Show us Your Kit!

Can I have first refusal on the PL71 please, Richard.

 

Sorry , no camera at the moment.

Arcam alpha 5+ (modified & nos conversion by 'the audiocellar')

NVA P90 (twin volume control passive pre amp)

NVA A40 monoblocks (on treble)

NVA A70 monoblocks (on Bass)

Royd Revelation RR3

connected by:

NVA soundpipe: CD - Pre amp
NVA souncord: Pre - A40
NVA soundpipe: Pre - A70
NVA LS1: A40 - Royd (Treble)
NVA LS3: A70 - Royd (Bass)

Second source: Sky+ / Yamada DVDP - Beresford 6/4 DAC (Excellent) - Gotham I/C - Pre amp.

​

 

im guessing you like NVA then

seems a few NVA fanboys in the last few posts

 

lol! I got half of it by accident (happy accident) as an experiment, but I upgraded...then bi-amped...

See the thread on passive bi-amping in the hifi room for the story.

The thing about NVA is there is a clear philosophy, almost an ideology behind the design approach and its correct setup. If you follow it through, as with Naim et al, you see where it is all going. If you like, you're quids in. There's a whole load of money back trial periods / trade in upgrade paths to reduce the risk. I like the way it communicates and helps me to feel the music.

 

Indeed - I'd also agree with Alan re the bi-amping experience with this kit. It really does work and the improvement isn't subtle.

Recent acquisition for the Tecchy...



Audio Origami modded RB251 with my old Lyra Dorian in tow. Sounds fabulous (it kicks like a mule in the bass). Still not sure about the 1210 though - it now sounds very good but it's still nowhere near as musically convincing as the PL71, nor the borrowed LP12 I have at the moment.

I can see why folk do like the Technics but I really feel it's not for me.

 

My Kit

Finally decided to post my kit ....

It has taken me a while I know but hey who has never been lazy !

I did have a some Marantz K.I. signature kit for a few years .. then I changed it all for Quad 77 kit which I loved but to many repairs to the pre - amp forced it out.

So I auditioned some MF kit and liked what I heard. I no longer run my B&W 604's or the Sonus Faber Domus's.

I listened to a pair of B&W 385 for a week with my Quad 99 and V3 pre and for me they did the job, shocked I was to .. ! They sound so good in the room, Billie Holiday sounds like she is right there !
I listen to alot of Drum n Bass, classical and ambient (autechure) (Aphex Twin) and for the room the system is now in it all sounds very warm and nice.


Deck: 1210 MK II
MF: X-Can V3 Headphone Amp
MF: LPSv3 - phono stage
MF: X-Prev3 Pre Amp
MF: X-Rayv8 +PSU
B&W 385
Quad 99 Stereo power amp (2) only 1 in use though.


The only thing I may add is a DAC, and I may buy another Mitchell Gyro SE for my Philip Glass bits.

p.s. The cables are more tidier now !

 

Discovered this Forum only this evening.......

Hard to know where to start.......
Discovered the delight of music on Christmas 1961 when my father bought us a BUSH Record Player.........I've not recovered from that time !

Through the '70s I progressed through Mordaunt Shorts / Rega etc. until I got married to the long suffering Fiona who, believe it or not, was a 19 year old Music / HiFi Fan when I first met her, and owned a Rega Planar 2 !!!!! Couldn't believe my luck - I just had to marry her !

Once married and before buying carpets etc. bought a brand new and beloved Linn LP12 / Ittok / Asak, Meridian 101b / 105, Gale 401A set up (which is still working fine in a spare room).

In the mid '80s we took the plunge and bought Krell Monoblocks / Audio Research / Basis / Apogee Scintillas (soon replaced by 'Active' Divas). This eventually grew to a hystrically complicated Triamp Diva system using 6 Krell Reference KRS200s and a pair of rare Apogee Sub10 Subwoofers. When conditions were ideal (it had warmed up for at least 12 hours.....!) it sounded eerily wonderful. The electric bill was on the large side and the room, despite being large, was sweltering.....we had to shut it all down for the hotter months of the summer !

