money no object

If you had unlimited funds to spend on your system, what components would you buy? or in other words, your ultimate fantasy system.

current gear would be good, but not essential (so you can include those Nak CR-7s or 1000ZXLs) .

Also, disregard any waiting times for boutique bits - after all it's fantasy

 

Mission 771's
Kenwood KAV3020se
Pioneer PSD703
and some cable talk 3.

 

i'd keep what i got

but would buy the playboy mansion to house it .
and keep the bunnys.
beat that suckers.

 

That's an easy one

I heard the following setup at Definitive Audio:

Kondo pre and power
Reson CD (I think)
Living Voice Avatar OBX speakers

Oh my lord....This system had EVERYTHING. And it didn't sound like hi-fi, it sounded like music. A Liszt piano piece blew me away. It wasn't just that you thought there was a grand piano in the room- you felt convinced you could walk over and sit on it. It was solid, real, and there, full size.

Kevin Scott (Mr Definitive) played some free jazz/world-type music, which I thoroughly dislike in every respect. I still do. But if he'd tried to turn it off, I'd have cut his hand off.

There is a downside, of course. You go home to your much loved and
long worked for hi-fi, put some music on and go, "Ho-hum..."

(BTW, I've dealt with Definitive several times and they've always been great - they really do care about music and their customer care is absolutely outstanding. Thoroughly recommended.)

 

I'd keep what I have and stop working immediately.

 

m y wife already thinks my system is money no object

 

a good hifi shop understands this, and is willing to provide you with a Wife-friendly invoice

 

Hi,

Okay, I would buy a nice large house with a large garden and a decent distance to other houses with several large downstairs rooms to arrange the systems in and to make for want of a better word "Play/Living/Party/Event" Rooms.

I would have at least two room, probably three as such.

Room One

For ambiance would be a small concert hall / cinema intended for all sorts of home cinema and also classical music as well as various concert DVD's etc.... This would have a surround sound system and would include a decent approach to extract surround sound (based on the work by Douglas Rife) from 2-Channel recordings.

Speakers would likely be Supravox Fieldcoil Drivers on Oris 150 Horns X 5 (5.1) with suitable Woofer sections (probably also horn loaded - with 50Hz - 150Hz coverage the old 18" Fane Horns could do well) and some horn or ribbon supertweeters driven by some nice custom SE Valve Amplifiers likely 300B on the Woofers and 10Y or 45 on Supravox Drivers and supertweeters using passive line level crossovers.

As "infra woofers" (for 32' Organ pipes etc) I'd probably go for some fostex FW-800.

Source would be either PC based (for digital) or a Rockport Sirius or similar style "super turntable" with a top notch pickup and a custom LCR equalised Phonostage plus a Final Laser Turntable, line controls would be 6-Channel Transformer Volume based, all controlled via Home Automation systems, most gear hidden.

To the Turntable inputs I would add either an original Cello palette or a custom based version based on Valves and LCR Filters, for the PC I would use Waves Renaissance PEQ 6 with suitable settings and a small touchscreen, I would probably also set the system up such that any LP played would be recorded to the PC's HDD in 24 Bit/192KHz, so a pro ADC of the higest grade would have to be found.

Anyway, that would be room one.

Room Two

For Ambiance I would take the cues from Tokyo & Paris Jazz Cafe's, small cafe style armchair seating around kidney shaped marble top tables, low light, small bar and big DJ Booth and modest stage. There would also be a top notch projector and screen on the stage, PLUS a complete setup for a small jazz ensemble, including drumkit and most likely a Hammond Organ.

There would be a 2-Channel stage sound system for the stage, probably for fun I'd get all original old WE Filmsound, WE91A Amplifiers, WE555 Horns and all that (or maybe modern replicas and Cogent Systems or Goto Drivers etc.) and back this up with a more modern system based around top notch Studio Monitors like the Meyer Sound X-1 and matching Subwoofers.

Sources would probably be an old EMT Studio Turntable with Ortofon Arm and SPU Pickup (spherical needle) and a Studer Studio CD Player, secondary source would be PC based for DVD Video and modern Audio replay with a db/lavrey DAC and adding on the Final Laser Turntable. I'd probably also have another Cello Palette (original here).

Room Three

For ambience this would be a "rock bar" again a bar, a DJ Booth and a number of Pinball and other game machines, Billard Table and some seating at the bar. Again a full stage with screen, projector, drumkit, Marshall guitar stack, Ampeg SVT Bass stack and the various instruments and definitly including a Fender/Rhodes E-Piano.

