What is the coolest HiFi you ever actually listened to?
Mike Ford
they have personally listened to. All the details you can remember
too, like what the music was, room acoustics, anything that seems
important. OK, I get to go first, and might post again if I think of
something better.
Circa 1985
Room: large (25x35) livingroom/dining room with tall open beam
ceiling. Some of the ceiling beams had some absorptive stuff on them,
and floor was moderatle thick carpet. The whole house was built on a
hill side, and this room was entirely supported by posts with a open
carport area below it.
System: Linn table with a weird tonearm (I am thinking it was
Technics, or EPI, anyway it had VTA adjustments while the record was
playing and came with an assortment of straight and S arms that pluged
into the pivot), one of the first high dollar cartridges a Signet TK10
(I think, the first hollow saphire shaft unit that sold for about
$1k), SP6E preamp, Levinson ML9 amp, maybe a crossover (not sure),
KOSS 1C full range electrostat speakers, and a Dyna modified ST400 for
a RTR sub.
Music: Phil Collins "In the air tonight"
Mood: Showing off stereo, but not quite so loud our wives would
complain.
Effect: Chilling presence, and revelation of various studio effects.
Bombastic drums, but especially on Collin's vocals the echo was
sharply audible giving the image of edges radiated out from the
central voice (the audio equivalent of one of those mirror illusions).
I always thought my friend was seriously nuts for selling off that
system, even if the big KOSS speaker were hard to live with.
MAILER...@ix.netcom.com
> I don't want to hear about everybodies dream system, just the best
> they have personally listened to. All the details you can remember
> too, like what the music was, room acoustics, anything that seems
> important.
Ok here's mine:
1992. Driving back from West Hollywood and Santa Monica where
I just picked up a used ST-70 and Eico HF-85 for less than $200.
Got home, plugged the stuff in to see if they would blow up.
Everything fine so far. Unhooked the speaker cables and cd player
from my solid state stuff and connected them to the ancient new
tube setup. Stepped back to look at it...ST-70 all dusty and
dirty, Eico faceplate pitted (and pitiful looking). A knob was
missing. The equipment was probably older than me.
Popped in "Gaucho", hit the play button...the sound was absolutely
glorius and the old glowing tubes gave a certain depth to the
experience. I realized at that point that audio really has not
come as far as I thought it did in the last several decades. That
was absolutely one of the most satisfying audio experiences
I've ever had.
Dennis Moore
Wonderful question Mr. Ford.
This wasn't the best sounding system I have ever heard except in one
bizarre situation. A friend had told me to come by his home after I
was finished with work which on my job at the time would have been
shortly after midnight. So I did.
Well my friend had fallen asleep listening to a public radio station.
He had left his front door open since it was a hot muggy night(this
was in Alabama). The radio was playing a solo piano piece of some
classical music(don't remember the exact music since this also was
about 1985). In a certain spot about 4 feet from his front door the
realism was uncanny. I stopped and wondered could this not be real.
I knew that it wasn't but it was hard not to believe that it was. I
listened for about 5 minutes and it sounded absolutely real. The
music ended and the announcer then started some chamber music and it
sounded like good hi-fi again. I then looked inside and saw that my
friend was indeed asleep and I left without waking him.
In this one instance this is the most real reproduction I have ever
heard and this over FM no less. The tuner was I think analogue Teac
though it might have been Tandberg at this time. The pre- amp was
Audio Research SP-5( yes the first solid state AR), the cabling was
Audio Research silver interconnect and Monster speaker cable. The amp
was a GAS grandson and the speakers were Magneplanar MG-1's. This was
a quite satisfying system but didn't usually sound anywhere near as
real as that one particular instance. Go figure.
Looking forward to other descriptions of "coolest" HiFi,
Dennis
Judd
don't ever remember being blown away like this) was in a now defunk
shop in Dayton Ohio. It was a naim nait II with a revolver TT and an
older pair of Kef speakers (when they weren't using the uniQ
technology. This system just blew me away. I think now that I have
better stuff (better amps anyway) but perhaps the TT was amazing. It
was so long ago, quite before I took this audio stuff seriously. I'm
sure I've heard better since, but I've never been blown away like
that. My expectations are too high now, I guess. For me, audio may
have been more fun back then. Now its almost liek a compultion.
Well, it isn't much, but hey, you asked.
judd
john G
>I always thought my friend was seriously nuts for selling off that
>system, even if the big KOSS speaker were hard to live with.
My best experience was at a musician friends home in Clayton, Mo. His
dad was a music prof. and this was around 1973. We were listening to
some Jazz on his Dad's set up... all I remember was big McIntosh
pre-map and amp, and huge corner-positioned speakers. This was the
most lifelike sound I had ever heard... I especially remember the
flute solo, it sounded like a floutist was in the room with me.
Probably not the best imaging, but what tonality!
As I was young at the time (and didn't know alot about hi-end hi-fi) I
couldn't accurately describe the whole system. But I don't forget it!
Jim Albano
This is really an interesting question.
Unbelievable but true, the finest audio demonstration I've ever
heard was in the early '90's at Audio Concepts in Dallas, Texas. Dig
this, Linn LP12 with, I believe, a Troika cartridge, into an Adcom GFP
565, Adcom 565 monoblocs, then Spica Angelus loudspeakers. Nice,
fairly large central demo room, treated (I forget with what). The
Angeli were about, oh, 6' into the room and an even greater distance
from the sidewalls. The music was a GRP David Benoit album featuring
David Pack, formerly of Ambrosia.
Do believe me when I tell you that the system absolutely
disappeared, leaving nothing but the instrumentation and Pack singing
from utterly separate and well defined spaces within a coherent
soundstage. Other than a slightly depressed bass region, the band may
as well have been playing right there in the room. It was unnerving.
To make a long story short, I already owned the Adcom gear so I
rushed out and found a pair of used Angeli for $750.00. Since I
couldn't afford an LP-12, I purchased instead a JVC XLZ 1010-TN CD
player that Absolute Sound had touted so highly. Did I get the same
results in my house? Make me laugh . . . no way, not even near it. I
spent many an hour trying to duplicate the sound I heard at Audio
Concepts, and never even came close. Go figure.
Regards,
Jim A.
hen...@bnr.ca
>While some people can make do with 9 watts, we would like to apply
>our now-stagnant cold war technology to the audio field, to provide
>some of the same accuracy to audio that we used to apply to trans-
>Atlantic sonar systems.
