Any Audiophiles around?

[4season]

I've been lusting for a McIntosh amp for a long time.

I haven't got a McIntosh amp, just a little FM radio:

 

[JMaher]

That's what a radio should look like.
Jim

 

[Shelby Lewis]

I haven't got a McIntosh amp, just a little FM radio:

Yummmm....

 

[d.clin.design]

I haven't got a McIntosh amp, just a little FM radio:

that is one clean and mint piece of gear!! I wish I can keep mine that clean!!

 

[danlindberg]

The fall has reached southern Spain. Its raining and getting chilly at night. And dark.
Its time to dust of the hifi and enjoy great sound at low volumes with a glass of wine, when the kids have gone to bed.

I'm there right now listening to Patricia Barber. Closing my eyes and I could pinpoint where every musician is placed. The soundstage is unbelievable and there is depth, detail, smoothness and clarity at the same time. This is relaxation for real.

I still have the Tidal Piano Cera speakers and couldn't be happier. They have so many qualities that I enjoy, that these have become the very foundation of my system and any change is circling around these speakers.

Moving to a much smaller home (3 years ago) meant that I had no choice but to keep my system to a minimum of both components and size. I made a pretty wild chance by buying a non-auditioned integrated with onboard (good) DAC, class-D amplifier. Yes, Class D! But it really was a matter of conveniance as well, nice design and all in a small box. All I needed to add was a tiny squeezebox and a hidden NAS with the music.
The amp is a Gato Audio DIA 400. A complete dissapointment straight out of the box, but now that it is broken in, it is damn good. Fine, it does not rival my Burmester, but as always with this kind of level it is the last 5-7% we are talking about and those last % always come at a premium.
I have had a BAT VK300SE, Krell 400xi, Electrocompaniet EC250 & 4.7, Lavardin, Bladelius 250 and this Class D actually beats all of these, in my mind. Only the Burmester is clearly better.

Anyway, looking forward to many music evenings this winter.

 

[MGrayson]

Class D is a really clever idea. Transistors make excellent fast switches and terrible linear amplifiers. Glad to hear yours sounds wonderful.

Twenty years ago as a bachelor, I had just purchased (used) Apogee Divas in faux orange marble :shocked::shockedwhat can I say, they were almost free), with external crossover, two BAT VK500 amps, a VK5i tube preamp ... when I met my future wife. Difficult to come up with a less spouse friendly setup. The preamp is still with me 20 years later, but a humble Bryston with Audiophysic Virgos has replaced the monsters.

But ... I do most of my listening these days off youtube, where otherwise unpublished live recordings of pianists from the late 19th and early 20th century keep popping up, and the sound quality is terrible. The *music*, on the other hand, makes mdern performance look like joyless gymnastics.

Enjoy!

Matt

 

[robertwright]

Obviously a huge crossover between photographers and audiophiles...my dad had a classic 60's setup, EICO ST-70 tube integrated, AR-2A's, he built the EICO and the Heathkit tuner himself. Later a Sansui G6700 Receiver that I still have.

Unfortunately the Sansui sounds pretty flat, age has not been kind. Currently I have a pair of Zu Soul Supreme's, driven by an Almarro SET 5W amp, Rega RP3/Dynavector 10x5 doing most of the heavy lifting through a Schiit phono preamp. CD's (rarely) and Tidal streaming through a Musical Hall transport/DAC.

Contemplating the Schiit Gungnir multibit DAC, the streaming is still not really where the Rega is, even with Tidal CD quality. Opinions?

Fell in love with "presence" a long time ago via another photographer audiophile friend who had a series of speakers, Carver Amazings, Gallo, etc but the Carver's had a real tactile feel, but they needed gobs of power. The Zu's do it all on a couple watts.

One definite area of crossover is that Audiophiles get pilloried for the price tag regularly, sounds an awfully like how Leica gets treated.....

 

[danlindberg]

I did not expect the development of the class D amp. I did read a couple of favourable reviews from credible reviewers, but we all know that if we look long enough we will find somebody that will praise any product so it sounds like it is the best buy out there.
I wasn't prepared that class D has come this far! It sounds almost rediculous if I say it sounds tube-like, but it has texture and character that you would not associate with class D.

Matt, I have had an unforgettable evening with Apogee Divas and Dark side of the moon on vinyl.
Robert, I would have like to listen/try that Almarro....

 

[jlm]

my amp is the Line Magnetic 518, tubes. turntable is tweaked Linn LP12 with dynavector cartridge, speakers are Devore Orangutans.

analog; keeps you warm in the winter

 

[docmoore]

Beautiful setup!! I just sold my KRK VXT 8's due to the bad RF pickup and got myself some Dynaudio's. Not as high end as your setup perhaps but it works great in small spaces. Now looking to upgrade my audio interface (DAC) Thinking about the Apogee Duet 2

4season: How's that AMB Gamma 2 working out for you?

I use an Apogee Duet to drive a Balanced Headphone amp into my UE Columbia Reference in ear monitors.

Gave up the big stuff and now have a Spectral preamp to a Chord amp with ProAc Response bookshelf speakers ... streaming wirelessly through a
smaller Headroom DAC to the Spectral... usually listen on the porch whilst watching the day slip into evening with a Cabernet or a pitcher of Pims #1.

Bob

 

[4season]

Is it time to revive this old thread?

Both my photo gear and hifi priorities have changed since 2011.