Sound would probably be something like a Linn LP-12 fully loaded and a Naim Preamp as well as a Laser Turntable and a Marantz CD-12/DA-12 2 Box CD Player (refurbished, upgraded), plus (again) a Cello Palette (original again) and most likely a old JBL/Amcron(Crown) 1970's Studio monitor setup on one side and maybe another Meyersound X-1 & Sub Set.

Main Living room

Tannoy GRF Autograph reproductions from Octave with Monitor Red or Silver driver or maybe Jensen Imperial Horns for RCA LC-1 with LC-1 Driver, Kondo/Audio Note Japan Amplification (probably several choices, collectors perogative) and as Turntable maybe a Acoustic Solid or Platine Verdier or Grease Bearing Garrard 301, Denon DL-103 in SME-3012 and Ortofon SPU in Ortofon 12" Arm, CD-Player probably PC based with Kondo/ANJ DAC or maybe a Zanden DAC.

Anyway, that is what I would aim at (final solutions might well differ) to have in my pad for music, I would have very frequent parties to which I would invite Musicians who are friends to play on the stages and I would probably see if I can set up a small independent label and re-issue interetsing historical material and record new stuff and artists that interrest me.

Ciao T

 

IMO anyone feels they have to deceive their wife about the amount of money they spend on hifi (or cars or other boys toys) has something fundmentally wrong with their marriage.

that has to be a contradiction in terms. if it didn't sound like hi-fi (ie high fidelity, accurate reproduction of original etc. etc.) then it can't have sounded like music.

This idea that sounding like hifi or like music are different things is one of the sillier ones to have gained a following in recent years

Michael.

 

PMC bb5 xbda - plus two airtangent arms and an upgrade to the two arm lagrange deck. and a koetsu blue lace. oh and that chiaka chick from kill bill.

 

agreed, but it was tongue in cheek.

that said how many of us drool over large boxes (like westminsters or big ATCs) in the mags, and know that there is no way that the missus would entertain them in 'her' lounge. meanwhile in our box-room listening space we've got barely enoug room for a pair of Avi Neutrons and a chair...

 

in the current house...
source
squeezebox 2 modified with full psu regulation from a linear psu. optimised for digital only output and rehoused in a nice 'bling' case.
dedicated water cooled silent server with 2tb of hardware raid 6 storage.
audio synthesis dax decade with black gate upgrade and modified to accept the npc filter from the dax-2 if possible (not sure it is). possibly a dax discrete but i'd need to hear one or a msb platinum link but again i'd need to hear it first.

amplification:
6x vincent sp t-100 valve / transistor mono blocks.

speakers:
b&w nautilus - the original spiky ones not the 800 series.

loom / power:
coherent systems.

to be honest though most of this is just cosmetic and if you notice based on what i have already.

if i could count the house as part of the upgrade then i'd have a house in the middle of nowhere amps and speakers made bespoke and fiddled with until i was happy and the source as described above. i'd also have a dedicated home cinema room with massive projector / screen + big plasma monitor, wilson maxx speakers and tact room correction just to show off with. but i'd probably hardly ever use it....

 

I'd probably keep what I have, except get a pair of ATC active 300s. That would shut you all up. Probably.

;-)

 

Maybe I should have defined my terms, but I beg to differ....some kit sounds very 'hi-fi' not in the sense of fidelity to the original performance but in the sense that it's super-detailed or defined.

One example: my new amp sounded like what I'm calling 'hi-fi' - clear, clean, punchy, driving, etc. But it sounded like four musicians each playing out of four different systems. Superficially impressive, but there was no sense of a band playing together.

I replaced the two Philips pre-amp valves with Edicrons and, voila, I could hear a band playing as an organized unit. That's the distinction I was trying to get across.

This is a little tricky to put into words, but I hope I've conveyed the gist. I agree, though, that hi-fi should mean faithful to the original.

 

PMC bb5 xbda sounds good to me too. Before that though, I'd need a massive solid house with a custom made acoustic friendly listening room / lounge.

BBV, Ian Downs from PMC recently told me of a customers £700k home install. There was a hidden small walk in room just for all the Brystons! All PMC's were hidden in the walls too. They had the biggest models, plus a ton of subs to make it really ott. I felt like a big issue selling tramp after hearing about it all.

 

Wow! I bet nothing could match that!

 

Hi,

MAYBE, but why do the Girls usually deceive us about the amounts of money they spend on Dresses, Shoes and Jewlery?

Ciao T

 

Its all part of the game. All this harmoney and love stuff is nonsense. Marriage is a darwinian struggle!

 

If money was no object, I would get a life.

 

graham,
after being made to feel inadequate for not having a life by the evil media - i went out and got one. it's not all it's cracked up to be and i sometimes yearn for the time when i could spend all saturday listening to music in my underpants.
cheers


julian.