Post your stereo system!

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  • mrussel1 said:

    dudeman said:

    Do you have enough room to spread those speakers out and toe them in a little?

    You have great equipment that could be made to sound better by rearranging your listening space.

    Love that vintage Pioneer gear!

    Small room so not really. I do spread them out a wee bit more and angle them when I listen in my chair.
    Everything is mono for you...
    I don't have one MONO record yet so the sound still comes out of both speakers.

    I'm not sure what all the fuss is about Mono.
    Mono means that both speakers play the entire track without any panning left or right that the engineer/band wanted you to hear. On early records recorded in mono this is fine. For PJ records, and most modern music, you want to run your system in stereo so you get the full left/right ear experience of the mix. Makes a huge difference on records such as Binaural especially, but I can't stand listening in mono if it's recorded in stereo. Just my opinion.
  • mrussel1mrussel1 Posts: 28,600

    mrussel1 said:

    dudeman said:

    Do you have enough room to spread those speakers out and toe them in a little?

    You have great equipment that could be made to sound better by rearranging your listening space.

    Love that vintage Pioneer gear!

    Small room so not really. I do spread them out a wee bit more and angle them when I listen in my chair.
    Everything is mono for you...
    I don't have one MONO record yet so the sound still comes out of both speakers.

    I'm not sure what all the fuss is about Mono.
    Mono means that both speakers play the entire track without any panning left or right that the engineer/band wanted you to hear. On early records recorded in mono this is fine. For PJ records, and most modern music, you want to run your system in stereo so you get the full left/right ear experience of the mix. Makes a huge difference on records such as Binaural especially, but I can't stand listening in mono if it's recorded in stereo. Just my opinion.
    Right you wouldn't listen to a stereo record in mono. But for example, I have John Coltrane's Blue Train in mono and it is spectacular and exactly how the engineers intended. It's in the top 5% of my owned records. Icky Thump mono is excellent as is Axis as I mentioned earlier. When you listen to a mono record, intended to be mono, I think they sound great. In fact, some 50's and 60's jazz records, I would argue, over emphasize the stereo piece.
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    Beatles records in stereo sound pretty crappy to me. It's worse with headphones.
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • lolobugglolobugg BLUE RDGE MTNS Posts: 8,175
    dudeman said:

    Beatles records in stereo sound pretty crappy to me. It's worse with headphones.

    yes they do. never intended to be listened to that way.
    MONO is the way to go up until their later records

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  • mrussel1mrussel1 Posts: 28,600
    dudeman said:

    Beatles records in stereo sound pretty crappy to me. It's worse with headphones.

    originals or remasters?
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    Original. I have a copy of Sgt. Pepper that has all of the vocals on one side of the stereo mix. It's not too bad if you're moving around the house while listening but headphones make it unlistenable. I hit the Mono button on my receiver for that one.
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • PJ_SoulPJ_Soul Vancouver, BC Posts: 49,473

    dudeman said:

    The problem with new consumer grade electronics is that just about everything is built using printed circuit boards with surface mount components. Generally speaking, the only way to service them is to replace entire boards and assemblies. That gets expensive quickly and we find ourselves replacing instead of repairing.

    A lot of vintage gear is point to point wired and was built to a high quality standard as opposed to being built for ease of manufacture and sale at a specific price point.

    Component failures happen with vintage gear but parts are readily available for reasonable prices.

    If one was looking at point to point, discrete component amps, just about any newly manufactured amp will cost way more than a vintage equal.

    For full disclosure, I repaired, serviced and maintained high end electronics professionally for a number of years.

    Ditto, and it's not hard to learn the basics which you'll rarely use but be happy you save a cpl thousand dollars. Go Vintage!!!!
    I guess that all comes down to the particular person. Not everyone is handy, and not everyone is interested in actual equipment repair and maintenance as part of this hobby. If you're into fixing electronics or investing your time in figuring out how and where to get parts and whatnot, yeah, sure, buying vintage actually becomes another component of the pleasure of collecting vinyl, and I would think such folks would want to actually avoid new equipment no matter what, because going new would take away from the pleasure. But probably the majority of people aren't actually into that aspect of it at all. For those folks, I wouldn't say they should necessarily avoid vintage, especially not if they want to keep it cheap, but they should definitely consider the possible consequences of buying vintage. Having tried both, and not being someone who is interested in fucking around with the equipment and who doesn't want to spend time discussing issues with the few experts in the city who could help me with all that (when I had vintage and needed technical advice or repairs I had to make a 90 minute trip to the vintage stereo equipment store, along with my equipment, as I wasn't comfortable just doing it myself with the help of the internet, and I'm not a technophobe at all), new is a much better option for me just on a logistical level.
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
  • mrussel1mrussel1 Posts: 28,600
    PJ_Soul said:

    dudeman said:

    The problem with new consumer grade electronics is that just about everything is built using printed circuit boards with surface mount components. Generally speaking, the only way to service them is to replace entire boards and assemblies. That gets expensive quickly and we find ourselves replacing instead of repairing.

