Putting together a new home audio system...

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Well... if it was my home stereo rig I'd prefer the following:

One of those old-school Pioneer receivers; the good ones they built back in the '80s with 100 WPC. They had TT preamps built in.

Speakers would be a pair of the older RS Mach 3 if you can even find them anymore.

Cable isn't a big deal with consumer audio. Some 14/2 SJ cord will do.

No need for a turntable, have no records.

I'm not into tube gear anymore. Worked on and with the stuff for many years and grew tired of shorted and ringing tubes, burned resistors etc. Tube gear today is vastly overpriced. The only tube amp I ever owned that was actually worth a damn was an old monoblock Williamson amp that had been assembled from scratch by a technician in the 1950s.
 
I've got almost everything ordered now, just awaiting arrivals... :)

I managed to finagle some things around and get some discounts, and am adding a SACD player, and still coming in at about $2400 total!


The numbers are coming out thusly:

Turntable $400
Speakers (bookshelf) $350
Sub $350
Power amp $650
Cables $250
SACD $400


I'm going to use the new Onkyo receiver I got as a pre-amp into the tube amp output, because it is amazing and clean, and has a nice TT pre-amp and tuner built in. If I don't like that scenario, it still leaves me with $600 in the budget to get a tube pre-amp.


So, once everything gets here, I'll break it in, then do some listening tests and get some pics... :)
 
SoftJock Rick;42754 The numbers are coming out thusly: Turntable $400 Speakers (bookshelf) $350 Sub $350 Power amp $650 [COLOR="Red" said:
Cables $250[/COLOR]
SACD $400
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Guitar Center didn't talk you into the Monster Cables did they??:tribiggrin:
 
Precisionpower said:
Guitar Center didn't talk you into the Monster Cables did they??:tribiggrin:
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Hell no! :sqerr:

Have you read my Romex as speaker wire thread...? I still have it hooked to the old system -- sounds mucho better than the monster crapola :)
 
The gear has been arriving... :)

Here's what I got so far:

Wharfedale Diamond 9.2 speakers
Pro-Ject Debut III turntable
Onkyo C-S5VL SACD player


After some listening tests to ePos and Focal speakers, I found the Wharfedale's sounded just as good, for about 1/3 the price. No brainer there :)

The Pro-Ject table is awesome (comes with an Ortofan MM cartridge installed).


The only thing I didn't listen to prior, was the SACD player. The reviews were great, and since it matches perfectly with my new Onkyo receiver, I decided to give it a try.

Came this morning, so I let it acclimate, and hooked it up -- had to take the turntable off the top shelf, as the 3rd shelf I ordered has not arrived yet. Now, I had no SACD's, so I ordered a couple to try out the other day. Anyway, I pop in a couple regular CD's, and fiddled with the filters on the player -- PCM #4 is cool (it also has filters for the DSD for SACDs). Nice clean sound, and very musical compared to a standard CD player.

Then low and behold, the mail person arrived with my two new SACDs -- Eric Clapton - 461 Ocean, and Elton John - Captain Fantastic with bonus songs.

WOO-HOO!!! This thing is damn close to vinyl, albeit without the smoothness of vinyl). One of the bonus tracks is Lucy in the Sky, and the sound is incredible on SACD (stereo mode)! The level of detail is absolutely amazing, and the sound stage is wide open. Too bad there's not that many titles available on SACD...


Anyway, here's a pic, and the new speaker cables will be ready, and tube amp will be here within a couple weeks. Still using the cheap Sony sub for now (which can't even closely keep up with this system). I use it for movies, but turn it off for music.

audiosys1.jpg
 
First of all great system!

Rick I love Wharfedale speeakers (their home stuff not so much the pro) As I mentioned in my system I am putting together I went with energy speakers no sub is needed since they go quite deep. I am waiting on my tube amp and turntable. I allready have a phono preamp, cables and the such. This will be only for audio. Ihave one of these also.
 
drzinc said:
First of all great system!

Rick I love Wharfedale speeakers (their home stuff not so much the pro) As I mentioned in my system I am putting together I went with energy speakers no sub is needed since they go quite deep. I am waiting on my tube amp and turntable. I allready have a phono preamp, cables and the such. This will be only for audio. Ihave one of these also.
Click to expand...


I had honestly forgotten about Wharfedales -- hadn't heard of them in ages (since my college years). But a guy I know has a set of new ones, and I took a listen, and was amazed at the sound they put out, given the price point!