For the past 5 or 6 years we have been building a new 'Country House' Guest House in the Towy Valley, Carmarthenshire which is intended and targeted for lovers of HiFi and Music.
We have a dedicated Music Room (33ft. x 20ft.) with an Oak constructed Vaulted Ceiling. Within it will be :-

Wilson Grandslamm X1 Speakers
(2) Wilson XS Subwoofers (8ft. Tall, 700 lbs. each!)
Theta Digital Source / Pro Gen 8 DAC / PreAmp
Basis Debut Gold Standard Turntable / SME V / Koetsu 80th. Anniversary Cartridge.
Cables - Various - Mandrake / Transparent Audio.

There will be a separate 'AV' Room housing :-

Wilson System 5.1 Speakers
Wilson Centre and Rear Speakers
Krell Electronics
Dreamvision Projector
10ft. Motorised Screen.

Other equipment will be scattered around the house.......

Unfortunately, the vast majority of this is boxed away or in storage at Absolute Sounds, London - hence no photos of the systems 'set up'.

Both Fiona and I have dreamt of a Guest House for HiFi lovers for years (decades!) so are getting really excited now that we are in the final 6 months of 'building'.

The grand plan is to have the place available for guests to stay and have access, with us, to our equipment - 'bring your own CDs' !
Also, we are planning to hold 'Themed Music Breaks' (Pink Floyd / Bowie / Peter Gabriel / Kate Bush / Miles Davis etc.....) - we have been in discussions with a large number of Artists' Fan Clubs and have had extremely positive responses........

If you are at all curious about our venture then we would be very pleased to hear from you. If you have any suggestions about what our facilities could offer, then please feel free - we would really appreciate a response.
Maybe that would be worth having it's own Thread ?

We hope to be 'operational' by the Autumn 2009 and are really looking forward to the whole experience ! Our Website is currently under construction.

Caron.

 

Hellooo...

Its about time I said what I have these days... I like this system very much.
This is half the size of the old setup when I had Hornings like a pair of coffins and some lovely Trilogy monoblocks, but this punches well above its weight and probably suits the room better.

Speakers - Tannoy Chatsworths 12" Golds - lush, and lovely condition.

Speaker Cables - Mithril Solid silver/teflon 8ft pair off Technobear!

Amp - Mastersounds 300b integrated compact 15wpc - weighs 60lbs!

CD - Meridian 506

DAC - Meridian 563 with Missing Link Dark Art cable

Turntable - Linn Sondek LP12 in rosewood (looks like a tea tray), Cirkussed and Trampolinned, Origin Live DC motor upgrade and external speedbox, Hadcock 242 cryo tonearm with cryo cabling, Audiotechnica ART1 cartridge. Cartridgeman isolator occasionally puts in an appearance.

Phono Stage - Consonance Cyber 40 with JAN Philips valves

Supports - Optimum. I'd like wooden ones really.

Interconnects - Black Rhodium Illusion DIVA between phono and amp and Ecosse Maestro MA2 between DAC and amp.

Power Cables - Kemp Electronics, Isol8 VMC mains conditioner to amplifier.

Lush and detailed, gets to the heart of anything, goes loud on very little, this hifi doesn't sound like hifi it sounds like music! I listen to anything from Mozart Arias to Kruder and Dorfmeister, to Grace Jones. I'm an open church when it comes to genre - why pin yourself down? Origin upgrade to the TT gets slagged by Linnies, but I have nothing but praise and had none of the speed stability issues they go on about. If Ivor had just breathed on it, they'd love it

Piccies to follow, if you like oldschool looks and lots of timber, stick around...

 

New member

Pleased to be a member of this forum..
Here'smy system:
Cranfield Rock (number 007)
Linn Ittock
Denon DL 304

Musical Fidelity 'The Preamp'(Avondale mod)
Pair Edison 12 valve amps driving..

Snell E's
Accessories include Van Den Hul 102 interconnect,
RS coax speaker cable..

 

Hi Rocket

Welcome to the forum.

I had a Rock TT with a Rega RB700 and Dynavector D17 mkIII.
and trough full of syrup!

Fabulous bit of kit.

Is your monicker named after a Schwinn Mountainbike?, my insane brother has one!

 

My deck is the clue to thename (plus the great swing track made famous by JoeTurner)..
Just to add that the passive biamping is one ampdriving both tweeters (4, actually as the Snells have extrapair rear-firing) and the other drives bass/mid.