    A lot of vintage gear is point to point wired and was built to a high quality standard as opposed to being built for ease of manufacture and sale at a specific price point.

    Component failures happen with vintage gear but parts are readily available for reasonable prices.

    If one was looking at point to point, discrete component amps, just about any newly manufactured amp will cost way more than a vintage equal.

    For full disclosure, I repaired, serviced and maintained high end electronics professionally for a number of years.

    Ditto, and it's not hard to learn the basics which you'll rarely use but be happy you save a cpl thousand dollars. Go Vintage!!!!
    I guess that all comes down to the particular person. Not everyone is handy, and not everyone is interested in actual equipment repair and maintenance as part of this hobby. If you're into fixing electronics or investing your time in figuring out how and where to get parts and whatnot, yeah, sure, buying vintage actually becomes another component of the pleasure of collecting vinyl, and I would think such folks would want to actually avoid new equipment no matter what, because going new would take away from the pleasure. But probably the majority of people aren't actually into that aspect of it at all. For those folks, I wouldn't say they should necessarily avoid vintage, especially not if they want to keep it cheap, but they should definitely consider the possible consequences of buying vintage. Having tried both, and not being someone who is interested in fucking around with the equipment and who doesn't want to spend time discussing issues with the few experts in the city who could help me with all that (when I had vintage and needed technical advice or repairs I had to make a 90 minute trip to the vintage stereo equipment store, along with my equipment, as I wasn't comfortable just doing it myself with the help of the internet, and I'm not a technophobe at all), new is a much better option for me just on a logistical level.
    And at the end of the day, good solid state amps should not sound any different, whether they are 40 years old or 1 year old. They should not color the music.
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    mrussel1 said:

    PJ_Soul said:

    dudeman said:

    The problem with new consumer grade electronics is that just about everything is built using printed circuit boards with surface mount components. Generally speaking, the only way to service them is to replace entire boards and assemblies. That gets expensive quickly and we find ourselves replacing instead of repairing.

    A lot of vintage gear is point to point wired and was built to a high quality standard as opposed to being built for ease of manufacture and sale at a specific price point.

    Component failures happen with vintage gear but parts are readily available for reasonable prices.

    If one was looking at point to point, discrete component amps, just about any newly manufactured amp will cost way more than a vintage equal.

    For full disclosure, I repaired, serviced and maintained high end electronics professionally for a number of years.

    Ditto, and it's not hard to learn the basics which you'll rarely use but be happy you save a cpl thousand dollars. Go Vintage!!!!
    I guess that all comes down to the particular person. Not everyone is handy, and not everyone is interested in actual equipment repair and maintenance as part of this hobby. If you're into fixing electronics or investing your time in figuring out how and where to get parts and whatnot, yeah, sure, buying vintage actually becomes another component of the pleasure of collecting vinyl, and I would think such folks would want to actually avoid new equipment no matter what, because going new would take away from the pleasure. But probably the majority of people aren't actually into that aspect of it at all. For those folks, I wouldn't say they should necessarily avoid vintage, especially not if they want to keep it cheap, but they should definitely consider the possible consequences of buying vintage. Having tried both, and not being someone who is interested in fucking around with the equipment and who doesn't want to spend time discussing issues with the few experts in the city who could help me with all that (when I had vintage and needed technical advice or repairs I had to make a 90 minute trip to the vintage stereo equipment store, along with my equipment, as I wasn't comfortable just doing it myself with the help of the internet, and I'm not a technophobe at all), new is a much better option for me just on a logistical level.
    And at the end of the day, good solid state amps should not sound any different, whether they are 40 years old or 1 year old. They should not color the music.
    That's true enough. The deciding factor for me is the cost to quality ratio. Lots of great modern equipment available but the good stuff is pretty expensive.
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • PJ_SoulPJ_Soul Vancouver, BC Posts: 49,473
    mrussel1 said:

    PJ_Soul said:

    dudeman said:

    The problem with new consumer grade electronics is that just about everything is built using printed circuit boards with surface mount components. Generally speaking, the only way to service them is to replace entire boards and assemblies. That gets expensive quickly and we find ourselves replacing instead of repairing.

