Yes ! Forever changes and a massive setup, looks awesome.Originally Posted by earlofsodbury
For my many sins, I used to run a modest dealership (succumbed to a mix of my utter incompetence and our nation's current convulsion of Europe-related insanity), still have a houseful of assorted bits and bobs (chiefly obscure vacuum tube based stuff), including a pretty enjoyable main system -
Changed slightly since, not least 'cos it's been buried under dust sheets for weeks while we build a huge new built-in vinyl rack...
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Thanks. Forever Changes is my all-time favourite album, and I have an irrational number of copies in an unlikely range of formats (remember SACD? DVD-A?, sadly no R2R tho!). The framed copy is a 1967 original in VGC. Sad to say the remaster issued by Rhino about 7 years ago is superior! I will go to my grave regretting never having managed to see Love in any of its iterations live... :(
Me too, I ruddy well love Love & particularly that album which I’ve played so much over the years it has a familiarity like no other really.
Was lucky to see Arthur Lee twice, once in London (I think it was at the Astoria but can find no record of this now...)
Then on the Forever Changes tour in Manchester - he was incredible at that one, absolutely blew me and everybody else in the room away.
Was only in my early 20’s then & looking back on it is really special now.
Researching this thread as planning to get myself set back up with a turntable etc don’t think it’ll be a patch on what you have there though !
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How I envy you!
As for the hifi - you'll get ~95% of the performance for ~10% of the cost with pretty much any option you choose.
For my many sins, I used to run a modest dealership (succumbed to a mix of my utter incompetence and our nation's current convulsion of Europe-related insanity), still have a houseful of assorted bits and bobs (chiefly obscure vacuum tube based stuff), including a pretty enjoyable main system -
Changed slightly since, not least 'cos it's been buried under dust sheets for weeks while we build a huge new built-in vinyl rack...
What speakers are those?
Heco Direkt Dreiklang
The Puresound amp looks like a little star.
But even more impressive is the Love cover picture.
Last edited by pete-r; 24th November 2019 at 23:11.
As above, the best-balanced box loudspeakers for my taste, full stop.
Recently available for less than half the wholesale price us (ex) dealers had to pay as Heco have discontinued them. That happened because they were priced at twice what anyone would consider paying for a set of Heco speakers! They're not a well-enough known brand to command £10K for a pair of speakers whose appearance proved to be a huge opinion divider.
Shame, they really are very good, if you have the room for them.
Anyone thinking of trying Tidal then get yourself on to hotukdeals where you can sign up for normal and hi res streaming for Standard Res 120 days @ 0.99/month and Hi-Fi 120 days @ 1.99/month .
Just signed up and been listening to 44khz/16 Flac streaming to my naim unitiqute.
It will not do masters at 192khz as I would need MQA support with another DAC or software on a computer but it’s very good quality and way more engaging than lo res streaming.
I've sold most of my hifi stuff, but these ancient HD-650 Sennheiser remain.
Shown here plugged into a similarly-aged Audio Technica amp (the blue light is stock) but equally at home on my old iPod. Easily my longest-lasting “blokes gadget” (watches/cars/cameras/hifi etc) and still not feeling any need to upgrade or change
For quite a few years now I've settled on one of the cheapest setups I've ever had. I've enjoyed listening to it so much I don't see any point in changing any time soon.
Cambridge Audio Azur 640c CD player
Harman Kardon HK6550 Amp (this is probably classed as vintage now)
Dynaudio Focus 160 speakers
AKG K701 headphones
Project Head Box S headphone amp
I'll probably get another turntable at some point.
Since this I've stopped using the Sonos. I built a raspberry pi4 with ropieee to use with a NUC with Roon installed on it. The Nas is used as back up.
I felt there was something more to get from the system and looked into room correction. I settled on a minidsp 2x4 HD with linear power supply. A complicated thing (to me) to set up but I think I got there in the end. It certainly made a difference to the sound of the system for the better.
Trouble is now we're moving house I think I want to reduce the footprint of the system and now I'm eyeing up the NAD M10 v2 to go with the dali Royal tower speakers and flog the rest of the gear.
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Looking for a cassette deck separate. Anyone know a good place (other than EBay) to get a decent one? Not looking for anything high end, just something that works correctly. So many on eBay need belts etc….
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Gumtree should provide a few local ones that you could demo before you buy.
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That's the killer with these 'vintage' cassette decks, nearly all need replacement belts. Definitely try before you buy or at least the seller should have a good returns policy.
Apart from belts, the only thing I'd recommend are the proper old school Sony separates range, ideally QS or ES range. You can argue about what sounds better, however there's no doubting Sony separates of a decent calibre were built to last. I'm still using my Sony CDP xa50es compact disc player which must be over 25 years old (it weighs 15kgs !). I just wish I'd kept my tape deck& Amp to go with it.
Last edited by zippy; 2nd June 2022 at 21:46.
