Your listening equipment

[yuc4h]

I know that the great majority of you love listening to the music but the thing that most people fail to realize is the huge impact listening equipment has on the relaxation/ enjoyment received from listening to the music. Most just use some average speakers or headphones and a normal stereo as the source or whatever. The thing I have noticed that you can have world class audio with under 1000$ if you know what you are buying. I just bought a new headphone amp and the effect it has on the music is staggering. This is like another definition for heaven I wish more people realized that buying better audio equipment is a really good investment and went audiophile

How my gear works is use lossless source files like .flac or .ape, route them from M-Audio Audiophile USB soundcard to Musical fidelity XCan v.3 headphone amp and listen to them using my AKG K701 headphones. Tell me more about your gear!

[thalbergmad]

Tell me more about your gear!

I have a 1907 set up, built into a lovely walnut cabinet. It has a volume control (you open the doors) and i still have some original bamboo needles.

It can play 2 x 12 inch 78rpm disks, before it needs winding up again and the sound is simply devine.

How many of your $1000 units will still be working in 100 years time?

Thal

[yuc4h]

How many of your $1000 units will still be working in 100 years time?

Actually, that has hardly any relevance at all since

1) I do not plan to live for another 100 years
2) The technology will propably advance to the point in 10-20 years that I will gain significant improvement changing equipment
3) If you had that kind of thing that would have costed way more than 1000$ in the money of that time
4) I can not see the future (or maybe I should check the infamous book that apparently knows it all)

[allthumbs]

Thal

You always crack me up. 

I guess your sense of humour is lost on some people.

BTW - Don't porcupine quills work just as well as bamboo?

allthumbs

[yuc4h]

I guess your sense of humour is lost on some people.

Not really, but the thing is, there could be at least some good threads in this forum that don't have that random shiat. I'm sure this thread maybe would have ignited some intelligent discussion but now it's the same crap almost every other thread here. There is the great humour dAS:D:D:Asd.d.ddddddD I'm so lol'd

Thal, why don't you post something that is really funny when you are in the subject?

[pianochick93]

Hey, at least it hasn't developed into religious babble yet.

My listening equipment...well I have two sets of cartalidge (spelling?) on either side of my head, and they work just fine for me...

On a more serious note (no pun intended), I generally just listen out of my computer speakers, as most oif my music is on the computer.

[thalbergmad]

Thal, why don't you post something that is really funny when you are in the subject?

I was in subject. You said "tell me more about your gear" and i gave you an honest answer. I still use this old record player with my 78's and the sound quality is exceptionally good. I have no idea how much it cost as it was a wedding present to my grandparents.

Since it appears that i have infested your thread and possibly stifled any intelligent discussion, i will say no more on the subject, as i can bore myself to death in other threads.

Thanks

Thal

[thalbergmad]

Thal

You always crack me up. 

I guess your sense of humour is lost on some people.

BTW - Don't porcupine quills work just as well as bamboo?

allthumbs

I am moved by this, thanks.

Just about anything works on old 78's, even a fingernail. When i was a schoolboy, i do remember using old compass needles which worked perfectly. The bamboo ones need constant sharpening.

Don't think we have any porcupines in the UK, but the next time i run over a hedgehog, i will conduct an experiment.

Thal

[yuc4h]

Actually I'm not a technology geek and I also do love the sound of some very old machines. It's just the nowadays normal consumer-quality audio equipment that has so terrible sound in it and I don't know why.

That's why I'm using a tube amp (musical fidelity xcan v3) despite the seemingly cool name it contains some very old technology

I would encourage people to rather buy themselves some high quality audio than spend big money going around in concerts because with todays state-of-the-art equipment when you close your eyes, you will be there. Thal, I encourage you to go to your local music shop and try out some audiophile quality headphones, you will be impressed.

[thalbergmad]

I must admit that i am not a great lover of headphones, i just simply do not like the feel of them. I do have some "wireless" headphones which i plug into my organ so nobody can hear me play, but for listening purposes, i love to sit on my armchair surrounded by amplifiers.

My 1990's Technics stack is undoubtedly out of date, but as you say normal consumer quality audio equipment is not very good.

A friend of mine is a bit of a technophobe when it comes to audio equipment and he has spent an absurd amount of money on it. Strangely, modern music sounds great on it but when i put one of my Romantic Concerto discs, he could not get a nice sound no matter how much he played with all of the switches.

