HiFi Stereo Setup Thread

[msommers]

Yeah something tells me there might be some gems in there. Thanks Speedog !

[speedog]

I'll post up as much detail as I can today, there's also some speakers as well as some big 16 or so inchers not mounted. If I can't get rid of it here then it will probably be donated or into the dumpster as I can't be bothered with Kijiji or eBay or such.

From what I can remember, a NAD model 60 amp, Muntz 5000 amp, Marantz SR1000 tuner, Sansui QS1 Quadphonic Synthesizer, Toshiba SY-335 preamp, Toshiba SC-335 amp, matching Toshiba tuner, a few old portable cassettes elk flip recorders, an old mini reel to reel player/recorder with some prerecorded tapes and probably a bit more. My hope is people will buy to enjoy but at the same time I realize that some may very well flip for some quick profit in their pocket - such is life.

Oh and there are some old tube radios and old small portable analog TV's as well - at least one of the radios works, one probably won't take much to get going. Also some older solid state portable AM or AM/FM radios and older Walkmans as well.

[flipstah]

I'll take some speakers.

[speedog]

So some bad news to start, the NAD model 60 was scooped by my 16 year old nephew - he didn't care about it initially but I said he should try it out and now it's at his place. He's just loving it.

Also, the Toshiba trio (SY-335 preamp, SC-335 amp & ST-335 tuner) and a pair of Hitachi HS-420 speakers are going to go home with me - had tunes on the setup today for about 5 hours while I was at my uncle's place doing more clean-up and yupp, just sounds too nice. The speakers are around 1973 vintage and the Toshiba trio dates to around 1978, just when I was grade 11.


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So on to what should be available and please note that some beyond members have expressed interest in some of these items already as I have posted about them in the past in a separate thread specifically related to my uncle's place and belongings (link). Each piece will be sold for a very, very good price - you won't get these at a better price anywhere else. We're not looking to make gobs of money, only to see that these find a new home where they might be used and appreciated instead of a dumpster.

Also, all items do power up but I haven't hooked any up to see if sound comes out other than the Toshiba trio I'm going to keep.

Marantz SR1000 receiver vintage 1980


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Muntz 5000 tuner/amp vintage 1970's


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Sanyo DCX3000K receiver vintage 1972


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Technics SA-EX300 receiver vintage 1997

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Technics ST-K50 tuner vintage 1988


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Vivid speakers (2) EM495, vintage late 90's?


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Tivo Series 2 DVR vintage unknown


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Viking 54-18R AM/SW tube radio vintage 1938 - does power on and I've listened to AM on it. Missing 2 knobs.


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Marconi model 127 vintage 1927 - not sure of work required to get running but appears it may be minor.


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3 old portable cassette tape recorders (2 pictured)


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Emerson portable VHF/UHF TV AM/FM radio


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GE Spacemaker color TV and AM/FM radio

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[b_t]

Originally posted by msommers
b_t, post pics when you receive it! Subs require more calibration work than speakers, which generally need better placement than electronic correction. Acoustic treatment correction stuff can make a huge improvement, although I've always had large open-concept condos so it's kinda pointless for me...

Which Logans do you have again?

Will do! My room is pretty good as far as bass goes.. my main listening position is only affected by one mode around 50hz so I'm thinking the bass should be pretty controlled. MLs are nice as far as treatment goes too, not too many sidewall reflections with such a directional speaker. I could probably stand to bring them a little further into the room, but they are still about a foot and a half off the back wall.

I just have the entry level ones, the ESLs. Bought em back when the dollar was on par.. they were a fantastic deal. I figured I'd keep em forever but if oil ever comes back, I'm going to snap a pair of higher end ones. Gotta get that better midbass

[speedog]

Audio equipment image links fixed, Google Drive just doesn't like playing nice in the sandbox.

[b_t]

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It came in! Two days late, but it came in. This thing has exposed every structural weakness in my basement.. and I have to replace my projector screen. The pull-down screen is vibrating too much even without coming close to maxing the bass.