When I worked at SRI in Menlo Park, CA, I was involved in some
Navy signal processing research. One evening, I was in the mood
for something a bit different. I brought my CD player over to the
lab and hacked together an acoustic holography subroutine on the
massively-parallel real-time DSP engine. We had a multistatic
transducer array in the tank consisting of 48 transmitters and
48 receivers. Using some canned beam synthesis software, I came
up with a wide-angle (~235 degree) stereo-to-3D filter. It sounds
complicated (and it is), but we had very powerful tools available
and it only took a couple of hours to get the prototype going. I
had to make some crude guesses to correct the frequency and phase
response for underwater auditory perception. I also needed to
equalize the transducers to extend the low frequency response.
Luckily, the system was designed for very high high linear SPL
(>150dB) operation, so I had considerable dynamic headroom to
work with. The system was 32-bit all the way, with 56 bit
accumulators, so there were no dithering artifacts or other
limitations associated with 16-bit truncation.
The only hard part was listening to music underwater. My
girlfriend (those were the days -- now she's my wife) was taking
a scuba course at the time. I don't know diddely about scuba,
but I stole her air tank and regulator (she was working that
night) and hopped into the sonar tank. The listening position
wasn't optimal because I had to share the tank with a 1/10 scale
submarine.
But let me tell you about the sound! The highs were extended
and liquid. The bass went deep and was very well dampened. The
midrange had an airy, bubbly character that was absolutely natural
and convincing. The music floated all around me in the most
startling demonstration of sound reproduction I have ever heard.
I attribute this to the increased velocity of sound in water,
which clearly contributed to the audible sense of "speed". I
believe that humans evolved from ocean-dwelling animals and that
our ears and perceptual mechanisms naturally belong in a watery
environment. I submit that this experiment proves we were not
meant to listen to music reproduced in air!
My experiment ended when a technician working late on another
project heard the music and came to the lab to see what was going
on. He found me submerged in the tank and notified security. I
was forcibly hauled out of the apparatus, during which time several
expensive components were damaged. Subsequently, I was severely
disciplined, stripped of my security clearance, and forced to
quit work on defense projects. I found it impossible to support
myself at SRI thereafter, and this is largely why I decided to
leave the U.S. and seek refuge in Canada.
My girlfriend was pissed, too, because some of the chemicals
used in the sonar tank reacted with the metal in her scuba gear,
ruining it. But she married me anyway.
-Henry
Kevin J Wren
Well this may not be everyones "cup of tea" but the best system I have
had the good fortune to experience was while I was working at Billy
Vee Sound Systems London England late in 1988.As the shop was closed
on thursdays we stayed late on a wednesday and played music ,got a
chinese carry out etc. etc. after messing around with the usuall
Linn-Naim set up`s we played with some different components some of
which were quite old.In the end the system which gave the most
consisted of a LP12 Ittok Troika front end ,a Musical Fidelity MVT
pre-amp and a Electrocompaniet 25 watt class A power amp(a terribly
unreliable amp which had a habbit of going dc and wrecking your
loudspeakers with alarming regularity).This fed into a pair of Linn
Sara`s on Sara l/s stands gave what I can only describe as the most
alluring sound I have ever encountered and I would state I have
listened to some very expensive set up`s in my time e.g. audio note
Ongaku etc. and none and I mean none have come close to the above
system.....quite an experience
Kevin J Wren
P.S. If anyone has a broken Electrocomaniet 25 watt ampliwire they
want to sell or even the schematics I`ll more than make it worth their
while getting in contact with me...
If anyone has an "electro" hang on to it and get an MVT you won`t
regret it.
Matt Kruse
> I don't want to hear about everybodies dream system, just the best
> they have personally listened to. All the details you can remember
> too, like what the music was, room acoustics, anything that seems
> important.
I haven't heard a lot of high-end systems in my time, but while
shopping for my new receiver lately, I got to listen to the best sound
I've ever heard.
I don't know model numbers, either, since I'm not familiar with
products at this level :)
But, it was a Krell CD trasnport, Krell D/A, Krell preamp, and a
*huge* Krell amp. The amp was $8000 all by itself :) Speakers were
top-of-the-line Thiels, whatever model number that is.
Room was about 15' x 30', with room-tunes in the corners and some
plants, etc sitting around. Speakers were about 10' apart, and the
couch was about 20' back. Everything was connected with absolutely
huge interconnects and speaker wire.
When I sat down to listen to this (just out of curiosity :), I didn't
know what to expect. I was absolutely blown away. They had some
20-bit classical CD playing, which I didn't recognize.
2 things caught my attention:
1. The sound was crystal clear. perfectly smooth. The instruments
sounded real, and I could actually hear the bows moving over the
violins. Never before have I heard such detail.
2. The soundstage was HUGE! Extended well beyond the speakers, and
well behind the front wall. I could place all the instruments
perfectly. Even while standing close to the speakers, they
disappeared.
Of course, this system easily costed $30,000 or more. But it was
amazing. I could sit there and listen for hours (and wish they would
let me :).
Now going home to my "little" $4,000 system makes me want the big
toys. There is definitely a difference, but I won't be able to touch
a system like that for at least 20 years :)
--
Matt Kruse
mkr...@demian.sau.edu
http://web.sau.edu/~mkruse/
------------------------------------------
mkstats-raytracing-perl-horner-psx-pov-cgi
gcp
[snip]
I don't know if coolest is quite the right adjective: I first heard
about this 'system' in the news section of the April edition of a
magazine and assumed it was a joke! But at last September's
Ramada/(Penta) Hi-Fi Show there it was - live!
Tim de Paravicini had actually done it - wired a Tube amp to a Quad
ESL and eliminated both transformers!! To save you having to work it
out there was 5000 lethal volts passing between the two!!!
>I'm sure I've heard better since, but I've never been blown away like
>that.
I can't really remember if I've heard better - I was so shocked I, I
was blown away. :-)
mdma
Manhattan. Even though the salesman was a pushy jack off, the music coming out
of this system was unbelievable. Come to think of it, maybe it was fake?!?
Now, on to the system. The amps and preamps were Krell something or others,
don't know which models, but I'd assume it was their top of the line at the
time. This was SBS' "price is no object room". The speakers were Wilson
Watt/Puppies. The soundstage was H U G E ! ! ! and very very deep. I was
totally amazed by the sound. The cd being played was some Pink Floyd material,
since I don't know much Pink Floyd, I can't say which recording it was. Oh
well, just my memories...The next best I have heard, was at my dealer's
showroom. I don't even know what the system was composed of, but I did know
that the speakers were Apogee Slant 8s. I instantly fell in love with them at
that point. Depth...depth...what great depth. And rather dynamic too. I think
I'll get a pair sometime...when I get enough cash!
