Edumicate Me, Oh Great Audiophiles

Woooo!!!! Nothing like just about $1900 MSRP speakers for $200 on Craigslist. I am extremely happy with today's purchase.

Bravenrace, i now have two spare pairs of Paradigms if you find yourself in this area.

NICE. I'd love to hear those! How much was the cat-warming pad?

I'm still tweaking them, but so far they're sounding like the Esprits that they replaced, but just.... MORE. Positively gigantic soundstage, and the imaging is flat out ridiculously awesome.

The cat-warming pad, i paid $50 for a few months ago i think. Onkyo Integra T-4097 tuner with upgraded output opamps. Great unit, but not rare enough that i cared enough to fight the "don't sleep there" battle with the cat.

Another picture of old vs. new.

I noticed the cat warming pad as well.

That's an impressive looking set up! I bet the Paradigm's sound great!

I'm so jealous! My craigslist trolling has not yet been fruitful.

On the HT versus music, I put together a dual system on the same rack, selectable by a switch.

Switch in 2ch mode and almost everything is vintage. Turntable, vintage solid state preamp with a nice phone stage (I have a tube preamp I'm playing with but so far the solid state is still sounding better), more modern slid state amp driving into large 70's German market Pioneer CS series speakers (which I've replaced a dozen times, always to return to them... I like this series so well I now have three sets). I also have my Cambridge CD player using the on-board DAC running into the preamp.

Switch in "movie" mode and everything runs through a modern lower end THX certified system. The only thing it shares with the 2ch mode is the amp and front speakers. I went to the old 2ch preamp because the phono stage in the THX recever was unlistenable. I have the CD putting out raw signal and using the receiver DAC.

When listening to the CD, I'm able to switch back and forth between the two systems. It's like night and day... the 2ch is much much superior sound.

I suspect I just have a really crappy THX receiver, but since it works great for movies, I'm unlikey to upgrade it unless I come across the right receiver at the right price....

scardeal wrote: The rears are almost afterthoughts by comparison. You'd have to watch all broadcast HD tv (vs DVRed) or DVD/BluRay sources to be using your surrounds most of the time. DVRs usually record a stereo track, non-HD tv is stereo, music is usually stereo, Netflix is stereo, etc. The only reason that front center is important is because lots of dialogue goes through that speaker, and possibly mono sources as well.

Yeah, your wrong. If your watching on Comcast, if you DVR something in dolby digital 5.1, then it plays it back in that same format. ALL the HD 5.1 is broadcast that way. SD is a different beast, some of the programs that say dolby digital 5.1 do not have the 5.1 included, the company supplying the content decides if they want to pay for the bandwidth usage to broadcast it in 5.1.

Andrew

digdug18 wrote: Yeah, your wrong. If your watching on Comcast, if you DVR something in dolby digital 5.1, then it plays it back in that same format. ALL the HD 5.1 is broadcast that way. SD is a different beast, some of the programs that say dolby digital 5.1 do not have the 5.1 included, the company supplying the content decides if they want to pay for the bandwidth usage to broadcast it in 5.1. Andrew

I beg to differ. I AM watching on Comcast. It is NOT recording in 5.1 for me. When I watch live, it is surround sound. When I watch a recorded show, it is stereo.

A few observations, disclaimers, etc:

I have an old (20years old) Yamaha stereo setup with Mission bookshelf speakers. It still sounds great, though occasionally I do encounter the static you encountered. Contact cleaner, as mentioned, gets most of it in the knobs and switches, but for speaker cables and component connections, I occasionally clip the ends of the speaker wire where it clips into the receiver or speaker. For some reason, having "new" previously unexposed wire restores the connection. I also make a point of turning, unplugging, and replugging all RCA jacks. That seems to sand off any small corrosion.

I have also noticed that while watching some movies on DVD, that voices are WAY quieter than surrounding sounds. I assume this is due to their being on the center channel which I don't have. I expect you will have the same problem.

So, I would fix your neat old audio system for what looks like almost nothing, and invest in a separate HT setup for your movies.

bump, look at what my craigslist trolling came up with yesterday;

bravenrace wrote: I'll look into used, but for now let's assume that I'm looking at new systems/components.

Keep in mind that most, if not all the Pioneer/Technics/typical Japanese stuff is really the stereo equivalent of a Kia Rio. If you want good sound, stay away from that stuff. The Onkyoi, and Yamaha stuff is better, but if I were looking for an amp, or receiver, i'd buy a NAD. You just can't beat the sound quality, and ruggedness for the price. Great value. The only way to buy speakers is to listen to them. Recommendations are great, but you need to listen. I would expect the lower model speakers coming from the quality manufacturers to sound better than your Advents.

If you have even a little bit of woodworking skill, go to the Parts express tech talk forum, and look at some of the builds. With modern drivers you can build some very impressive speakers for not a lot of money. I've been building speakers for a little more than 20 years, and in that time the technology has really changed. I'm about to build some small living room speakers with a 4" woofer that will play into the 40's.

Zomby woof wrote: Keep in mind that most, if not all the Pioneer/Technics/typical Japanese stuff is really the stereo equivalent of a Kia Rio.

I'll take a little bit of issue with that. Some of the Pioneer stuff from back in the day is amazing gear and really well built.

I also really like NAD gear, but it's not well known for durability. I would still really like to have a 2200/2400/2700. But they seem to fail quite a bit.

That was 30-40 years ago

I have one of those Pioneer receivers in my shop. It's only slightly smaller than a Geo Metro, and It sounds good, but he was asking about buying new.

NAD equipment is extremely well known for it's durability.

I'd be lumping Pioneer with Denon/Onkyo/HK/Yamaha, etc etc etc. Approaching Marantz. Pioneer knows how to make receivers, that's for sure.

Technics is garbage, so i agree with you there.

Zomby woof wrote: That was 30-40 years ago I have one of those Pioneer receivers in my shop. It's only slightly smaller than a Geo Metro, and It sounds good, but he was asking about buying new. NAD equipment is extremely well known for it's durability.

Ah. Sorry. I default to vintage. "New", to me, means mid 1980s. Hey, I have a Radio Shack receiver with a digital tuner!

I wasn't too enamoured with the NAD gear I had in the UK; most of it worked OK and it's cheap over there but compared to the used Cyrus gear I got afterwards - well, no contest.

I haven't heard much recent Yamaha gear but I liked the sound of the '80s and '90s stuff. I'd also look at Rotel but for some reason they appear to be more expensive over here than in Europe.