I’ve just had a great old hifi revival experience with my 15yo son getting interested in vinyl. I’d stored my old separates system in the loft when he was a toddler owing to my music room being repurposed for playroom duties. Was delighted when we managed to get my Rega Planar 3 and NAD314 amp up and running again pretty much straight out the box (some arm adjustment required on Rega obvs). Still sounds fantastic through phones, although I’ve a generational aversion to Tyler the Creator, the latest hip hop fad…
Similar experience to the above post on my old Aiwa twin tape deck, it’s belt is (understandably) knackered, I’ve priced up a repair and service at £120-130ish but I can buy a second hand, fully serviced Yamaha KX580 (which were THE decks back in the day) for,almost similar money. Decisions, decisions.
Believe it or not you can still purchase a cassette deck separate from Amazon. They sell the Teac W-1200-B brand new for £345.
My upstairs CD player was going on the blink and I fortunately saw a Denon outfit with matching speakers being given away locally.
It was literally two roads away and I picked it up from a very nice lady yesterday.
Sounds brilliant in the gig room.
Cheers,
Neil.
Unfortunately brand new decks are no where near the same quality both in build and SQ. No major manufacturer is making the head mechanisms anymore, so they all use the same cheap, nasty, off the shelf plastic Chinese parts which cost peanuts to make. If I was looking for a quality tape deck, it would be vintage with a service /replacement belts.
*Generally - I'd also add if you can find a deck with 3 heads, HX pro, & Dolby S (optional but a nice addition), those were virtually the gold standard for decks towards the end of their life cycle. Even better if it includes the remote, which always seems to be missing.
Last edited by zippy; 3rd June 2022 at 22:14.
Some decent Nakamichi stuff on eBay.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
Nothing to add other than I used to work with a surgeon called Mr Majid Hashemi whose brother was one half of the duo who founded roksan
The Yamaha KX580 cassette deck was a great performer. Reliable too. I'd definitely go for one👍
Have a google search for ‘HiFi hanger’. They sell through eBay but also have their own premises and website, and have some pretty interesting gear come through their books. I’ve no connection to them other than them being not too far from me but their reputation is pretty good.
Have finally dipped my toes into the waters of proper hi-fi and picked up a nice Denon micro system (DM41DAB). While vinyl seems like a lot of fun don't see myself pushing past DAB and streaming (yet).
Packed up the proper stereo's years ago when bitten by home theatre systems, then soundbars and portable Bluetooth speakers, it all seemed so convenient yet the enjoyment was limited.
With young kids around the house there wasn't much opportunity to actually listen to music so didn't really care other than having background noise, though now they're a little older I actually have a quiet hour every now and then to fill with music.
So nice to finally have a great little system with the focus on sound quality purely for the enjoyment of music. Kicking myself for the wasted years but loving rediscovering old songs.
Now just have to resist buying more toys to go with it (The HiBy r5 is proving very tempting).
Without wanting to be churlish that’s not really ‘high-fidelity’ though a step up from a soundbar/bluetooth speaker. DAB radio is not a patch on good FM broadcast, it’s only 128k data rate.Have finally dipped my toes into the waters of proper hi-fi and picked up a nice Denon micro system (DM41DAB).
DAB isn’t great, you are better off looking for internet radio options they are often higher bit rate than the DAB broadcast, I think Radio6 is something like 320.
I use TuneIn which is baked into the apps for my AudioPro C10 bedroom speaker and Linn Akurate DSM streamer and enjoy a lot of foreign stations like KEXP Seattle and Ibiza Global Radio.
Thanks @MrSmith. Not actually something I'd considered with DAB. Off down another audio rabbithole now. Sadly my favourite channel is seems limited to 128k through internet radio.
They're some deep waters I'm dipping my toes into!!!
radio paradise is one of my go-to streams on internet radio. mellow/rock/eclectic mix depending on the mood.
Agreed, and also some of the SOMA FM stations. Anywhere playing Prefuse73 followed by Interpol on radio must be celebrated.
Oh wow I used to listen to Soma FM years ago, had no idea it was still going. Must check it out!
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Thanks for the tip - not heard of this before and now added to favourites.
(And for hifi i'm happy with: qobuz / tidal -> roon -> hifiberry end point -> Cyrus DAC and amplifier -> Spendor A4s)
New thread in itself but Qobuz is miles better than Tidal for fidelity, though nothing beats Spotify’s almost telepathic recommendations. Deezer is close to Qobuz.
Still got this one, a Denon DP-50L from 1977:
It used to be paired with a slightly rare Denon DL103LC moving-coil cartridge, into a Denon AU-340 SUT and henceforth into a Triode valve phono amp and Triode 300B amplifier...
This kept everything in the analogue domain from groove to speakers. I would sometimes change cart depending on the record to be played.
Digital was dealt with by that RaspberryPi with a Burr-Brown PCM5102A-based DAC accepting Apple Music lossless files over Airplay.
Speakers changed regularly but included these marble cabinet / Scanspeak drivers / silver-wired / leather baffles / silk grille things:
They started life like this...
(shipping these was quite costly)
Bedroom setup was a Rega Planar 3 with Origin Live arm, some special arm cable, motor upgrade, those HD-650s again, and a Little Dot tube headphone amp with military NOS tubes.
All of that bar the headphones and record deck have gone now. I think I've largely recovered
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