Post your stereo system!

earthquakes making waves said:

tempo_n_groove said:

earthquakes making waves said:

I use a Klipsch system for my surround sound, tv setup and they sound excellent. It's reference series all around with center channel and with these speakers the SP12 inch subwoofer(BTW these powered subs sound huge for the money, do not buy anything more unless you have a huge theatre room, I can barely turn it up before my house is shaking, great for $200-300) is really needed if you want to feel and hear everything (meaning frequencies) from low to high. With the sub off it's very clear, but there is a substantial difference. I used to listen to audio/music thru this system, which cost around $2000 total. I got into vinyl and after a lot of research I saved a ton of money and have a much better listening experience going all vintage. I got a Pioneer PL530 70's turntable (cost me $400 on Craigslist serviced/with warranty and puts the newer toy feeling (no offense because they sound great too to be honest) Orbit, etc for the same price or more to shame) and after listening/using with a Grado elite cartridge setup running into a Cambridge preamp ($150) (and not needed after I switched to all vintage which is my next point.

GO ALL VINTAGE!!! So far I put in $400 on the TT, the I got a Pioneer SA8500II serviced/with warranty for $350 which was a steal because holy God does that thing sound awesome and the phono preamp is excellent too. I got a few pairs of speakers after this, which at first I ran a pair of KLH Model 6's on top of Advent Large speakers and the fidelity was amazing. Each pair of speakers cost $150. I found a pair of Pioneer HPM100 for $300 and that did it. I'm working on recapping my Model 6's now and run the HPM100's on top of the Advents and the fidelity, bass, and entire listening experience went to a whole other level. This was how music was meant to be heard, especially vinyl. I hear things on albums (and I'm a musician and consider myself to have a good/great ear for listening, tuning, and building systems.
Long story short is that the Klipsch are great for surround and general listening, but if you are going to truly want to listen to vinyl then save a ton of money and get way more bang for your buck by hitting Craigslist and yardsales. It's amazing what people are getting rid of from right now from the golden age of listening pleasure. Do yourself a favor and you could probably spend around $1000-1200 total and have an excellent listening experience.
"If I would have known now, what I'd known then...."

Oh and don't be scared of good quality vintage gear, this stuff is built like tanks. And get a buckskin slipmat, all static gone and even better tone for bout $40.

PM me if anyone has questions...

This is EXACTLY how I've been listening @earthquakes making waves !!!

Right on my friend, the all Pioneer setup from the late 70's sounds so amazing. The only thing I would/may ever look at is a tube pre, but it's surely not needed and the HPM's sound sooooo good. I love mine and for the price the vintage all pioneer setup is cheaper, built like a tank, and sounds better then anything I've heard in the price range. You just have to be patient and do some looking, but it is out there to find.

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.

tempo_n_groove said:

mrussel1 said:

tempo_n_groove 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.

earthquakes making waves said:

tempo_n_groove said:

mrussel1 said:

tempo_n_groove 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.

dudeman said:

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

PJ_Soul said:

earthquakes making waves 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.

mrussel1 said:

PJ_Soul said:

earthquakes making waves 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.