-Alan
John J. Stimson
>Tim de Paravicini had actually done it - wired a Tube amp to a Quad
>ESL and eliminated both transformers!! To save you having to work it
>out there was 5000 lethal volts passing between the two!!!
I don't know that this is anything new. Someone local to Ithaca is
selling a pair of Apogee electrostats with built in tube amps, with no
transformers.
Anyway, my first audio enlightenment was hearing "The Brazilian" by
Genesis through halfway-decent headphones. The second was hearing a
pair of Vandersteen 2Ces in a huge dealer listening room with AR
amplification. I doubt I'll ever hear as big a jump in audio quality
from what I'd previously known as in those two cases...at least not
until I get a neural interface implant...
John Stimson
http://harlie.ee.cornell.edu/~john
Steven Abrams
> But let me tell you about the sound! The highs were extended
> and liquid. The bass went deep and was very well dampened. The
> midrange had an airy, bubbly character that was absolutely natural
Liquid? Deep? Airy and bubbly? All while listening to music
underwater?
You wouldn't be putting us on, Henry, would you?
> I attribute this to the increased velocity of sound in water,
> which clearly contributed to the audible sense of "speed". I
> believe that humans evolved from ocean-dwelling animals and that
> our ears and perceptual mechanisms naturally belong in a watery
> environment. I submit that this experiment proves we were not
> meant to listen to music reproduced in air!
If it weren't for the fact that you came to such a plausible
conclusion, I'd have been convinced that you were putting us all on.
~~~Steve
--
Steven Abrams abr...@cs.columbia.edu
Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
-Lennon/McCartney
George Flanagin
>
> I don't want to hear about everybody's dream system, just the best
> they have personally listened to. All the details you can remember
> too, like what the music was, room acoustics, anything that seems
> something better.
-g-> I had a friend who had a simple CD player (don't remember the
type now) driving a Naim 72/HiCap/140/XO/140 system into Maggie III
panels. He had a room built onto his house that was 16x20x9. It just
had his music equip and a sofa. Very satisfying and musical. No
distractions -- just sound. I also recall that his room was extremely
quiet. No fridge in the background. No noisy neighbors. No air
conditioning blowing.
george
Bruce Seiler
|> I don't want to hear about everybodies dream system, just the best
|> they have personally listened to. All the details you can remember
|> too, like what the music was, room acoustics, anything that seems
|> important.
OK, last year at the back room in the Digital City store in Beverly
Hills, CA. Delphi Imager speakers and power amp. Creek pre-amp and I
think CD player. The room was huge (I'll never own a house with a
room that big). The Nucelar Whales sounded so life like I started
laughing. I've gone to four Stereophile shows, but that's still the
best sound I've heard.
Bruce Seiler
sei...@compass-da.com
C.P. Tomes
Unfortunately, as with most other respondents, it wasn't my system :(
Dunlavy SC-IV with AR amps, preamp, and cd transport/DAC.
The system that had the most impact on my attitude towards audio
reproduction was a Nakamichi cd/preamp/amp (the big 250w/ch version)
and a set of Klipschorns, about 15 years ago. It really woke me up to
the physics involved in sound reproduction. Bach's toccata and fugue
in D minor has never been the same since... Imaging wasn't an issue,
of course.
CP Tomes
F. Blaine Dickson
a YBA 1 amp, a Sugden preamp, and B&W Silver Signature speakers
($10000). It is the only time I have listened to a system where I
could have sworn that jazzman, Scott Hamilton's sax was right in the
room with me. Haven't heard anything since that compares to this.
--
F. Blaine Dickson
Kelowna BC Canada
"Take time to dream"
hen...@bnr.ca
: Liquid? Deep? Airy and bubbly? All while listening to music
: underwater?
: You wouldn't be putting us on, Henry, would you?
Would I put you on? Oh, jamais! Pas moi!
: > I submit that this experiment proves we were not meant to listen
: > to music reproduced in air!
: If it weren't for the fact that you came to such a plausible
: conclusion, I'd have been convinced that you were putting us all on.
Plausible? Now who's putting who on?
I'm grateful to you for calling my bluff. I've received several
nice email messages from people who were impressed by my story, and
I haven't had the heart to tell them that certain details were, ahem,
slightly exaggerated.
-Henry
Matt Wenham
Voyd Reference Turntable (can't remember arm & cart)
Audio Note M7 pre-amp (I think)
Audio Note Kit 2 power-amp
Audio Note speakers (94.5 dB efficiency, I forget the model)
Sonny Rollins was *in the room with me*. It shocked me when I first
heard it, it was that real. 'Nuff said.
George Sallustio
> I don't want to hear about everybodies dream system, just the best
> they have personally listened to. All the details you can remember
> too, like what the music was, room acoustics, anything that seems
> something better.
Mine, many years ago. Dayton Wright Electrostatics MKII, SAE amp (I
forget the model), Harman Kardon Linear Tracking turntable ( I forget
the cartridge), Dayton Wright preamp, large room. Only system that
could make me believe performers were in the room. I could feel the
breeze from bass drums. I could touch guitars. How I miss it.
George
Russell DeAnna
bit more creative than the people who answer the question: "If you had
to do it all over again, would you still manry the same person?" From
what I remember the usual reply is something like 75% "Yes." But I
suppose that doesn't include our 50% divorce rate.
But getting back to audio. No one said "My home system." And I won't
either. My two most interesting experiences occured within the past
two years. One was at Don Roth's house (Klipsch Horns driven by a
little Bedini 25W/25W class A solid-state amp and an old Mission CD
player.) The sound from those K-horns was both "huge" and
"effortless." The music was just "present." He had the speakers way
back in the corners of the room -- not ideal placement since they were
very far apart relative to the depth -- and I was standing nowhere
near the sweat spot. There wasn't a realistic image per se, but it
sounded more real than anything I had heard.
The second was at Hoffmans Audio/Video in Cleveland. It was a Saturday
evening and the store waso clsing. I was standing outside of one of
the listening rooms with my back to the door and talking to an
employee. All of a suddden I heard a saxophone playing live music in
the store. So I turned around and walked about 30 feet to the room,
looked inside, and no sax player. Only some big Martin-Logans and
Mark-Levinsons.