Thal

[richard black]

Thalbergmad - bamboo needles are the best, no question. Synthetic fibre is just nasty and metal damages the groove. You done good.

Me, I use Grado GS1000 headphones for a lot of my listening, especially when editing recordings (which I do a lot). They cost an arm and a leg and a mortgage on your immortal soul and they are _well_ worth it. Also ATC SCM20 loudspeakers with a nice powerful NAD amplifier.

[leahcim]

How my gear works is use lossless source files like .flac or .ape, route them from M-Audio Audiophile USB soundcard to Musical fidelity XCan v.3 headphone amp and listen to them using my AKG K701 headphones. Tell me more about your gear!

It's a pair of  beyer dynamic dt150 headphones plugged into a podxt acting as usb soundcard.

But that's largely to avoid waking people up rather than for quality reasons TBH.

I imagine studios'd spend your $1000 on a single monitor speaker, let alone for their whole setup.

[yuc4h]

I imagine studios'd spend your $1000 on a single monitor speaker, let alone for their whole setup.

And that is just the reason why I am a fan of headphones. You can have the kind of audio quality you could never afford with speakers. As with AKG K701: s Some reviewers have said their sound quality surpasses some speakers with 20k$ price tag.

And I do know that extremely high quality stuff will cost you alot more, the best speakers available are as far as I know the Wilson audio Alexandria X2 costing 135k$ a pair. The best headphones are only a minor fraction of that price (Sennheiser HE90 Orpheus system amp and headphones, around 13k$) and still the sound quality doesn't lack -that- much to qualify the 120k$ larger price tag.

That is the reason I say, forget the speakers, go for high quality headphones, unless you have unlimited amount of money to spend. If I had, I would gladly go for a pair of Alexandrias.

[anodibu]

For a while I was meaning to buy quality headphones but I wasn't sure which one to buy. I hadn't heard of the AKG K701 before. I read some things about them and they seem like really impressive headphones, so I ordered myself one. Should be arriving tomorrow.

Guess the next thing is buying an amplifier as I will be mainly using them on my laptop.

[yuc4h]

I read some things about them and they seem like really impressive headphones, so I ordered myself one. Should be arriving tomorrow.

Be adviced, they may not sound so great out of the box. These things require at least 300 hours of burn in before realizing their true potential, they will gradually relax during the first playing hours so be patient. It will be worth it

You will definitely need an amp. With integrated sound card, they will not sound even nearly as good as they could. It may even be that you will have problems trying to drive them as they have quite dubious efficiency rating(require a lot of current) I recommend you to buy an usb or firewire soundcard. This one is really high quality and works great (unless you have windows vista 64bit since it doesn't have drivers for that) https://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/AudiophileUSB-main.html

[quantum]

80's ish Yamaha system.  As you say, I don't like the sound of many of the current systems. 

On computer, USB audio interface phones or a 5.1 speaker system. 

[anodibu]

Be adviced, they may not sound so great out of the box. These things require at least 300 hours of burn in before realizing their true potential, they will gradually relax during the first playing hours so be patient. It will be worth it

Yes I already read about this. I now have them and listened to some cd's on my stereo system. They already sound pretty great, I am curious how the sound will develop over time.

You will definitely need an amp. With integrated sound card, they will not sound even nearly as good as they could. It may even be that you will have problems trying to drive them as they have quite dubious efficiency rating(require a lot of current) I recommend you to buy an usb or firewire soundcard. This one is really high quality and works great (unless you have windows vista 64bit since it doesn't have drivers for that) https://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/AudiophileUSB-main.html

Thanks for the tip, I will check it out. I already tried them on my laptop and for volume there is no problem, though I had the impression they were a bit less powerful than on my stereo system.

[yuc4h]

At first I also made the false assumption that if you can get enough volume, you are fine, but it's not about the volume, it's about something else, since you clearly can get enough volume from almost any device even for k701 cans, even from ipod. But if you don't have a proper amp to drive those, they will lose their impact and end up sounding anemic, analytical and dull You should take them to your local music store and try them out with an amp...

[ksnmohan]

I listen to music over a pair of Acoustic Research (powered) monitor speakers - now re-christened as ADVENT - 70 W per channel. Excellent sound quality!