The HiFi chat, build and modification thread!

[Woz]

Don't really have a four figure number to pop on a DAC. Seen on the bay some Cambridge Audio Magidac which could fit
the budget and deal with my inputs and outputs. I appreciate the info. because I'm well behind. At the moment I'm
practically living on a building site so anything will be better than the psuedo stereo mp3 bluetooth device.

 

[cce]

I've got an arcam Irdac and I really rate it

 

[Grannygrinder]

Re:

Anybody got any decent 'proper' headphones for sale?
My dog ate my Pioneer ones!!! Bastard hound

 

[Woz]

Yesterday found a mint pair of Mordaunt-Short Avant 902i for a friendly price of £9 at the second hand
shop. Paired them up with the Rotel I found and repaired a while ago (earlier on this thread).

Chilling out to some program music - Tracy Chapman, Bjork and London Grammar since I'm boarded up during the
heat wave. As a whole not sounding too shoddy, next step is to find or weld up some speaker stands and get the
vocals "floating" more around the room.

 

[widowmaker]

Re:

I have a question for the 'more knowledgable' hifi members

I have dug my old Dual CS505 record deck out from the loft and decided to resurrect the old vinyl collection.

I have a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 9 speakers, but need an amp to pair them together.

My question is am I better buying off a new entry level amp, such as a Cambridge Audio or go for a classic retro amp such as a Rotel, Arcam, NAD 3020 etc.

And has anyone got one up for sale ?

 

[legrandefromage]

Just about ANYTHING older will be no better or worse than a new amp, age gets to them like everything so the world is your oyster

a 3020 is always good though

always

 

[allenh]

Just about ANYTHING older will be no better or worse than a new amp, age gets to them like everything so the world is your oyster

a 3020 is always good though

always

Yep can't fault that advice.

The only thing I'd add is look at the Cambridge A1 upwards, the amps in that range go for next to nothing on ebay and make for extremely good value for money, their only flaw for vinyl playing (unless you can get a pre Richer sounds one) is that the phono stage was an option so you have to be lucky to get one with one in but you can of course use an off board one.

 

[The History Man]

Re:

Just picked up this little jewel for £25 on eBay excellent in man cave with mission 731 and an old cd Walkman. Pro ject stereo box s. Made in Vienna.

 

[mr-mac]

Re:

Oooo a hifi thread........

Current system is;

Slate diy ptp 5 style Lenco L78 in slate plinth (awaiting 12”, trigon phono stage with matching psu and nagaoka mp11 boron). Slate plinth 40mm thick spiked onto 20mm slate sub plynth. Weighs about 40kg

DIY audio ripper, streamer, server... pc in solid billet aluminium case where case is the heatsinc, alloy is so thick you can’t even hear the hdd noises... this is connected via a wee usb to spdif device at moment but hope to click lock it to dac eventually. (This allows ripping of music, streaming services, also makes my hifi dac show up as a WiFi media rendered so can cast music from mobile, tablet laptop to it, lastly it acts as a media server so any device on network can access music or with some more network music replay devices can offer full multiroom)

Pink triangle Cardinal transport
Pink triangle Da-Capo DAC with HDCD filter
Pink triangle DC (seperate battery psu for DAC)

Meridian Pre Amp

Crimson 620 power amp (though wanting to get broken sugden A88 converted to power amp)

Cambridge Audio R50 speakers (big beastly transmission line speakers that weigh 50kg each) for those who know about drivers etc lineup is KEF b139, KEF b110 (both on seperate transmission lines) KEF T27 and lastly Coles super tweeter. Also fitted is the corrected, updated and modernised falcon acoustics crossovers. To me they almost remind me of BBC LS3/5a but add real bass (can feel sub 20hz) and better extended more accurate treble.


Still gotta get my sme3009 arm converted to a carbon fibre 12” arm and get sugden a88 preamp stripped out and repaired to be a power amp (should provide 80watt RMS with the first 10watt being in pure class A)

 

[apache]

Wow! This thread is still reasonably fresh!

Here's one of my latest builds. LGF is familiar already.