--
Russell <r...@lerc.nasa.gov>
Lynn Olson
discrete quadraphonic recording of Last Night At The Proms, playing
the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. They were using a 1/2"
Studer tape deck at 30 ips with no Dolby A, the recording was made
with a prototype Soundfield microphone, and the four playback speakers
were full-sized BBC monitors with internal Quad 303 bi-amping. (The
recording must have been a first-generation mastertape.)
Although the room was rather small, I could hear the hundred-strong
choir and the full symphony orchestra with no breakup, no loss of
clarity, and could easily tell I was about 30 feet back from the front
of the stage. When the audience got excited, they started clapping
along with the music, and I could hear the handclaps next to me, 20
feet away, and on the other side of the hall ... hundreds of them, in
all directions. The system was so effortless all of this came through
clearly, the orchestra, the choir, and the audience, all very much
like being there. Indeed, with my eyes closed, the room completely
disappeared. It was the most effective illusion of "being there" I've
ever experienced.
Even though I've been to the CES many times, and reviewed the Ongaku,
the Kassai, and other audio-exotica, I've never before or since ever
heard anything as lifelike as that performance at the BBC Research
Labs. So when people ask me whether CD's or LP's are better, I say
"Neither! Get the mastertape!"
--
Lynn Olson ................. ly...@teleport.com
Associate Editor for Positive Feedback Magazine
Steve Zipser (Sunshine Stereo, Inc.)
While I was in the Navy, slaving away for uncle sam, I bought a Tandberg
64X tape deck with crossfield heads & a tube circuit design. Since it
was made in Norway, and I was stationed in ICELAND when I purchased it,
would this qualify as the collest component of all time??
Zip
Richard D Pierce
Steve Zipser (Sunshine Stereo, Inc.) <z...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>While I was in the Navy, slaving away for uncle sam, I bought a Tandberg
>64X tape deck with crossfield heads & a tube circuit design. Since it
>was made in Norway, and I was stationed in ICELAND when I purchased it,
>would this qualify as the collest component of all time??
Nope, not even close. I have an instrumentation amplifier that sits in
a dewar and designed to run at liquid nitrogen and lower temperatures.
Not only is it the coolest amplfier thus far mentioned, it's probably
one of the quitest!
--
| Dick Pierce |
| Loudspeaker and Software Consulting |
| 17 Sartelle Street Pepperell, MA 01463 |
| (508) 433-9183 (Voice and FAX) |
Alan Tanakaa
The system that had the biggest impact on me was way back in 1977 at
college. It opened my eyes to what high end audio was all about and
made me a life-long addict. As I recall it consisted of a Linn Sondek
table, Dynaco pre-amp and amp and Rogers LS3/5A. Not astounding by
today's standards but in its time unbelievably musical with great
imaging. Also heard the Dalquist DQ-10 that year--wow.
Alan Tanaka
KeithYates
If we mean "coolest" in the hardware sense, in '81 or '82 I'd go over
Threshold-stockholder Joe Sammut's place in Sacramento (he's now with
Krell Digital) and listen to safeties (back-up copies of studio
masters) on his big Ampex R-R. An awesomely cool collection of
hardware: the tweeters were a pr. of Hill Plasmatronics--the
pulsating, helium-fed "massless" drivers of legend--the midranges were
a pr. of modified electrostatics encased in sodium hexafluoride gas
(Dayton-Wright XG-10s), and the subwoofers were a pr. of Shahinian
ContraBombardes. All amplification by Threshold monoblock Stasis 1's.
The sight of the big cans of helium and sodium hex standing in the
corner, the glow of the plasmas, the pants-flapping of the
ContraBombardes ... man, that was cool.
If we mean "coolest" in the
drop-you-in-your-tracks-reach-out-and-touch-it sense, well, a couple
weeks ago I was scurrying around a client's room, putting away the mic
and the TEF and the turntable set-up tools, and I spun an old
remastered LP--Ramblin' Jack Elliott or Lightnin' Hopkins, I didn't
pay much attention--to keep me company. The palpability stopped me
cold. I sat--hunkered, really--getting goosebumps the size of Buicks.
I knew I ought to be finishing up so I'd be ready for the client, who
was on his way from the other end of the house, but the music was so
doggone gripping I froze. Speakers were Wilson X-1s, amps were
Levinson #33s, preamp was Levinson #38S, turntable was Goldmund with
an SME V arm, Carnegie MC cartridge, and Levinson #25S phono preamp.
There was lots of other surround-type gear that could have been
switched on at the press of a button on the AMX touchscreen (X-1
center channel, and 6 WATT/Puppy surrounds, a Proceed PAV, and a pr.
of my EQuake sub-subwoofers), but none of it was in during this
particular experience. Haunting.
--Keith
Chuck Ross
I'd have to say an experience of this morning was possibly the very
best Hi-Fi system I've ever heard.
I've been sort of shopping for a new CD-Player. I owned a Pioneer
PD-65, and liked it a lot, but my son gave me, on more or less
permanent loan, a Krell DSP-CD. Beautifully made, with the famous
Krell construction, etc. but it sounded very different from the
Pd-65. Anyway, I sold the PD-65, and after a couple of weeks of
listening to the Krell, I decided I hated it. It was impossibly dull,
muffled-sounding and totally lacked depth and dimensionality.
So, I started looking around for something else. This morning, I
auditioned a Denon 1015 CD player in a small, rather new audio shop
near the house. They had it set up in a very nice, smallish listening
room, and had quite a bit of pretty decent equipment in there. Nothing
spectacular, like Krell or Levinson, but Carver Lightspeed amps and
Mirage and Klipsch speakers. Also Parasound amps and preamps.
They played the Denon thru the Carver Lightspeed with a Carver
preamp... don't remember the model number, and a pair of the small
Mirages. I had brought along a few of my own CDs to listen to.
When I put on the Shirley Horn CD, "You Won't Forget Me", and the
first track started playing, I thought I would swoon dead away.
Shirley was literally in the room...the piano was in the room, the
drums and bass were palpable. Super-airy, and just heavenly sound,
just 'suspended in the air. I sat there with my mouth wide open most
of the time. When the track finished, I put on a couple of other CDs,
but my mind was already made up. I took the Denon home. It sounds
pretty much like it did in the store, but not quite with the gorgeous,
airy and very realistic sound of the Mirages. But it's easily the most
perfectly transparent and clean-sounding CD player I've heard, ever.
Highly recommended. No Krell build-quality, here, but boy...the sound!
Replete with features, too. Amazing!
My home system is no slouch...Krell amplification and Thiel speakers,
but the room apparently keeps the sound from living and breathing like
it did in the store this morning.
