set is in my bedroom.
It's a very nice vintage Teac set (Teac V-9, T-9, P-9 and A-7). I added a Philips CD 104 since the original set hasn't got a CD player to go with it. Hooked the whole thing up to a set of vintage Acoustic Research AR4's. Sounds a bit warm, but that's fine for a bedroom :).
Still having to check out which cartridge sounds the best under de V-9. The original one is plain crap. I'll be trying out some different ones soon.

Then there's my living room. I've been trying to buy the right thing at once which got me into buying a Vincent pre/poweramp, Pro-ject turntable, Tannoy Eaton speakers and a Sony CDP-XB920QS CD player and it sounded like crap.
So I started all over and got through all sorts of different equipment.
I now have an audio set that's fairly budget, but it sounds really, really brilliant.
The amplifier is an Audiolab 8000SE that I hooked up to IMF Super Compact II speakers, using Monitor Audio cable.
My record player is a Sony PS-X70 that I ran into at a thrift store (!). My cartridge is a Goldring 1022GX and my phono preamp is a Teac PA-4, that I might replace sometime soon because I think it sounds a bit too bright. I use an Cadence Okki Nokki to clean my records, which is an audiophile improvement on itself.
My CD player is a Yamaha CDX-880 which I will be modifying soon (new laser unit, muting relais in stead of transistor and a new clock by guido tent). I already borrowed a player that had this modification and it sounds wonderful that way.
I have a Sony MDS-JB940QS MD deck, a Denon DRS-610 cassette deck, an Akai equalizer I use as a tapeswitch for my tapedecks (a 4 and a 2 track machine, I tend to switch them now and then, I have quite some tapedecks since I collect them). My tuner is a Grundig Finearts, but I never listen to the radio since they never seem to play what I want to hear. There's a PC hooked up to my set for playing music's and video's. It's also my server/mainframe. This PC is just an old Compaq Evo P4 2.66. Still using it's (not too bad) onboard sound card now but that'll soon be replaced by an ESI U24.
Interlinks still need improvement, it's not much so far. I'll soon be heating up the soldering iron to create soms audiophile interlinks ;).

Then there's my studio. I mainly use this to create mix tapes and digitize vinyl and tapes.
There's quite a lot here and, as I said, pictures will be coming soon.
I'll had one picture as an attachement. It's a bit older so new ones will be made soon :)

What have we here...
Well, the Amplifier is (a rather amazing, really surprised me, this one) a Philips DFA888. The DAC-section is as dead as a dodo, but the ampilfier is just fine. Bought it of a boot sale for €5, so I really don't mind the DAC doesn't work.
The Speakers are the totally amazing Tannoy SRM10B. I love those.
My monitors are Wharfedale Active Diamonds.
Everything is connected via a Soundcraft Spirit Folio F1 16 which sounds more like a good preamp than like a mixer, so that's fine. The record player is a good ol' Technics SL-1200 MK-II with a cheapo Technics AT-95E which sounds incredible in combination with this arm. My tapedecks are, currently (they change now and then) A Teac A-3440 4-track 4-channel machine and a Teac A-2340 4-track 4-channel machine. Both machines sound incredible.
The A-2340 is connected for 4-channel use via a Behringer Euroreck MX802A.
My CD player is a Sony CDP-303ES. Oldie but goodie. My cassette deck is a Philips FA870, MD is a Sony MDS-JE770 and a Yamaha MDX-9 (for when I need to make copies). I have a Sony DAT DTC-55ES which is broken most of the time and an Akai GXC-710D cassette deck that I adjust all the time, depending on which tape I play. I get a lot of tapes from different people and it seems as though the heads of cassette decks are never adjusted quite right. This deck is easily adjustable while it's playing and since I won't be messing around with my other decks, this one does the job just fine. Sounds pretty good, too. I have a NAD 4225 tuner, a DBX 200 tapeswitch and a DBX222 noise reduction system. Then there's a Pioneer GR-777 equalizer. For 78rpm records I have an old Dual 1219 with a Shure M78S 78rpm cartridge.
Last but not least, there's my Audio/video PC which is an AMD Athlon 64 x2 3000+ with 4gigs of ram running Windows XP and 7, dualboot. It has an ESI Juli@ Soundcard which is just brilliant.
I use Adobe Audition 3 for audio editing and play my music via VLC MPlayer and Winamp.
My "Office" PC at which I'm typing all this is a Reliable IBM Thinkcentre 2.66ghz P4 with 2gigs of ram. I'll soon be replacing this with a Intel core2duo 2.67ghz as I just bought some parts.