I'm tempted to try bi-amping them with two small tube amps, since they are bi-wireable...


BTW, the Onkyo receiver is an 8555, and is holding its own nicely -- more than enough clean power. The turntable pre-amp is decent, although a slight bit of hum when I crank it up. I'll probably get a separate phono pre-amp when funds are available, and see how it sounds after the new power amp is installed...
 
drzinc said:
Ihave one of these also.
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Man, I've wanted an Oppo player for a little while now! But not quite yet...first I need an HDTV. I'm still in the analog CRT days, unfortunately. Hmmm...maybe it will "break" one of these days... :evil7:
 
SoftJock Rick said:
I had honestly forgotten about Wharfedales -- hadn't heard of them in ages (since my college years).
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I'm tempted to try bi-amping them with two small tube amps, since they are bi-wireable...
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My brother turned me onto Wharfedale back in the 80s. I have a pair of Diamonds in my dungeon (the home office) and a pair of floor-standing 7.3's as surround speakers in my main system.

Yeah Rick, they'll really sound clean and dynamic if you can bi-amp them. But remember, bi-wiring is simply the poor man's bi-amping.
 
Bryan Durio said:
My brother turned me onto Wharfedale back in the 80s. I have a pair of Diamonds in my dungeon (the home office) and a pair of floor-standing 7.3's as surround speakers in my main system.

Yeah Rick, they'll really sound clean and dynamic if you can bi-amp them. But remember, bi-wiring is simply the poor man's bi-amping.
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From what I understand, I should be able to bi-amp them no problem, using the bi-wire terminals.

The Onkyo has a sub pre-out, mains pre-out, zone 2 pre-out, and tape pre-outs, so plenty of ways to hook up the amps. It also has Direct and Pure Audio modes, which bypass its tone circuitry (which is how I'm running it now).

Quite a versatile, and great sounding receiver -- I'd rank it up there with the Outlaw Audio 2150 or a Marantz 8004, in terms of its sound and versatility :)
 
BTW, just wanted to add a couple notes on the Onkyo SACD player -- I love this thing more each time I play it, but it has two caveats (or benefits, depending on how you look at it)...


1) It is slow loading (reading actually). It apparently scans the layers of the CDs to see what it is, and what layers are available. It can read RBCD (regular Red Book audio CDs), SACD, CD-R, CD-RW. This can take from 5 seconds to about a minute, so you won't be using one of these for DJ work ;)

Temperature (or condensation) plays a role as I've found. If I take a regular CD from the cold side of my house (about 50 degrees or so), it takes much longer, then if I let that CD warm up first.

2) It does not play multi-channel audio on SACDs. If the stereo SACD layer is there, it will default to that, if there is no stereo layer (only multi-channel), it will only play the front L&R channels.


For my, or any audiophile purposes, these are actually benefits -- for someone looking for a quick home theatre experience, they would probably be downsides...
 
drzinc said:
Rick I am also working on such a system and here is what i am looking at.

http://cgi.ebay.ca/YAQIN-MC-10L-Pus...789?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item20b491220d

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Sunsen-D118-Turntable-/130448090381?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_2&hash=item1e5f4fe50d

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...spx?path=c6d0b55f6e92b279b12de7d50b372911en02
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If you get those speakers, and are not using bi-wire cables, take the little metal plates off, and wire in a pair of decent patch cables.

My cables aren't ready yet, so I'm just using a basic Dayton 14 ga.full range right now. So today, I pulled off the metal plates that connect the low and high, and used the old Monster cable to make short, 4" patch cables.

Amazing difference! The mids and highs are far more pronounced. :)


Those little plates are just cheap tin, painted gold. World of difference replacing them.
 
SoftJock Rick said:
If you get those speakers, and are not using bi-wire cables, take the little metal plates off, and wire in a pair of decent patch cables.

My cables aren't ready yet, so I'm just using a basic Dayton 14 ga.full range right now. So today, I pulled off the metal plates that connect the low and high, and used the old Monster cable to make short, 4" patch cables.

Amazing difference! The mids and highs are far more pronounced. :)


Those little plates are just cheap tin, painted gold. World of difference replacing them.
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Rick I run 4 x 14 to my speakers at the amp end I combine the pairs on the speaker end I have 1 pair to the tops and the other pair to the bottoms.
 