--
____________________________________________________________________
Chuck Ross KC9FL South Holland, IL ckr...@ais.net
AudioMaven
<<If we mean "coolest" in the hardware sense, in '81 or '82 I'd go
over Threshold-stockholder Joe Sammut's place in Sacramento (he's now
with Krell Digital) and listen to safeties (back-up copies of studio
masters) on his big Ampex R-R.>>
Actually Joe left Krell a while ago and is back in CA working for
Nelson Pass Labs.
Myles Astor
The Audio Adventure
Aschaub
I guess the coolest system I ever heard was the one that got me hooked
on High End Audio in the first place: a Linn LP-12 with an early Ittok
tonearm and Koetsu Rosewood cartridge, some sort of cylindrical MC
preamplifier designed by a former associate of Saul Marantz, a
Threshold preamplifier and a Michaelson "two tube" main amplifier
driving a pair of Spendor BC-1's. Although I'm sure many systems --
including my own -- are more accurate by today's standards, I just
couldn't believe how real and musical the piano sounded on a good
German pressing of the Koln Concert (circa 1981).
Erik
Ok, I never actually listened to these, but Dr. Marshall Leach at Georgia
Tech tole me of a student who made gas (methane) powered speakers.
The speaker had a flame, and the amplifier was connected to a gas valve
which would open and close. The air would heat and cool accordingly and it
would make a sound.
I don't remember if he said it was any good or not though. :)
Regards,
Erik
Rckt Jim
ESqu...@news-e2c.gnn.com (Erik) writes:
This was written up in "Science News" over twenty years ago, and other
publications since.
Basically, the flame was seeded with another material (iron filings?)
The sound was there, though it was a bit tinny (poor response).
More of a curiosity than an audiophile product.
-J
Donald Maffei
My story:
I was on a business trip in LA and had one day at the end to try to
see the place. For some reason, which seems a bit strange to me now, I
decided that I wanted to see some good stereos along with a bit of
ocean. I spent 5-6 hours in Saturday afternoon LA traffic before
I found myself at the door of Christopher Hansen's in Hollywood. The
place looked so ritsy I hesitated to go inside. After all that time
on the road, I decided I didn't care what anyone thought.
The receptionist said all the salesmen were busy, but I could look
around. First was through the glass door into the mid-fi room.
Some nice stuff there. I wandered towards the back, carefully
listening at each solid door before peering inside. Big video
room, and a room with WATT/Puppies. No CDs though.
I opened another door. A pair of the big Thiels and a CD jukebox
drive welcomed me inside, but did not prepare me for what I saw
next. The Goldmund Apologue.
The Apologues are a cross between a work of art and a good-sized
sound reinforcement system. 5 black boxes for the individual drivers
stand at least 7 feet tall and 3 feet wide, supported by chrome
spikes and a slanting metal frame with huge (10"?) knurled knobs
coming into the side of each box. I couldn't decide if I wanted
to fall on the floor laughing at the absurd monuments or have an
orgasm on the spot.
I pressed play on the Goldmund CD player and Graceland came on.
I sat down in the huge room after my hard day on the road like
it was my own living room. The sound was unbelievable. The voices
were rich and airy, and the snare sounded like it was in my lap.
HYPER-real. No element was exaggerated, yet everything sounded
almost realler than real. Unlimited dynamics.
I looked around the room. Not only was it huge, maybe 70' x30'
x 25' high, but it had a wave shaped ceiling. The rest of the system
was Goldmund, best I can remember, except the huge MIT cables.
I later found out that the speakers cost $70,000. The rest of the
equipment and the room probably beat that. The speakers have 2 really
huge boxes for the woofers, and a surprisingly large midrange
enclosure,
flanked by 2 tweeter boxes (TMT arrangement). I don't really understand
the two tweeters; my best guess is that I was hearing direct sound
from the lower tweeter, while the upper one filled out the room sound--
you sit way below axis with these things.
After about 15 minutes, I felt a bit guilty for enjoying these
riches for free, plus I wanted to hear something that I had heard
of before, so I left and found a salesman.
The WATT/Puppies I heard later sounded extremely ordinary
by comparison.
Bill Spencer
(not Donald maffei)
Russ Button
Russell DeAnna (to...@lerc.nasa.gov) wrote:
: But getting back to audio. No one said "My home system."
OK. I'll say it. I have a pair of X-Static EC-X loudspeakers,
(X-Static Systems 510-387-1325), and a pair of sub-woofers I built
(send e-mail for the article I wrote some ages ago on the project).
The electronics I run are good but nothing unusual.
Turntable Linn LP12 w/Rega RB300/Rega MC cartridge
Pre-amp APT-Holman
main power amp B&K ST-140 stock
sub woofer amp Adcom 545 MKII
active x-over Marchand 24db/octave (this is a BIIIIG win here!)
The speakers are what make it. The X-Statics are a curved diaphram
electrostatic that have terrific imaging and clarity. The Marchand
x-over matches them seamlessly with the subs (10" drivers in a ported
enclosure ala Hsu Research, 3db down at 23 Hz). It is all quite
convincing.
Another totally enjoyable system belongs to an old friend who runs all
classic Marantz tube gear (7c preamp, two 8B power amps run as bridged
mode, Class A, 40 watt mono blocks), driving an old pair of KEF
Calinda's. It may not be the most accurate system, but it's sooooo
sweet you can sit and listen all night long.
One of the better showroom experiences I've ever had was at dbAudio in
Berkeley, California. They had a pair of $12k Avalon loudspeakers
with high end electronics, a highly treated room, and a real comfy
couch. Truly wonderful sound. We should all have $40k to blow on a
system with an 18x15 foot room to dedicate to it...
Russ Button
Vague E. Nigma
Coolest Audio I ever heard...?
ROKSAN Cd player & DAC, Bryston preamp and 4B power amp, going to a
pair of medium sized Mirage M3's (Medium for mirage).
IT was a chesky disk, John Frigo with Bucky and John Pizarelli.
It was the first time I have ever heard a real drum kit reproduced
by a stereo system. I know drum kits, I have two of them.. hehe This
is what keeps me goin in the crazy hi end audio world. Now I just need
a room big enough for them bipolar Mirages...
TOM....
Edward A. Oates
[quote deletion - wsr]
Coolest system? My personal system (gotta love those IPO's!)