    A lot of vintage gear is point to point wired and was built to a high quality standard as opposed to being built for ease of manufacture and sale at a specific price point.

    Component failures happen with vintage gear but parts are readily available for reasonable prices.

    If one was looking at point to point, discrete component amps, just about any newly manufactured amp will cost way more than a vintage equal.

    For full disclosure, I repaired, serviced and maintained high end electronics professionally for a number of years.

    Ditto, and it's not hard to learn the basics which you'll rarely use but be happy you save a cpl thousand dollars. Go Vintage!!!!
    I guess that all comes down to the particular person. Not everyone is handy, and not everyone is interested in actual equipment repair and maintenance as part of this hobby. If you're into fixing electronics or investing your time in figuring out how and where to get parts and whatnot, yeah, sure, buying vintage actually becomes another component of the pleasure of collecting vinyl, and I would think such folks would want to actually avoid new equipment no matter what, because going new would take away from the pleasure. But probably the majority of people aren't actually into that aspect of it at all. For those folks, I wouldn't say they should necessarily avoid vintage, especially not if they want to keep it cheap, but they should definitely consider the possible consequences of buying vintage. Having tried both, and not being someone who is interested in fucking around with the equipment and who doesn't want to spend time discussing issues with the few experts in the city who could help me with all that (when I had vintage and needed technical advice or repairs I had to make a 90 minute trip to the vintage stereo equipment store, along with my equipment, as I wasn't comfortable just doing it myself with the help of the internet, and I'm not a technophobe at all), new is a much better option for me just on a logistical level.
    And at the end of the day, good solid state amps should not sound any different, whether they are 40 years old or 1 year old. They should not color the music.
    True. The problem is that they aren't necessarily going to be compatible with other newer equipment. That is the problem I ran into during my "transition", and why I'm not using half old and half new.
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    What type of problems did you encounter?
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • PJ_SoulPJ_Soul Vancouver, BC Posts: 49,473
    dudeman said:

    What type of problems did you encounter?

    Ohms not matching up between TT, receiver, and speakers. I think I started with a new TT. It wouldn't work properly with my great vintage receiver and there was nothing I could do about it. A preamp didn't help. So I bought a new receiver. Then the vintage speakers wouldn't work properly - again a power compatibility problem. So I bought new speakers, lol. I consulted experts during this time - nothing I could do. And That's okay, because I love my system now, even though I kind of miss certain features from my old one, namely manual equalizing and that super aewsome looking cartridge housing on my old TT.
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    I'm glad the new system is working out for you.

    I know that it's a little late now but I would question why a new turntable wouldn't work with a vintage receiver. Same with speakers. There are industry standards in place to avoid these issues. Something doesn't sound right here.
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • tempo_n_groovetempo_n_groove Posts: 38,847

    mrussel1 said:

    dudeman said:

    Do you have enough room to spread those speakers out and toe them in a little?

    You have great equipment that could be made to sound better by rearranging your listening space.

    Love that vintage Pioneer gear!

    Small room so not really. I do spread them out a wee bit more and angle them when I listen in my chair.
    Everything is mono for you...
    I don't have one MONO record yet so the sound still comes out of both speakers.

    I'm not sure what all the fuss is about Mono.
    Mono means that both speakers play the entire track without any panning left or right that the engineer/band wanted you to hear. On early records recorded in mono this is fine. For PJ records, and most modern music, you want to run your system in stereo so you get the full left/right ear experience of the mix. Makes a huge difference on records such as Binaural especially, but I can't stand listening in mono if it's recorded in stereo. Just my opinion.
    I understand what mono means just don't get what the fuss is about. I'm not a Beatles fan so I don't see me hearing a true mono record in my future...

    The Jack White album I'd be interested in though!
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    Mono can be a glorious experience.
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    Hoping to have a pic for this thread in the next few days.

    I'm working on setting up a new listening room in my home studio. I have some things hooked up but waiting on a new equipment rack.
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • tempo_n_groovetempo_n_groove Posts: 38,847
    dudeman said:

    Hoping to have a pic for this thread in the next few days.

    I'm working on setting up a new listening room in my home studio. I have some things hooked up but waiting on a new equipment rack.

    Yesssssssss!!!!
  • PJ_SoulPJ_Soul Vancouver, BC Posts: 49,473
    dudeman said:

    I'm glad the new system is working out for you.

    I know that it's a little late now but I would question why a new turntable wouldn't work with a vintage receiver. Same with speakers. There are industry standards in place to avoid these issues. Something doesn't sound right here.

