No, not really. They don't like to be against the wall is about it. They have a crazy good soundstage over a very wide area-the downside is that they're not crazy hot at the high end nor is the bass killer-don't get me wrong, they're very warm and in some ways very accurate, but lazers they're not. I really like the sound, but with stuff other than jazz I fall back on a sub.

If you want to please your wife, get a couple 2nd gen apple airports (the later ones don't have digital out, just the onboard dac -not shabby- the earlier ones are only 2ghz). You can stream from any apple device to multiple airports, and use the output to drive either a dac/amp thru optical or analog via the onboard dac and a 1/8 to rca converter. I stream to 4 different audio systems in the house this way.

you can be an audiophile or an audiophool - speakers matter, cables don't

There's nothing wrong with having a hobby - even if it is an expensive one. It's your money, spend as you see fit.

I've always needed cables of some sort .... so have very good ones at a fraction of retail .... they look good :D!

AT 95 is popular and a good cart. The LPG version is probably good as well. Ortofon red or blue are some of the most popular budget minded moving magnet carts. I have a red on my secondary system and is great.

Maybe buy the cheaper cart to save some room for a force scale or record cleaning supplies or having a professional install of the cart. Having it set up correctly is more important than 100$ vs 200$ cart.

If you have a state of the art turntable and phono pre and want the absolute max performance, I can see wanting to spend a little more. If you have some old records in decent shape and a pretty nice system the red will be great (as will the others mentioned)>



https://www.amazon.com/Ortofon-Red-Moving-Magnet-Cartridge/dp/B000WMCEKK/ref=sr_1_5?crid=2EEUM18C8S46&dchild=1&keywords=ort ofon+2m+blue&qid=1626705170&sprefix=ortofon+%2Caps %2C188&sr=8-5

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Old school Yamaha pushing Time Windows, oh, and my original Edison Victrola

I'm into old vinyl and studio mastering tape decks. Analog mostly. 2 channel system with 4 way JBL speaker system. Tweeters, Horns, 12 inch Mid's and 18 inch Subs. Bryston amps for each.

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very cool, I love bryston as well. They are so serious about customer support. I have an b100sst integrated and a b4cubed on my main system

LP12 and RME dac very nice as well. Impressive R2R and professional equip as well.

I've got several Carver Theater Grand pre-amps and 5x200 watt Cinema grand amp for sale if anyone is interested PM me.

Wife objects to speakers intruding on the living room space, wants the 901s pushed back to the wall, or hung from the ceiling, or squeezed into the room corners behind furniture . . . of these, only the ceiling hanging makes any sense, but it is not a large room so I think having the source 8’ in the air will be noticeable and not in a good way, plus further experimenting with other speakers would then be foreclosed. I am actively trying to change the subject. Let’s paint or plant something, shall we?

audiophools spend Bigly big $$ on cables

you can do w/o most cables (maybe not AC) by using wifi to active speakers

Dutch & Dutch 8c are one type - for only $12k

and $3100 receptacles:

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https://www.tweekgeek.com/quantum-science-audio-ultra-black-red-ac-receptacle/

Once you spend thousands on cables, spending hundreds on ceramic cable elevators is a little easier to do...





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Saw this stuff the other day:

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https://www.highfidelitycables.com/collections/frontpage/products/nps-1260

Sometimes reading audiophile gibberish is entertaining:
Our First NPS-1260 Three Dimensionality Enhancer!

https://www.highfidelitycables.com/Nanoparticle/NPS1260.php

This is a powerful dimension and clarity enhancer that dramatically improves the three-dimensionalities of audio systems improving clarity, sound-staging in imaging. It has an extremely dramatic effect on distortion reduction, allowing the system's natural capability of dimensionality, musicality, sound staging, and imaging to be amplified. This revolutionary new product is unlike anything ever made. There is no product in audio that offers so much benefit for so little cost.

We strongly recommend that this is the first purchase that you might make with High Fidelity Cables.