Marantz CDR 610MK-2, Spectral SDR-2000 PRO DAC
Spectral DMC-20 preamp
Mark Levinson 20.5 amps
Infinity IRS-V speakers
Room: 19x38x16 high (peaked ceiling, open to another large space with
an intervening 9' high wall)
Listening to a well recorded piano with this system has you believing
that the instrument is there with you. Pipe organ moves your internal
organs with 32' pipe sounds. The sound stage is deep and wide and
utterly believable. Bass extends to 16Hz -- really -- the IRS-V has
its own integrated bass amps with 2000 watts per side.
This system will be replaced shortly with custom made di-polar
speakers by Brian Elliot for a new listening room. They will provide
cleaner bass response at levels up to 120dB for a home theatre and
music system.
Regards,
Ed Oates
(eoa...@netcom.com)
(Note: I am the owner of the Audible Difference, a high-end
retailer. I purchased all of the stuff noted above prior to buying the
store).
Bob Trosper
> Coolest Audio I ever heard...?
Well, I guess it's a tie between the first (Duetta Signatures, Krell
amps of some kind, don't know preamp, MIT cables (earlier ones - this
was back in mid 80's). As you can tell, I had no experience with high
end at that time but this set-up was an ear opener at the local
dealers.
The tie-mate was the Infinity just undr the big IRS (what the hell was
the name of that? It's just off the tip of my tongue - maybe if I ran
into the screen, here :=) IRS Beta wasn't it? Levinson 23 amps,
Levinson pre-amp (can't remember - probably the 27), some kind of
French turntable playing Jonie Mitchells "Mingus" album - well hell,
you're not going to stop after the first cut, are you? First time I
ever was SCARED by a bass guitar.
I've heard a lot since, and I like my own system, but for pure "WOW",
I'd have to say those two.
And the rest of you?
-- Bob T.
Triozzi
Coolest I ever heard?
The coolest system I ever heard was pretty strange! A local DJ built
his own tube amp to use at dances and varius events. Anyways, I asked
him how powerful it was and if could handle a low impedance load like
a Theil or Martin Logan. He then hooked a pair of the older Martin
Logan CLS's that have a minumum imdepance of 0.6 ohm IN PARALLEL! It
worked! The amp could drive them to pretty high volumes too. The
sound was not very good but I just could not believe that a tube amp
could do this. I think the output power of the amp was close to 2000
watts.
Triozzi
Thomas R. Prowda
Russell DeAnna wrote:
(snip)
> But getting back to audio. No one said "My home system." And I won't
> either. My two most interesting experiences occured within the past
> two years. One was at Don Roth's house (Klipsch Horns driven by a
> little Bedini 25W/25W class A solid-state amp and an old Mission CD
> player.) The sound from those K-horns was both "huge" and
> "effortless." The music was just "present." He had the speakers way
> back in the corners of the room -- not ideal placement since they were
> very far apart relative to the depth -- and I was standing nowhere
> near the sweat spot. There wasn't a realistic image per se, but it
> sounded more real than anything I had heard.
Klipshorns are designed to be placed in the corners of the room, as
the folded horn bass cabinet is designed to use the walls of the room
as extentions of the mouth of the horn. Klipshorns, while not the most
revealing and transparent speaker systems, do have great dynamics;
great "jump factor". The don't need lots of power, but it better be
clean power. Once upon a time, lots of audiophiles were using Mark
Levinson ML-2 amps, Krell KSA-50, ARC D-70 and the like. Again, not
the most revealing speaker, but still a good product, 40-odd years
down the line.
One of the more amzing systems I heard was a neighbor of my parents in
Syracuse, NY. Fellow was an electronics engineer with GE. His system
was all McIntosh tubes; C-22 preamp, MR-71 tuner, whatever MPI piece
they made at the time. His sources were an Ampex 351 2 track tape
recorder, on which he played his 15 ips master tapes of local choral
recordings,as well as his 2 track prerecorded tapes; a Fairchild belt
drive turntable with a Grado wooden arm and Grado moving coil(!)
pickup. His speaker system was a 3 channel Klipsch system; K-horns in
the corners, a La Scala as a center channel. All of this was driven by
3 McIntosh MC-275 amps, bridged, for 150 watt/channel(!). His system
was in a very large room, with the speaker systems on a wall that must
have been at least 20'. Needless to say, in a room that large with
that kind of power, the system had a *huge* sound. I remember that
well made large-scale orchestral recordings (London, RCA, Mercury) had
quite a bit of majesty on this system, and gave up *very* little in
terms of dynamics to contemporary setups.
Tom Prowda
San Francisco
Werner Ogiers
Not listened to, but French mag NRDS (NeRDS???) once reported on a Japanese
audiophile who used this:
-speakers: Wilson X-1, Wilson WHAMM (!!!)
-amplifiers: commerical Audio Note for bass,
custom-made Audio Note ('Ginza') for mid and treble
(this is >Gako-On territory!)
-main source: master tapes, played back on
-Nagra D: 24bit 4 track machine
-Nagra IV: portable analogue r2r
-gigantic Sony pro r2r
-secondary source: Mark Levinson CD
Werner
ogi...@imec.be
davelw2
Howdy :)
At a Stereophile Magazine Hi-End show I heard the Martin-Logan
Statement Speakers (HUGE four tower speakers that have electrostatic
transducers coupled with dynamic subwoofers: $35,000) driven by Four
Threshold Class A amplifiers rated at 300 watts per channel (one amp
per tower).
They put on Tuck and Patti's CD and I thought I had died and gone to
heaven. Patti was RIGHT THERE! And Tuck's guitar was warm, rich,
resonant, and wonderful. The dynamics of this system were SCARY. The
music was around you and IN you.
It gave me a brief introduction into audio nirvana ...
DaveW
Knut Somme
Many years ago I partially worked in a small 8 track studio. Just for
the h... of it we connected the 8 tracks to separate amps and routed
the sound to 8 speakers. (AMPEX MM1100 1" recorder)
As we happened to have a round room (!) the speakers were hung on the
wall with equal distance between them. It gave quite a psychedelic
listening experience & I guess being in the mid/late 70's must have
been one of the 1.st octophonic setups in the world... ;-) Drum rolls
moving across the room, vocals spread on 3-4 speakers, you really
looked around to see the different musicians.
Cool, funny but (as many other projects..) of no practical use.
--
Knut Somme, Stavanger, NORWAY,
kn...@stavanger.geoquest.slb.com
davelw2
Howdy :)
An addition to a previous posting: The Martin-Logan "Statement"
loudspeaker system, which I so enjoyed listening to, is no longer the
$35,00 that I quoted (when I heard them after they had just been
released some years ago.)
The Statements, I'm now told, retail for $60,000.