The carbon fiber cone has such a nice shimmer on it you can see the sub working from the main listening couch... awesome! Haven't spun any records on it yet but I will pretty quick here. It totally dwarfs my towers though, and it does a good job of highlighting the DefTech Supercube's niche


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[Mitsu3000gt]

Looking good b_t. A good calibration will remove a lot of those annoying resonant frequencies, or at least mitigate the issue. I've always liked Funk, I would be curious how those subs compare to the SUB2.

[sneek]

Originally posted by b_t

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It came in! Two days late, but it came in. This thing has exposed every structural weakness in my basement.. and I have to replace my projector screen. The pull-down screen is vibrating too much even without coming close to maxing the bass.

The carbon fiber cone has such a nice shimmer on it you can see the sub working from the main listening couch... awesome! Haven't spun any records on it yet but I will pretty quick here. It totally dwarfs my towers though, and it does a good job of highlighting the DefTech Supercube's niche


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I actually have a pair or ESL's and a pair of Theo's and the difference isn't as big as you would think. The ESL's are more than enough for my condo but I do want a bit more bass without upsetting the neighbours. I have the Dynamo 700 sitting in a box right now so I guess I can't complain.

[b_t]

Originally posted by Mitsu3000gt
Looking good b_t. A good calibration will remove a lot of those annoying resonant frequencies, or at least mitigate the issue. I've always liked Funk, I would be curious how those subs compare to the SUB2.

I ran ARC right away so I'm not even sure what it sounded like without correction. Mostly I just had to tidy up the basement... clear up things like loose change and lightweight plastic junk. Stopped most the audible rattling. Next I've gotta paint two MDF strips I cut to reinforce my audio rack because it's falling apart... then I need to get a fixed frame screen, because the loudest rattles left are coming from inside my pulldown's mechanism, and the screen is useless now anyway.

Data-Bass tested the Sub-2 actually. It is slightly louder than the Funk 18.0, and almost perfectly equal in volume to a Funk 21.0 down low, with less output up top. The 21.0's waterfall chart looks much better, suggesting it is tighter overall, and the compression charts make it look like it has much better performance down low vs. the Sub-2, and a lot more headroom before it starts to muck with your bass. Only thing is the Sub-2 is hard to measure due to its design, so it might still sound better in the room.

Originally posted by sneek




I actually have a pair or ESL's and a pair of Theo's and the difference isn't as big as you would think. The ESL's are more than enough for my condo but I do want a bit more bass without upsetting the neighbours. I have the Dynamo 700 sitting in a box right now so I guess I can't complain.

Ooooh Theos... I definitely want to step up at some point to the bigger speakers but it seems like all your extra money goes just to improvements for stuff handled by the mid-bass speaker(s) in the base. It doesn't seem like the electrostat panel ever changes (I think it just gets bigger?) so I think I can tough it out for now.

The Funk has very good midbass too, stays strong and undistorted up to like 500hz, so I'm running a really high crossover right now to try and cover for the speakers and it seems to work really well.

[whatthe]

If you want to nerd yourself into audio heaven, I would suggest considering some DIY projects.

I've heard a lot of things that reproduce music well enough, but ultimately still seemed to lack realism. After going open baffle, and di-pole sub set-ups I find that I can't go back. I auditioned various setups at hi-fi stores both in and out my price range and didn't hear anything to change my mind yet.

I built some NaO Note IIs that I use as my mains. They are a pain from a wiring/complication standpoint with individual channels of amplification requiring a few amplifiers and DSPs... but end result is good for a larger room.

http://www.musicanddesign.com/NaO_Note_II_RS.html

I also built some Linkwitz Plutos from the ground up including the amplifiers which was an even bigger challenge of finding, selecting, and soldering every last component onto the PCBs. Given that they are self-amplified/crossed over, equalized, time delayed, etc.. all they really need is an ipod or your main stereo bits.

Some reading if you feel inclined...

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/The_Magic/The_Magic.htm

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/frontiers.htm

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Amplifier...Distortion.htm

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/Pluto/intro.htm

Whatever the case, certain setups will work better in different rooms and even the options above have things I like and dislike. Don't just buy something because the cost starts at 'xxx' dollars. i.e. for cheaper passive setups, Ascend is a decent example of online 'factory direct'... similar to business philosophy of amplifier options like Outlaw and Emotiva. At any rate, their more expensive Sierras have better imaging and materials that suit a small room.. but most people will probably prefer the cheaper CMT-340s in a larger room with better efficiency and dispersion. Tried both for a friend of my brothers, and he stuck with the cheaper option despite the abundance of funds at his disposal.