Ah, before I forget, my office PC is hooked up to a Hitachi HA-M1, FT-M1 and D-M1 minitower. with the original HS-M1 speakers. Seems pretty rare, since I can only find the M2-series. It sounds quite alright. It's not tiring in any way so it's more than good enough for "PC speakers". And it looks nice :)

See the attachment to get an impression of what it looks like :).

^ Gorgeous setup!

I'm more of a digital kind of guy, so I think I'll have a lot to learn from you being here. Welcome to the forums!

Thanks :).
I'll be glad to inform you.
If you ask me, there's not much improvement on sound quality the last years. I have some jazz and classical 50's recordings that sound just brilliant (e.g. Davis' Kind of Blue and Brubeck's Take Five)
Yeah it's getting easier to get good sound nowadays. There's not much to go wrong when copying a CD. Tapes and cassettes too are often qualified as 'lo fi', but that's because even back then, people often didn't know how to use their equipment.
A tape can sound at least as good as a CD (even a cassette), if not better. But it takes some effort, that's true :).

I'm not the kind of guy who hates digital 'just because'. Digital sound can be brilliant, but the format that's used on a CD (16 bits 44khz) just isn't quite enough. It had to fit on the disc, though. So what do you do. It's the same with tapes. The faster the tape runs, the more space there is for music and the better it sounds. In studio's these tapes run at almost a meter a second, which is...well... fast ;D

I hear ya.
I mostly approach digital from a mixing/mastering angle and it's just generally a lot more efficient and cost-effective for me to be on the digital side of that. But I do love the quality of analog and I'd kill for a vintage reel to reel to do some recording with then transfer to digital for the rest of the process.

It IS more efficient. Don't get me wrong, I make my mix tapes on my PC and convert them to tape afterwards. It's really very practical. But that doesn't mean I can't hear the difference ;).
When I really want to enjoy music, i play a record or a 2 track tape at high speeds.
Since I don't record music myself (unfortunately!) I have no reason to go digital. But it is efficient, indeed.
There's a lot of producers recording their digital mix onto an analog 2-track tape before putting it on a CD. I'm not sure about that. It does take the 'edge' off, but a tapedeck shouldn't 'add' anything. It's a big misunderstanding that tape (or tubes, same story) sound 'warm'. They can, but then they just distort your sound.

I try to get my tapedecks to reproduce exactly what I throw at them. And some of them can, indeed. I haven't seen a CD recorder that can do that, so far.
I do think my sound card gets quite close, when set to 24 bits 192khz :).

I'm off to bed now. My english is getting more crooked by the post.
I'll hopefully be seeing your reply in the morning.

Yea there's just too much dynamic information being truncated in the conversion to 16bit digital for CD, not to mention the sample rate itself.
I don't know whether to call it fortunate or unfortunate that most people won't notice anyway, either because they've never heard better or because most music now days is so processed that it wouldn't matter anyway.

Ah, have a good one.

Lots of people I know are happy to listen to their music via their laptop speakers.
And that hurts ;).

Nighty!

I couldn't post links to pictures up till now, so here goes. These are the pictures of the rig I'm talking about in this posting :)
Haven't cleaned up and these pictures were taken while grabbing a beer, so don't expect too much photographic quality:

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1468.jpg
The Sony PS-X70 with Goldring 1022GX playing a Flogging Molly record

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1469.jpg
Audiolab 8000SE amplifier with the Teac PA4 Phono Preamp on top of it.
There's a DBX decoder Unit next to it that I still need to hook up to my tapedecks.
Then there's the Yamaha CDX-880 CD player and my Finearts tuner that I don't think is even connected :)

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1470.jpg
Sony MDS-JB940QS Minidisc player with a 3com switch and an external HDD on top.
Underneath that is my Akai Equalizer (that I use as a tapeswitch) and then there's the Denon DRS-600 cassette deck.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1471.jpg
XBOX ans VHS Videorecorder. The only part of my audio setup shown on this picture is the PC.