What's a person to do ...?
DaveW
Alan Peterman
I've had 3 memorable "blown away" experiences..
One was when a local shop owner called me in to help set up the new
(at the time) RTR-2500 speakers they had gotten. With two Crown
D-300A amps each driving a speaker, and source of "Tarkus" we actually
had the doors of the listening room physically moving over 1/2"! The
RTR-2500 for those of you not familiar with it, was a big
(refrigerator sized) speaker with a 25" bass cone, 12 or so dome mids
and 16 dome tweeters per cabinet...
Another similar experience was hearing the LWE 8. These use motional
feedback on the bass cones...all 8 15" cones! I owned 3 of the
"smaller" LWE speakers so I had a slight idea of what tight bass was
about...but hearing these in a small theater after hours we cranked up
them with a live drum tape...don't rememeber who but it was VERY
palpable..
Last experience I remember vividly was the Infinity Reference
Standards (IRS) Series II at a client's house. If I had the spare
money, those are the ones I'd own. Clarity, image and bass.
BTW - as you can tell, I really do think the speakers are the most
important component...
--
Alan L. Peterman (503)-684-1984 hm & work
a...@qiclab.scn.rain.com Tigard, Oregon 97224
As I get older the days seem longer and the years seem shorter!
John Flick
Full Krell Electronics package with their top o' the line mono amps,
preamp, digital front end. They were using the Big Daddy Dunlavy
speakers and XLO cable.
For a more modest system...2 pairs of Emminent Technology ET-8's (side
by side belive it or not), Manley Preamp, VTL 300 amps, Sota Cosmos
Table with ET-2 arm and all Tara Labs cables. Huge soundstage tight
bass focussed as hell.
Mike Ford
In article <4n2ftp$b...@agate.berkeley.edu>, Alan Peterman
<a...@qiclab.scn.rain.com> wrote:
>I've had 3 memorable "blown away" experiences..
>
>Another similar experience was hearing the LWE 8. These use motional
>feedback on the bass cones...all 8 15" cones! I owned 3 of the
>"smaller" LWE speakers so I had a slight idea of what tight bass was
>about...but hearing these in a small theater after hours we cranked up
>them with a live drum tape...don't rememeber who but it was VERY
>palpable..
One of my win the lotto fantasy ideas, is to make a deal with one of
the local small theaters to put in state of the art sound for one
screen on the condition I could play with it after hours etc. I
suspect the results could be fairly amazing, if not even reasonable in
cost.
BTW in the theme of loud is great, I remember a CES demo a number of
years ago where I think Altec had 8 voice of the theater type cabinets
on each side of a large projection screen with about 6kw of JBL pro
sound amps to drive them. They played a live recording of Neil
Diamonds hot august night, and brought the level up during the song in
steps until everybody knew the difference between "gee that sounds
loud due to rising distortion" and true threshold of pain and
beyond. It was a good experience, but not great audio, just a physical
demostration. Only a few times in my listening to many many systems
has the absolute level seemed a critical element of enjoyement. If
music isn't moving at 90 dB, it isn't going to get much better at 100
or 110, but the physicality and engagement of the senses might be
increased a great deal. Some loud things are just cool to experience,
like drums and organs, regardless of the musical aspects.
Michael Eskandarian
My coolest experience was at the Stereophile show in Miami a few years
ago. It was in the mbl room. These are the speakers with the drivers
that look like 3 footballs arranged vertically, one on top of another,
each one getting smaller (woof, mid, tweet). Very cool looking.
They were driven by a pair of mbl's own amps (huge mothers about 2.5
feet deep with enough storage caps to store a couple farads of
energy!). Don't remember the source component. I really enjoyed the
sound.
Anyway, they then proceeded to demonstrate were their conventional
subwoofer. The music they chose was an acoustic guitar and drums
piece by Metallica. VERY impressive. They also sounded great with my
Webb Wilder cover of Big Joe Williams' "Baby Please Don't Go". (Quick
little drum solo in the middle of the song.)
--
Michael Eskandarian | I'm in the monkey business,
| and business is booming.
E-mail: eska...@polaris.orl.mmc.com | - Webb Wilder
CGerlach
Dunlavy VI's in a room appropriately treated. Precise imaging,
outstanding clarity, bottom end impact and definition and a soundstage
wider than the room with layer on layer of depth.....and it sounded
like music.
Electronics were Theta Data III, Gen Va, Krell and Mark Levinson and
XLO and Dunlavy cables/wires.
I have also heard the Dunlavy V's with similar electronics (all Krell)
that may have actually sounded better.
DHarpring
The 60 year old leather sofa acquired from an English gentlemens club
had just arrived to finalize the completion of the listening room of
an associates home. To celebrate, the seal on the Royal Lochnagar was
broken and poured into Riedel crystal purchased for the occasion.
The Dunlavy SC VI loudspeakers were amplified by Audio Research 600's
which were in turn fed by a Krell 20i and Krell 64. For the next
eight hours, every piece of music that eminated through the system was
like a thrust of joy through my heart. At times, I found tears well
into my eyes as I could not hold back the emotion that I felt from the
music. I was no longer listening to the music, but was living the
life of each musician. I felt the angst and pain of Shostakovich - I
experienced the destruction of his homeland created by friend and foe;
I was on stage with SRV, and smelled the cigarettes and whiskey of the
swaying crowd.
Every little nuance was revealed, and I reveled in the absolute
perfection of every note. While I have been invited several more
times to again listen to the system, I cannot, fearing that the
perfection that I had experienced that initial time would not be
there.
Auraears
The Coolest System?!
Here goes....the scene is a crisp fall afternoon in late October
1989. The sky is blue and the sun is lighting up a thousand lovely
colored leaves as they fall to the ground.
I have just left the local hi fi emporium, and all is right with the
world. A cool breeze breaks briskly against my wool sweater. I am
walking through the park, detecting the first chill in the air that
tells me winter is just around the corner. I feel a kind of
satisfaction that is rare, for today I have made my first "audiophile"
purchase, a NAD 2200 amp and 1020B preamp. Inexplicably, my salesman
has told me that while I have made good selections, if I really want
GREAT sound, I need to consider tubes. Since his store does not sell
tubes, I will visit his friend's home today. A friend who he
describes as a "maniac".
As I cross the park I see this friend's home, this MANIAC'S home, on
the hill, a modest frame structure. Very unassuming. I enter, and
across the large room I spy two pairs of tall, slender white panels.
Hum, interesting room dividers. After the introductions I am invited
to sit on the sofa for a listen. And then....