    I did a LOT of research to figure that out, and the answer ended up being pretty simple: the Ohms didn't match.
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
  • mrussel1mrussel1 Posts: 28,600
    PJ_Soul said:

    dudeman said:

    I'm glad the new system is working out for you.

    I know that it's a little late now but I would question why a new turntable wouldn't work with a vintage receiver. Same with speakers. There are industry standards in place to avoid these issues. Something doesn't sound right here.

    I did a LOT of research to figure that out, and the answer ended up being pretty simple: the Ohms didn't match.
    That will do it... and very dangerous for your amp. Lucky you didn't fry it.
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    I had a whole post typed with specific questions but it's just my curiosity getting the best of me. Doesn't really matter.

    Glad to hear you got everything all sorted out!
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • mfc2006mfc2006 HTOWN Posts: 37,368
    I'm excited to finally upgrade my speakers here in the next few months & this thread has been a HUGE help. Just wanted to say thanks!
    I LOVE MUSIC.
    www.cluthelee.com
    www.cluthe.com
  • mrussel1mrussel1 Posts: 28,600
    mfc2006 said:

    I'm excited to finally upgrade my speakers here in the next few months & this thread has been a HUGE help. Just wanted to say thanks!

    What's your decision?
  • reesdogreesdog Auckland, NZ. Posts: 1,981
    mfc2006 said:

    I'm excited to finally upgrade my speakers here in the next few months & this thread has been a HUGE help. Just wanted to say thanks!

    Nice, trying out a few brands are you? There's so many good ones that it can be a difficult decision..
    A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom.
  • PJ_SoulPJ_Soul Vancouver, BC Posts: 49,473
    dudeman said:

    I had a whole post typed with specific questions but it's just my curiosity getting the best of me. Doesn't really matter.

    Glad to hear you got everything all sorted out!

    Haha, well there is a thread somewhere or other where I was tearing my hair out and documenting the entire saga while people helped to try and figure it all out, but I have no idea what thread! ;)
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
  • mfc2006mfc2006 HTOWN Posts: 37,368
    mrussel1 said:

    mfc2006 said:

    I'm excited to finally upgrade my speakers here in the next few months & this thread has been a HUGE help. Just wanted to say thanks!

    What's your decision?
    No final decision yet, but this thread has helped me narrow it down. Have some other expenses first, but will keep you guys posted!
    I LOVE MUSIC.
    www.cluthelee.com
    www.cluthe.com
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    My photos are going to be delayed. Still waiting on the rack and I'm restoring my C-V's. Got the new foam surrounds on the woofers last week. I'm researching options for midrange drivers now. 
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • reesdogreesdog Auckland, NZ. Posts: 1,981
    dudeman said:
    My photos are going to be delayed. Still waiting on the rack and I'm restoring my C-V's. Got the new foam surrounds on the woofers last week. I'm researching options for midrange drivers now. 
    Sounds like you're doing some serious upgrades dudeman...?
    A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom.
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    Well, not really upgrades, just fixing and maintaining what I already have. I have a pair of Cerwin-Vega VS-120 speakers that are 24 years old. The foam surrounds on the woofers were in less than great shape so I replaced them. Then I figured, since the other drivers are the same age, I might as well restore or replace them too. I'll likely recap the crossovers next. After I'm done, they should be good for a couple more decades. 
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
  • mrussel1mrussel1 Posts: 28,600
    dudeman said:
    Well, not really upgrades, just fixing and maintaining what I already have. I have a pair of Cerwin-Vega VS-120 speakers that are 24 years old. The foam surrounds on the woofers were in less than great shape so I replaced them. Then I figured, since the other drivers are the same age, I might as well restore or replace them too. I'll likely recap the crossovers next. After I'm done, they should be good for a couple more decades. 
    That's what I love about good ole speakers.. you just make a few replacements and they last forever.  My first speakers are Boston Acoustic HD10's.. they are massive 3 way bookshelf speakers with 10" woofers.  I replaced the foam surrounding them a few years ago and they destroy my garage every weekend.  
  • dudemandudeman Posts: 2,962
    Yeah man. I'm really excited to get them finished. The C-V's aren't the speakers I would recommend for jazz or classical music but they are incredible rock speakers. That works for me because rock is 99% of my collection. Restoring them has been pretty fun so far.

    Those HD-10's are awesome, too. BA does cohesiveness better than most. They sound much bigger than the enclosures should allow and they match crossover points to drivers so well that the individual components seem to disappear. I'd like to find a pair for myself some day. 
    If hope can grow from dirt like me, it can be done. - EV
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