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1472.jpg
Two tapedecks. There's different ones all the time.
The left one is an Akai GX-635D, 4Track running at 9,5/19cmps (3 3/4 or 7 1/2 IPS)
The right one is an Akai GX-630D, 2 track running at 19/38cmps (7 1/2 or 15 IPS)

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1474.jpg
IMF Super Compact II

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1475.jpg
May not look too impressive, but they sound just wonderful.
Haven't got a clue why they're so cheap (about €80, new mid surrounds include). I haven't found a better second hand speaker under €500 so far :)

Upstairs, where I am now:
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1476.jpg
Can't get the whole room on the picture.
Musicbanter is on the screen ;).
The tapedecks you see up high are not connected.
There's a lot more tapedecks.
There's a cabinet on the other side of the room with some decks on it:
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1479.jpg
But that's not all. I'm not sure how many I've got. 50? 60?
Should make a list sometime soon :)

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1477.jpg
A closer look at the mixing console, amplifier and tapedecks

http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n...o/IMG_1478.jpg
And there's my beloved tannoys and tiny little wharfedale actuve monitors.
I removed the fronts so you can have a look at these weird tannoy DC Units.

That's it for now. Hope you like what you see :)

^^^^ A very impressive collection of equipment you have there!

This is my current set-up

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4089/...a06c3044be.jpg

On top is just a regular JVC hi-fi unit which i connect to the amp to play cds. I'm going to get a CD separate pretty soon so i can listen CDs with a better output quality. Below that is a Toshiba turntable which i currently have no stylus for, hoping to get it up and running soon. Below that is a JVC cassette deck which is pretty old but still sounds great after all these years, and at the bottom is my Toshiba amplifier which has my ipod hooked up to it with a jack. It's well over 30 years old but it still sounds great.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5164/...fc434b4180.jpg

Here you can see my speaker setup where i have a pair of Wharfedale speakers and a pair of JVC speakers connected to the amp.

These wharfedales look like they could actually sound pretty good :).
Getting rid of the JVC sounds like the right thing to do ;D.
You might want to look for a Philips CD 6xx series player. They are incredibly reliable and cheap to buy overhere (below 10 dollars). The 624 and up also sounds pretty impressive :).
About the stylus for your record player: When you can't find the original stylus, check if you can find an Audio Technica AT95 cartridge. They are cheap to buy (about 30 dollars, new) and sound really good for the money. I have this cartridge under my Technics SL-1200 and a 350 dollar Goldring Cartridge under my Sony PS-X70 in my living room so I do have some reference :D And I still can say the AT95 is a very good sounding thing.

When you take a picture of your record player cartridge, I can see if i've still got a stylus for you. I've got quite a couple of them. When I do, you can get it for the shipping costs (which I don't think are all that expensive to Ireland).
Can't promise anything, but if you're interested, send me a message :)

I just have a 1x15 powered speaker that we line in everything to. haha

One speaker you line in everything to?
You're missing a lot of music man ;).

Yeah...haha. But it has a 5-band eq...bad excuse! I'm a college student? better?

My computer speakers are pretty epic though. I have the Harmon-Kardon Soundsticks II 2.1 system.

1st post, so no pics yet:
I also have 2 systems (3 if you count home theatre)
Primary is a Townshend Elite Rock mkII Turntable with rewired RB250 arm and Goldring 1042 cartridge. Copland CSA14 hybrid stereo integrated Amp and a pair of Castle Howard speakers. I also plug a Western Digital HDTV into the amp for my FLAC files.

PC system consists of the coax output from PC, a DIY DAC, a Topping T20 tripath amp into a pair of Castle Richmond speakers.

P.S. heaps of bass from the PC.

@ papercutcheeto

hahaha, I don't know what it's like overthere, but when you know your stuff, you can buy a really good amplifier, a set of fine speakers, a good cd player and a good record player for about 150 dollars. You just have to know where to look and what to buy.

Having an audioset that sounds really good doesn't have to be expensive.
It's a pity people are giving large amounts of money to buy speakers from sony or bose or some other piece of crap when the old AR's, JBL's and Infinity's are left to rot in the scrapyard. People like new and shiny stuff and tend to forget the fact that even back in the fifties they were able to make recordings that sound just brilliant. Not much improvement there. It just got smaller :)

Ah, the 1042. Rich man, I could only afford a 1022.
Wise choice :D.