If you struggle with hearing changes from tweaks and modifications made in your system, then this product will help. It offers a much cleaner window to hear the changes in your system, which then becomes much more apparent and much easier to hear any improvements done on your system.

The highest-end audio systems in the world are the ones that are the ‘most’ easily transformed. The sheer clarity of these systems makes them the perfect viewing window for any type of sonic change; even the most subtle changes can be heard through these types of systems. NSP-1260 offers these dramatic dimensional improvements and transforms more entry-level systems to much greater levels, saving you money on gear and increasing the enjoyment of listening.

There's no question that NPS-1260 will become a staple of every audiophile trying to build true high-end sound; without it, the distortions are simply too large to overcome.

No matter how well your audio system performs, this product will transform it!

The user needs only give some time after the application to get the full effect; a process called break-in. The amount of distortion that it decreased is so significant that some time is involved before the “full revealing of sound” becomes completely initiated. Although there will be system transformation on the first application immediately on power-up, there is no question even larger change will come. Every test system that we have tried NPS-1260 has revealed the same results.

Many systems struggle from clarity hardness and harshness, however, NPS 1260 is a solution that can bring you into the game of absolute transparent musicality and the best of high-end audio.

What is so different about this product is that it doesn't focus on electron transfer, it focuses on magnetic or electromagnetic field transfer. It is uniquely set apart in idea and design.

Rick Schultz (inventor) has a fundamentally different way of thinking about how energy transfers, teaching that this has more to do with the power of magnetism and less to do with the actual electron. Although the electron certainly plays a vital role as it creates magnetism, and that's the energy that we use. So what does that have to do with a contact enhancer? Everything!

The reason why NPS-1260 is so dramatically different from other products in the market known as “contact enhancers”; is that the approach and science behind it are different.

This product offers results that “contact enhancers” only hint at.

The results of applying NPS-1260 are dramatic and the product is to be used at your own risk as it is very conducive.

Have fun this is going to be a revelation for us all!

HFC Innovations team!

Customer Reviews:

The NPS-1260 was, without doubt, a magic elixir. I don't think I can accurately judge a component's worth in the future without the aid of NPS-1260 at the connection points. The effect of the NPS-1260 formula was that pronounced, the best assets of my individual components were magnified to the point of becoming indispensable. Rick Shultz has another winner on his hands, find a way to get your hands on some before the whole world gets in on the secret!

-Buzz Hughes - Profesional Reviewer

The contact enhancer is just wonderful. Much more space around each note, much livelier sounding bass, mids are much improved, highs are much improved, and the total sound stage is just great. Much more detail, no harshness. Still have some more treating to do, but I love what is done so far. Very much worth the price. Any thoughts on treating power cords on TV and satellite boxes?

Peter Smith CA

Hey, what do we think about ESS AMT 1 speakers?

Now we're talking.

QSC K8s for me. I have them connected to an Allen & Heath mixer. I did find a huge difference if you use XLR cable, not 1/4" monitor cables. As for the brand, those don't matter as much but I only use Live Wire.

Any thoughts about headphone systems? Really a neophyte in this area but would like a nice set of phones that I can drive from my iPhone, perhaps through a small phono dac/amp setup. Appreciate any thoughts.

I don’t know what you can drive from an iPhone, but I wouldn’t buy any headphones that aren’t the kind that don’t go all the way around the ear. I have always used Sennheiser, but that may be overkill for your use, if you plan to listen to whatever you can download onto an iPhone.

I am too much of a Luddite to use an iPhone for music, so feel free to disregard my input.

https://drop.com/audiophile/drops

Mass drop is a fantastic place to buy headphones. There can be a bit of a wait, you are essentially trading big savings for waiting for them to ship in batches.

I have the sennheiser/drop 6xx. They sound pretty fantastic to me and a phone is enough to drive them directly. They are open back so they don't have much isolation however. If you are listening in a public or noisy place, go closed back.