 

Rana's kit

After 25 years of continuous change, my system has been strangely static for the last few months. In the linked pic:

Top shelf Michell Gyrodec V, Zeta tonearm, Denon DL110
2nd shelf Inca Design Katana CD player with XLR connects to...
3rd shelf Inca Design Talon integrated amplifier(*very rare and extremely good*)
4th shelf Archos 504 80GB DVR media player with JTC DAC
Bottom shelf Tom Evans DC power supply for Gyrodec & Cambridge Audio phono amp

Stand is Sound Organisation Z55 now fitted with made-to-measure 10mm acrylic/perspex shelves

Speakers are Linn Komponent 110

Not pictured:
Grado GS1000 phones
Darkvoice Figaro valve headphone amp
Nakamichi RX202E





A previous setup with Harbeths, NVA CD50 and Rogers E20a valve amp:

 

Time for an update now the new setup is complete






The furniture is IKEA BESTA

That's a 40 inch Sammy LE40A686M1 Full HD LCD TV (yes, I know I said I would never have another TV ). The 1920x1080 image from the PC looks superb. Below the Sammy is a Panasonic DMREX768EBK DVD/HDD Recorder. When playing recorded Freeview I have to ask what is the point of Full HD because the standard picture looks superb. However for the PC it's an absolute dream. Oh best of all I can watch TV in a window while surfing - clever TV!

On the left is a Tranquil T7 Atom PC with a UPS and a 500 GB external drive.

On the right is a Myryad MC100 for use as a transport when people bring CDs round. Below that is the Slim Devices Transporter and then a Behringer DEQ2496 digital equaliser which is zapping my room modes in the bass region.

Finally in the middle we have the Croft Syntegra driving the Zu Druid MkIV's.

 

Looks great Chris.

I think my wife would love the "rack".

 

My kit#2

Hi again.
An update: the gears are actually the same as in my first post (June 2007), but now I think I have finally optimized the accessories setup, so I'm reposting my whole kit.

Amp: Primaluna Prologue one (tubes: NOS Mullard ECC83, JAN Sylvania 5814A, Russian current production Genalex Gold Lion KT66)
CDP: Monrio NAS-DAC
FM Tuner: Denon TU-245
Loudspeakers: Audio Note AZ-two
Interconnects: Ecosse Nu Diva (from the cdp), Monster Interlink 400 MkII (from the tuner)
Speaker cables and jumpers: QED XT-400
Mains cables (to the amp and the cdp): Wireworld Stratus 5²
Block: Tacima CS929

Plus my (basic) video kit:
LCD-TV: Panasonic - TX32LX70F (connected to the Primaluna with Wireworld Terra 5 interconnects)
DVDP: Pioneer DV-530 (with Monster Interlink 300 MkII)

 

Some very impressive set-ups here!!

The centre of my audio equipment is mainly the remains from a past life - 2 x Technics 1210s - running through a Pioneer DJM800 mixer, Cambridge Audio amp and Tangent speakers. Also have Serato running on my PC for my MP3 collection.

Have a QNAP TS-209 ProII server streaming audio & video to 2 PS3s, one linked to a Sony KDL40V4000 and the other to a Sony KDL40W4000. Looking to get a KEF KIT120 to go with the Sony KDL40W4000, my ads in the Classifieds hopefully will help go some way towards financing that....

 

My system



Leben cs-300, Arcam cd33t, Harbeth Compact 7 es2 speakers. Standard cables.

 

Kit update - to help the old Pioneer celebrate its 35th birthday (it's stamped 'March 1974' on the underside of the bearing housing) I felt it should be treated to a bit of hifi nostalgia...



Best thing is that it sounds as good as it looks, and is getting better by the hour as it runs in.

 

During 2008 I had more changes than I care to remember

When I last posted I had the following: -

• Apple Mac Mini
• Benchmark DAC1 USB
• LAMM LL2 preamp
• Dave Berning ZH-270 amp
• Melin VSM MX speakers

I bought a pair of PMC AML1 monitors and dropped the LL2, ZH-270 and the VSM MX speakers.

Now in 2009 I have changed again and hopefully this is it for some time:

1. Mac Pro,
2. RME HDSPe AIO card
3. Dynaudio Air 15 monitors

Thats it - nothing more or less. May add a sub at some stage, but generally very very happy and spending my time listening to music and buying as many 'sounds' as I can.

 

The latest acquisition at Gromit Towers, a very nice (and breathed-on) WD88VA XL - thought it would be fun to re-visit music making via thermionics and when this came up I just had to give it a go...



It sounds good - in fact make that very good, and it drives the Royds very nicely indeed.