MUSICIANS APPEARED IN THE ROOM!!! I SWEAR TO GOD THEY WERE THERE WITH
ME!!
I have never heard anything like it, before or since. I was first
taken by the soundstaging: The walls and boundaries of the room just
disappeared. Images were huge, full life size recreations in a
believable acoustic. Tonal balance was excellent, with just the
slightest bit of roll off on top. Dynamics were uncanny...maybe still
the best I've heard.
Bass was tight, tuneful, and very well articulated. I sat rapt for
several hours as LP after glorious LP opened my ears and mind to what is
truly possible in hi fi. I have never been the same since....
THE SYSTEM: Sota Saphire TT, SME V arm, Monster AG1000, ARC MCP 33
head amp, ARC SP 8 MkII, ARC D150 tube amp, (2) Dynaco 416 transistor
amps, each fitted with (3) C100 cap units, (2) pair of Magnepan
MGIIb's with crossovers modified for biamping, Van Den Hul D102
interconnects, ARC speaker wire, tip toes, granite, VPI magic bricks,
Tripplite power conditioners, LAST, etc
Although I now own a system which in some ways best my first
reference, I will always fondly remember that one as the King.
Happy Hunting for The Sonic Holy Grail,
Auraears
Arthur Shapiro
I was impressed when Mr. Auraears was able to rattle off a rather
extensive list of equipment in SOMEONE ELSE's system:
--> THE SYSTEM: Sota Saphire TT, SME V arm, Monster AG1000, ARC MCP 33
--> head amp, ARC SP 8 MkII, ARC D150 tube amp, (2) Dynaco 416
--> transistor amps, each fitted with (3) C100 cap units, (2) pair of
--> Magnepan MGIIb's with crossovers modified for biamping, Van Den
--> Hul D102 interconnects, ARC speaker wire, tip toes, granite, VPI
--> magic bricks, Tripplite power conditioners, LAST, etc
I just have to share a Rodriguez cartoon from June, 1988. Two
audiphiles are sitting in the proverbial room full of equipment.
The one is saying: "Yes, it was back in 1955 that I bought my first
system: a Newcomb Royal 712 AM/FM tuner, a Bozak B-305 speaker, a
Brociner Mark 30-C control premplifier, a Heathkit W-5M 25-watt power
amplifier, a Garrard PR-456 turntable, and a Ferrograph 66/H tape
recorder. When my first wife, I can't remember her name, found out
how much it cost me, we had a terrible argument, and she walked out
on me..."
Art
Michael Losonsky
Last year I gave my then 8-year old a crystal radio set. We put it
together carefully and were aware of the parts and their functions.
The only part that seemed mysterious to him was the earphone, so I
explained to him how this cheap earphone worked and how simple its
design was. When he sat down and moved the metal knob across the
wires listening for something, he could not find anything. I couldn't
either but we remembered to sand down the coiled wires a bit. Then I
moved the knob, and there it was: a human voice and then music. My
son listened next, and we were both transfixed. We still go and
listen to it when we want to hear the coolest piece of audio equipment
we ever listened to.
Michael Losonsky
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Ft. Collins, CO 80523
SDuraybito
I'd have to say Lloyd Walker's *water-cooled* MOSFET amp was easily
the *coolest* HiFi I've ever listened to.
Siegfried
Bob Neuman
The day I heard Quads (the original version), I had intended to buy
Magnaplanar tweeter-mid panels for use with a huge subwoofer I had
designed and built (it later appeared in a construction article in The
Audio Amateur as "The Big Bass Box"). The Quads were set up at
Transcendental Audio in Buffalo with Quad electronics, and a B and O
SP-10 cartridge in a forgotten table/arm. I played the records I had
brought all afternoon. Here, finally, was music rather than "Hi Fi" -
the speakers/ electronics/turntable disappeared, and I heard MUSIC! I
bought my first pair of Quads very soon afterward.....
Bob Neuman
And, then there was that visit to a Tucson audio shop that had a
vintage stereo set up and running: double KLH 9 electrostatics driven
with two stereo Marantz 30 tube amps, run from a Marantz 7 tube
preamp, fed by an ADC 10E Mk II cartridge, on a Dual table, as I
recall..... WOW! Depth, breadth, detail, nice tonal balance - all
those good things were there that can make the reproduced sound of an
orchestra a satisfying simile of a real orchestra.....
Bob Neuman
I walked into Kemo's General Store in Seattle, spied an antique
cylinder pay phonograph, plunked a nickle in the slot, and was treated
to a revelation: bad as it was by any technical standard, the sound
was nice! Mechanical sound reproduction was not bad! I enjoyed hearing
the William Tell Overture on this machine.
Fender Bender
everybody else's stereo always sound great to me!!
AudioMaven
I've heard many systems over the years (yeah Pearson, etc) but the one
that made the most impact on my way of thinking was a friends up in
NH. He had a nice room to begin with with cathedral ceiling -nice
when you don't live in an apt. He had completely rebuilt his iNfinity
RS1s and was driving them with a cj Premier 1 on the bass and an ARC
M100(one of their most underated products) on the mid and top end.
The preamp was an ARC SP11 fed by a Goldmund with T3 and Carnegie one.
Wiring was all original MIT. Talk about awesome bass - I walked in
and said sounded like there was rumble to which he replied that's the
underground under the hall - sure was. Instruments could be hugged
and the tonality was outstanding if slightly colored by the ARC
electronics of the day. This guy also had an incredible record
collection (pre digital, sorry folks) and was one of the foremost
record collectors of the day (that's how we met). He also had an
incredilble reel to reel collection (though not as good as some others
such as Tom Null, Arnie Nudell, and Harry Weisfeld) and we were able
to do some interesting comparison of the 71/2 ips in line head
releases with the origeen if taken to the extreme! "Course wasn't
user friendly and wouldn't make it in todays world of instant
gratification. But hte unfetter dynamics especially at the low end of
the spectrum and also the information (though with todays new tts,
we're getting better at retrieving the information off the LP).
Myles Astor
The Audio Adventure
ILass
The coolest hifi I ever listened to was the first time I ever went
into a high end store some 12-15 years ago. I listened to the B&K
st-140 amp (then 70wpc) through a pair of Rauna Tyr speakers. The
Rauna's were made out of concrete, with a rosewood top and bottom
plate (kind of like a mini Vandersteen), and the sound was just out of
this world. I'll never forget how good those Rauna's sounded. I can
still remember the sound. Would love to find a pair of Rauna Tyrs
mark II.
Lou