Hifi: The McIntosh MR71 tuner, my preamp(s), vinyl collection, turntable, all AMB items etc all gone. I did add a Behringer DEQ2496 eq thing plus the same old Linkwitz speakers. My shelving unit is practically empty! But the sound has never been better: I use the DEQ2496 to auto-eq the system to nicely flat frequency response and the results are simply magnificent. It sounds like something that's been endlessly tweaked, but it takes only a minute or two to execute. Really loving this: I seem to own almost no hifi anymore just the sound.

Cameras: The Leica M8, M9, 28.2.8, 35/2, 40/2 and 50/1, all sold during the Leica-mania years. Am thinking that image quality has become something of a commodity, and sometimes I'm half tempted to simply buy a Canon Rebel plus a couple of good but inexpensive lenses and call it a done deal. I'm increasingly of the opinion that photography is mostly about showing up with a camera.

I'm okay with running a budget surplus

 

[robertwright]

I did not expect the development of the class D amp. I did read a couple of favourable reviews from credible reviewers, but we all know that if we look long enough we will find somebody that will praise any product so it sounds like it is the best buy out there.
I wasn't prepared that class D has come this far! It sounds almost rediculous if I say it sounds tube-like, but it has texture and character that you would not associate with class D.

Matt, I have had an unforgettable evening with Apogee Divas and Dark side of the moon on vinyl.
Robert, I would have like to listen/try that Almarro....

The Almarro is definitely a dark horse in affordable SET amps, I heard one and then found one used here in Brooklyn. It really had that magic that we are all looking for, and it plays well with the efficient Zu's. I could see it being a lifelong partnership. I think it just gets better with better inputs. The guy I bought it from had the same Zu's and some crazy TT which I can't remember the name, near 10k with arm, and it really sounded even better.

Very interested also in the Vinni Rosso Lio....

 

[JMaher]

All things change. My equipment rack is also almost empty. I now have an Oppo 105 as my primary source and even use it as a pre-amp. My amps have gotten very tiny as well and never get turned off. For something a little outside the curve take a look at the custom modulles by Hypex.

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/ncore/1.html

They sound excellent.

Jim

 

[schuster]

If anyone here has listened to the Tidal streaming service, what do you think of it?

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

If anyone here has listened to the Tidal streaming service, what do you think of it?

I tried Tidal HiFi for a while. The quality is good, but selection of HiFi standard music limited. I gave it up because most of the (third world) countries I travel to don't have fast enough internet for streaming.

 

[robertwright]

If anyone here has listened to the Tidal streaming service, what do you think of it?

I've been paying for the CD quality Tidal tier and like it a lot. I compared Apple Music with Tidal and you can hear the difference between the different quality streams, mostly in the size and depth of the sound image. Where the difference comes in also is in the provenance of the original, true also for all music, if the source file that they are streaming is good, it sounds good and the compression issues are less important. The problem with all online music services is that you can't tell where the file came from, basically as I understand it Tidal and Spotify etc get their material from another aggregator, and those people don't go around the world looking for the best masters, as say, a label might do in releasing a box set for example. So its a crap shoot. You get in to the debate about Vinyl vs. digital, a lot of it comes back to that, you can actually tell where the disc is from, the mastering chain. In a streaming service you have no idea. So the black stuff can easily outperform the 1/0's in a good system if the original is superior.

I haven't played around with DAC's yet but intend to to see what the differences are. I have a music hall CD dac combo which is cheap. Schiit is one of my favourite American manufacturers and I will be auditioning one of their mid tier Dacs soon.

 

[DucatiTerminator]

Class D is a really clever idea. Transistors make excellent fast switches and terrible linear amplifiers. Glad to hear yours sounds wonderful.

Twenty years ago as a bachelor, I had just purchased (used) Apogee Divas in faux orange marble :shocked::shockedwhat can I say, they were almost free), with external crossover, two BAT VK500 amps, a VK5i tube preamp ... when I met my future wife. Difficult to come up with a less spouse friendly setup. The preamp is still with me 20 years later, but a humble Bryston with Audiophysic Virgos has replaced the monsters.

But ... I do most of my listening these days off youtube, where otherwise unpublished live recordings of pianists from the late 19th and early 20th century keep popping up, and the sound quality is terrible. The *music*, on the other hand, makes mdern performance look like joyless gymnastics.

Enjoy!

Matt

I did not expect the development of the class D amp. I did read a couple of favourable reviews from credible reviewers, but we all know that if we look long enough we will find somebody that will praise any product so it sounds like it is the best buy out there.
I wasn't prepared that class D has come this far! It sounds almost rediculous if I say it sounds tube-like, but it has texture and character that you would not associate with class D.

Matt, I have had an unforgettable evening with Apogee Divas and Dark side of the moon on vinyl.
Robert, I would have like to listen/try that Almarro....

Do either of you still have the Divas? My dream speaker for sure. I have a set of 1-ohm Scintilla's I'm looking to restore, but I don't know if I'm better off patiently waiting for a set of Divas/DAX to become available.

 

[MGrayson]

No, the Divas are long gone.

--Matt

 

[DucatiTerminator]

No, the Divas long gone.

--Matt

Sorry to hear, Matt. At least you had a set. In my circles, no one even knew what Apogees were.

 

[danlindberg]

Do either of you still have the Divas?

I have never had the Divas myself, but I have a friend who did. Very nice indeed.
But I have had a few nice ones, B&W 802 matrix, Focal 937 Be, QRS Supernova, Totem Model One Signature, Revel F30, Jamo 909 and my current Tidal Piano Cera.