a new beginning...
After a year of wandering through the audio wastelands, I was finally able to find some key pieces of gear which became the foundation of this new system. I started piecing this one together in April of 2014 and it's slowly been growing to this day. I have a vision for this system though...something I never really had in the past. My budget is still limited, but I've been lucky in finding some great deals. A couple of these pieces are just placeholders until I can afford their replacements. This is one of my favorite systems so far!
This one all started when
I found the Musical Fidelity A300 integrated, which at the time I didn't know much about it or that it would quickly become one of favorite amps ever. I think I still had the Leach speakers and used them with the A300 at first, until they sold. Then I decided to give the
M&K SV-200B's a chance, even though they were only partially working. Only the passive 2-way monitor upper section worked, the lower active subwoofer sections did not. Even without the lower octaves, these things sounded amazing! I couldn't wait to fix the lower sections and hear them as they were designed. I soon had the woofers re-foamed and I
rebuilt the plate amps myself with much better parts than original. I was blown away the first time I plugged in the woofers and listened to some music. I went from 65-22KHz to 24-22KHz (+/- 3db) with the 200 watt Volkswoofers activated, which many of you know have flat frequency response and are fast. I knew right away that these M&K's were keepers. I then decided to
rebuild the 2-way monitor crossovers, so I could get the full impact of these speakers. It's coming up on a year now after the restoration and I can firmly say that I'll never willingly let these speakers go.
Next was the tweaks...new Kimber Kable speaker wires and Pangea AC cables. I also found a RGPC 400 Pro, which made an incredible improvement to the Volkswoofer performance. The Lovan rack is different than my last one and was in bad condition when I found it, left outside in the summer heat. I brought it back to life and it works great. The sound panels are the most current tweak, which really made a difference as well, taming the room from all the tile flooring.
Now I'm focusing on my sources, which had been the weak link. At first, my trusty old 5th gen. iPod with the Wolfson chip was my only source. Then, a friend gave me a Toshiba HD-XA1 which has very nice Burr-Brown PCM1755 chips and is compared to high-end cd players for redbook playback. It was a definite improvement, but is now a placeholder until I can find what I want. I just
recently came across a Benchmark DAC1 USB modified by Parts ConneXion in Canada, which is now my main source and I couldn't be happier. This is also my first stand alone DAC. My computer runs USB into the DAC1 and the HD-XA1 is optical for now.
That brings us to analog...this is something that was a higher priority in past systems, but I found myself focusing on digital first with this one. I'm kicking myself for selling my Technics SL-1800MK2 a while back. Now I'm using a Sanyo TP-1010, which is also a placeholder and will become my girlfriend's TT once I find something else. I'd love a Clearaudio table or the one they make for Marantz.
The last system that I could compare to this one is
#5, which had the Alon IV's and an OCM 500 amp, both of which are amazing. That's how much I think of my current rig. So as I said above, I have a few more things on my list to fill out this system. I'm in no rush though, as it already sounds great and a lot of the fun is in the search for the missing pieces.
System 10 (Apr '14 - Oct '17):
< Dedicated 2-channel >
- Musical Fidelity A300 Dual Mono Integrated Amplifier
- Musical Fidelity X-10V3
- Benchmark DAC1 USB w/ Parts Connexion Level 1 mods
- Sanyo TP-1010
- Miller & Kreisel SV-200B
- Kimber Kable 4VS & 8VS
- Richard Gray's Power Company 400 Pro
- Furman PST-8 line conditioner
- Pangea AC-9 (amp)
- Pangea AC-14SE (dac)
- Lovan Pyramid AVR isolation rack
< A/V 5.1 >
- Sony Bravia KDL-40V3000
- Marantz NR-1403
- Canton Movie 150 QX speakers
- Sony Playstation 4
- Windows 7 HTPC
- Furman PST-8 line conditioner
- Custom Audio LLC. power cord (HTPC)
- Logitech Harmony One remote