Rick

The turntable and cartridge you chose:

Pro-Ject Debut III/Ortofon OM-5E $400.00

Bellari VP530 Tube Phono Preamp USB $350.00

Bob Latino’s Dynaco Stereo 70 Power Amplifier $1000.00

Magneplanar MMG $600.00

Cables $100.00

Remaing money for subwoofer.
 
Lets be clear, a true audiophile turntable cannot be had in the price ranges of those in this thread.

The tone arm for and "audiophile" TT is $1K.
jmw9.jpg


This is what the current audiophile TT apex looks like...
VPI_Superscoutmaster.jpg
Bee Tee Dub, it'll run around $4.5K, sans tonearm. :yofaint:

I cannot imagine that it sounds that much or practically measurably better than a sub $1k piece with a quality stylus, but true audiophiles are a unique, IE unexplainable, alter-species.

Years, almost decades ago, I tried to discern an practical audible difference in quality based solely on the TT, not the quality of the source vinyl, and I was not able to identify an actual difference. I was also in the process of speaker evaluation and that was a horse of a different color. But I digress.

I did, however, discover a real, substantial difference from commercial, mass produced vinyl to "audiophile/high fidelity/etc" records. It was disturbing how much of the material was missing from the vinyl I could afford.

Also lernted that what most direct drive/DJ TTs provide is reliable, sturdy, mobile performance through use of a motor to spin the platter.

"Audiophile" pieces sacrifice mobility and size for the belt drive config, thereby removing/reducing the motor's inherent vibratory and electrical influence, thereby producing a less influential and purer output.

Enjoy your system however you build it!
 
djrox said:
Lets be clear, a true audiophile turntable cannot be had in the price ranges of those in this thread.

The tone arm for and "audiophile" TT is $1K.
jmw9.jpg


This is what the current audiophile TT apex looks like...
VPI_Superscoutmaster.jpg
Bee Tee Dub, it'll run around $4.5K, sans tonearm. :yofaint:

I cannot imagine that it sounds that much or practically measurably better than a sub $1k piece with a quality stylus, but true audiophiles are a unique, IE unexplainable, alter-species.

Years, almost decades ago, I tried to discern an practical audible difference in quality based solely on the TT, not the quality of the source vinyl, and I was not able to identify an actual difference. I was also in the process of speaker evaluation and that was a horse of a different color. But I digress.

I did, however, discover a real, substantial difference from commercial, mass produced vinyl to "audiophile/high fidelity/etc" records. It was disturbing how much of the material was missing from the vinyl I could afford.

Also lernted that what most direct drive/DJ TTs provide is reliable, sturdy, mobile performance through use of a motor to spin the platter.

"Audiophile" pieces sacrifice mobility and size for the belt drive config, thereby removing/reducing the motor's inherent vibratory and electrical influence, thereby producing a less influential and purer output.

Enjoy your system however you build it!
Click to expand...

Rick avoided using the word audiophile in the original post probably for the reason you stated.

So anyway, just curious what others would put together on a limited budget. I'm not wanting to go over $3k, since the room is fairly small (11 x 13), and heavily used -- so no expensive stuff.[/quote]


djrox said:
I cannot imagine that it sounds that much or practically measurably better than a sub $1k piece with a quality stylus, but true audiophiles are a unique, IE unexplainable, alter-species.

Years, almost decades ago, I tried to discern an practical audible difference in quality based solely on the TT, not the quality of the source vinyl, and I was not able to identify an actual difference. I was also in the process of speaker evaluation and that was a horse of a different color. But I digress.

I did, however, discover a real, substantial difference from commercial, mass produced vinyl to "audiophile/high fidelity/etc" records. It was disturbing how much of the material was missing from the vinyl I could afford.
Click to expand...

Agree, I did the same thing in the 80s. I started buying Japanese vinyl and high quality american vinyl. If I got back into vinyl which ain't gonna happen for financial reasons I'd probably buy a Technics 1200. LOL
 
MIXSIRS said:
...So anyway, just curious what others would put together on a limited budget. I'm not wanting to go over $3k, since the room is fairly small (11 x 13), and heavily used -- so no expensive stuff.
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What specifically are you wanting to have in your system and/or want it to provide?

Audio only or movies and music, surround, bookshelf, subs, new or used, high spls or listening levels, what kind of music are you predominantly planning on using the system to enjoy?

I have assisted several friends piece together systems for grand to minimal systems and will gladly share what I have learned on this matter.

P.S. http://www.audiokarma.org Good forum for info on budget builds
 
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