[legendboy]

Just about to start probing this amp i just picked up. Blows the mains fuse as soon as it is powered on


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[legendboy]

Ended up getting a smoking deal on Kenwood M2A Basic power and C2 Basic Pre. Pre needs something fixed so using a Pyramid I had.

Now the mach ones are super loud. See how they sound after I do full xover components and some mods. Super stoked Do one at a time for comparison


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[b_t]

Whoa, that's some sweet looking retro gear. And it has VU meters! That's one thing I really wish I had in my setup... especially classic ones with the needles and yellowish background

Put the new sub through its paces with test tones the other day... it makes audible sound all the way down to 7hz or so at the main listening position, with the sub EQ set to "flat" and the Anthem rumble filter at 20hz 18dB/oct. I wanted to keep the low end flat but filtering the bass there frees up a ton of headroom elsewhere in the bass range.

Just craziness. Was hypnotic watching the carbon fiber cone moving in and out on the real low notes. Watching the black hole scene in Interstellar, right before whats-his-name gets sucked into the Tesseract, was an entirely different experience than it was with my old sub... sustained 10-20hz bass with a lot of big peaks. The Funk is perfectly clean, undistorted, and much louder through the entire scene. Not a harmonic to be hear the whole time. I'm curious what SPL level I was getting out of bass that low - should have been over 100 decibels. My neighbors must hate me.

Music isn't even remotely a challenge for this thing. Sounds killer and so accurate, you can hear the timber difference between clean and distorted electric bass, and feel it too.

Having a tough time getting totally even bass response on the couch... I may end up getting a matching sub to make em a pair which makes me but also because the fuckin price tag, maaaan.

I went with purchasing a completed sub so I could be assured of the performance of the end product, and I think I got my money's worth considering the driver is easily $1,200 and the amp at least a grand. But I didn't think I would see a need for a second subwoofer so quickly... maybe DIY really was the way to go here.

[cyra1ax]

I'm wiring my basement before we get the walls all closed up and was wondering if it's possible to daisy chain speaker wire. Essentially I'd like to have two terminations per front left and right channel, one high for a wall mount setup and one low for a tower setup. The wire would come from the amp to the high mount location, and then another wire would be run from the high mount to the low mount location. Obviously both connections wouldn't be used at once.

[Inzane]

With budget consciousness in mind... What is the general opinion on Polk Audio speakers?

Our bonus room is a general purpose room (for the kids etc) but I also view it as a secondary HT room, which is where I put my wall mounted 60" Samsung recently (My primary is my dedicated theater room in the basement).

I already have in ceiling surround speakers, and just need front towers, a centre channel and a sub for this room to complete a basic 5.1 setup. I'll be running them off my old Denon AVR receiver.

I was looking on Visions site at the Polk TSi series and it looks like the CS10 center is a good match to the TSi300 towers, and those plus a 10" sub (PSW108) can all be had for around the ~$600 mark. (Probably less given Visions tend to be willing to haggle). Are these speakers reasonably good for the money?

Thanks.

[01RedDX]

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[Mitsu3000gt]

If you want full 5.1 surround for $600 Polk will be fine. Margin on speakers is absolutely insane, try to grind down Visions a bit more if you go that route. You might also want to look into a 2.1 sound bar or something if you want to keep it clean and don't really care as much about the experience.

[legendboy]

I'm waiting on my Polk 9c for my large ht room

[Inzane]

Originally posted by 01RedDX
but don't expect stellar performance out of that sub.

Not complaining as I only paid $120 and don't listen to a lot of music on it. If you tweak the volume/low pass filter it's competent for a basic home theater but I think my 10-year-old Logitech Z-2300 sounds better and it's only 8"

I'm also eyeing the Polk PSW111 which is 8". It appears to review extremely well. I did notice it's not magnetically shielded. I'm not sure if that's a big deal or not. (For example, non-shielded is bad for computer speakers that sit close to a monitor). Does it matter for something like a sub that sits on the floor?