$3,100 for a plug.. ha,ha.. snake oil for "audiophiles"

There's a sucker born every minute

Streaming Spotify. No downloading.

Whatever that is.

You can’t plug the kind of headphones I’m talking about into an iPhone, you’ll have to have some sort of intermediate Doohickey. I’m not even sure the latest iPhones have a port for headphones.

$3100 is for the outlet. A good plug (with 1 meter of cable and a receptor end) will cost a little more.

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I have a pair of Focal Utopia. You have to really run them off of a headphone amp. Sennhieser 820 would be the other option because they are closed ear. My Focal heaphones are really accurate and amazing, but with the open ear design other people can hear the music. It might be annoying for them. Neither one would be considered portable because they really need an amplifier.

headphone amp that I'm using is an SPL Phonitor mini.

I like Sennheiser's amp/ headphone setups. You can save a bit of $$ and you know that they will sound well together, which is really what you want.

audiofiles, advice needed. I have been jonesing for a mac set up. Tube pre-amp, solid state amp and maybe some B&W 803's. Thoughts on that set up? Running my mid-'70's Yamaha set up right now with time windows.

audiofiles, advice needed. I have been jonesing for a mac set up. Tube pre-amp, solid state amp and maybe some B&W 803's. Thoughts on that set up? How large is the room and are there many windows, and what do you listen to? The room will play a large part in the final sound quality.

Thank You very much for the great advice!!!

I have been watching Mr. Vinyl Obsessive on You Tube and that started me thinking I needed to dig out my old turntable and tune it up. In the midst of Covid I spent a bunch (for me) of money on an Integra Surround sound system, and some Klipsch reference speakers and a powered sub to add to my old Technics. I have had lots of decent car audio over the years, but wanted something that would shake the house.

After doing some research online, I got replacement tone arm belts from Turntableneedlesdotcom. I found all the service manuals at vinyl engine forums, along with a bunch of info to do the work.

First I replaced the slipping belt for the tone arm.


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Then I installed the Ortofon 2M red you suggested.

The service manual gave specifications where the stylus should be from the base of the tone arm mount which was 50.5mm.
I used a protractor template I was able to download from Vinyl Engine to verify alignment at two locations .


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I also picked up a scale from amazon. My turntable has a really accurate adjustment weight... I set it to balance, then turned it to the 1.8 grams of force, and was off by .02... readjusted it using the scale.


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Put on a U2 Album that I really like.... Records have never sounded so good from my system. Only a little popping between songs.

Now to sit back and enjoy the music.



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Thanks again!

I dunno, these sorts of things are all easy, really. There are no wrong answers with good equipment is my experience.

Whatever makes you happy.

I've been a B & W fan forever and am currently on 804 Diamonds driven by a top line Integra receiver. Simple, really.

I bought Roon and just love moving through my 2+ TB library almost every day.

Makes me happy.

I have my music library PC based, top notch audio card sending analogue to receiver, and for "private times" break out my Sennheiser 800HD's.

No high end DACs or thousand dollar interconnects.

All this stuff is around $20 grand I suppose, but my set up would be scoffed at by many audiophiles as being meagre, particularly on the upstream side.

Good friend of mine is all about billions $ in Mac equipment, such as you are jonesing for.

I love his hardware but am just not a fan of his speakers.

For me, that is where the rubber hits the road. Speakers. Pick the speakers that make you happy - the rest is of little consequence i think...

I agree with Purrybonker, good components should sound good. What matters most is how it sounds to you. Speaker placement and room treatments are important too.

You could argue that room treatment combined with placement can make a mid-fi system outshine the very best gear. I would say it’s probably the most important piece of the puzzle. Far more than $3k wall outlets fed by cheap romex!

Hear ya. Speakers are the place where everything comes together. I remember in the day settling on a pair of Onkyo separates (Tuner/Pre and Amp) and then A/B'ing speakers. Could not afford the JBL L100's so settled for the 88's that I converted to 100's with their mid range kit. (my wife sold them at a garage sale for $50, ouch). Been listening to TimeWindows since 1976 and still love them. Placement is critical and you can adjust the sound by turning them or moving closer or further from the wall.

There is a set of 803S near me for a bit over $3k. Tempted.

My Yamaha M4 amp seems to be pumping along, thought one of my channel lights is out. CD player skips. Thinking of a streamer like BlueSound node 2.1. I think the Mac is just an aesthetic and ego thing.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Sending the woofers of my IRS Beta to Watkins for restoration.

and meanwhile, behind the wall, is standard 12/2 romex. Only fools buy into the "magic"

Is anybody else into IEM's and portable HiFi?

I've tried a few over the years but right now my Campfire Audio Honeydew's are getting almost daily use.
The "Oppo HA-2SE" is an older headphone amp but it's a keeper. :)

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The room is 90% of the sound.

I would bet that 90% of “audiophiles” have missed that point entirely.

Any recommendations for a shop to refresh and adjust my old Theta Data Universal transport?

iPhone (like most phones) don't really do a good job on headphones. Especially wired ones; most "better" headphones tend to be higher impedance - and usually more so the better they are. Anything more than 8 ohms, you'll be crushing it (in a bad way).

A small headphone pre-amp will help it out a lot; otherwise it'll start to sound very compressed/muffled, lacking detail & range. But a better source than a phone is a very good idea if you want quality. Even relatively cheap DAPs are typically better than a phone.

For over-the-ear headphones on a budget, hard to beat Grado Labs SR-80s (the official headphone of the Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame) or SR-125s. They're open backed (leak noise in both directions) but sound detailed and natural to me. My sound engineer ex really liked mine, and I had to buy another pair, because she was always using them... When the original pads begin to turn to dust, Sennheiser ear pads are more durable, cheaper and comfortable than Grado pads BTW...

For IEMs, I swear by Shure SE846s - having first worked my way through, and been quite impressed by, the SE215s and SE525s. Find the "black olive" size that fits you best, figure out how to insert and get used to wearing them; these give the very best sound isolation - and thus sound, especially bass response.

The SE846s are awesome. Massive sound isolation (37db, which is why musicians often wear them on-stage so they can play to click or hear cues over the monitors or the PA), true sub-woofer (with dedicated sound path) for real bass (you won't believe these are IEMs) and an additional 3 dynamic drivers. Detachable cables (MCX connector). And low enough impedance you can probably get away with driving them from a low-power/quality source, if you insist (phone DACs are really not impressive - and the last decent iPod DAC was the 5 or 5.5 generation iPod Video - the Classic and anything later are cheap junk in comparison).

I use SE846s at about half or two thirds the volume of lesser ear buds - they block all the external sound anyway, plus I hear all the detail I want/need. No need to run them loud - unless you just want to.

I run mine mostly with a Fiio X7 MkII portable hi-res DAP/DAC. Pretty much all of Fiio's range (cough, I have a few of these, too) grok just about any audio format. Switch them to DAC mode and plug them into your laptop with USB and you'll be amazed how much better the audio sounds with a decent DAC... The X7 accepts 2 SDHXC cards; my mobile collection is all 320kbs MP3 for portability and I can have 30,000+ songs in my pocket. I really can't tell the difference between cdparanoia/lame ripped/encoded hi-bitrate MP3s and lossless formats like AAC, OGG or FLAC - or even Orange Book WAV from the CD itself. I've tried, many times...

Used to only use one of many 3.5mm jack cables I owned (which all sound the same to me), bought a cheap 2.5mm balanced cable from Flea Bay "just because" (the AM3A amp module has balanced output) - to my surprise/delight, the difference was very noticeable. Louder, more detailed, more dynamic range and wider sound stage.

I hate tracing sources of hum and ground loops.

Found it!

Rant over