"Hey David ... Did we have people over yesterday?"
"Yeah.."
"Were they... little people?"
"Yeah.."
My roommate had his little cousins over for 10 minutes yesterday. Today I walked into the living room to find this.
What are my options here? Can these be salvaged?
Coming from here.
Well, the first image is of course just a decoy. A bait. One of those incredibly expensive cables***** that are basically just snake oil for the audio world. From there on, I’m showing you the speaker cables I built myself. High-quality cable (6sq/mm, shielded and oxygen-free), good terminals, spades, and bananas, plus a little bit of patience. For about 200 euros, I’ve built a pair of cables that many hi-fi Internet shops would easily charge you 1,000 for. And it’s a similar story with the jumpers.
Please excuse the mess in some of the photos, but it's the result that counts, not the process...
*****Nordost Valhalla 2 Interconnect. About $18000 the pair (4m length). No real audible difference in a blind test from some $20 pair of cables, but, hey, just don't tell anybody.
After a long break I got more excited about listening to music again. I got a great deal on these Sonus Faber speakers and a Music Fidelity amplifier. I used to have Heco active tower speakers but these sound 10 times better. As my equipment increased, I also had to make room for them, but ready-made hi-fi racks were so expensive that I decided to make one myself.
I've also been thinking about looking for some black speaker stands for these. Does anyone have any good recommendations?
Just an update on my digital front end. Previously I was auditioning the Chord Hugo TT2 and the Aurender A1000.
After a week I returned both items and then decided to get the Chord. This was priced as ex-demo and so was tempting. As was feeding it by an old phone, I was looking for a sensibly priced streamer transport. I saw a second hand Bluesound Nano in local classifieds and decided to go for it - came with a separate linear PSU but as couldn’t tell any benefit am just using it as is.
The nano does sound better than my old iPhone and sound seems similar to when I fed the chord DAC from the A1000. Initially I used my usb cable but as I had an old optical cord I tested that too - I think optical sounds better so that will stay for now. Don’t want to start a cable war discussion…
Amp still needs to breathe and am trying to get longer supports to give it extra space.
Hope everyone has a good weekend. System sounds great so happy for now and enjoying the music!
Been saving for this kind of setup for very long, and with all the mess / family troubles of the last years made the jump.
Started on my 12th with a Kenwood HiFi system,
18th B&W CM1 + Pioneer Amp and CD Changer;
23rd (moved out) Klipsch RF62-II & higher end Pioneer Amp with new CD player (incl Popcorn hour A500 Pro);
Now some years later:
Bowers & Wilkins 703 S3 Mocha
Yamaha A-S1200
Yamaha CD-S303
V90-DAC ('Little Pinkie' linear PSU')
Kodi media player
Ok quick question, I currently have an EverSolo DMP-A6 Gen 2 that I am sending to a PrimaLuna Evo 100 and then out to Warfedale Linton speakers. This version of the Evo100 does not have the onboard DAC, so all conversion is happening in the EverSolo unit. I really enjoy a warm, 70s vibe with my music. So the question is - is there any value in adding a tube preamp between the ES and the Evo100. ChatGPT says no, but I would love an answer from experts as I am new to the hobby. Also, please answer as if you are speaking to an imbecile. Some of the terms you experts use may as well be Chinese 😂. Thank you in advance!
We just moved in and finally got the space for the TDL reference standards. A dear family member had those stashed away on their attic and now did a lot of work on them; we are eternally grateful!
It’s either the Aurender or the Wiim that streams to the Hoerwege DAC (also a family heirloom). The analog audio then gets splitted into 3-ways per side on the dbx crossovers on the bottom, which then drive 3 (per side) Fosi V3 Mono, one for the bass-drivers, one for the mid-drivers, and one for the tweeters and super-tweeters which are still connected internally through a small passive crossover. Kinda unorthodox the whole thing, I‘m aware…
I‘m blown away by the precision of the lows on the TDLs, literally can’t believe it every time I hear a bass line. But after all it’s what they’re were known for.
I‘m currently trying to figure out how to make the room a bit more suitable for this setup. It’s not that easy, the speakers aren’t easy to place since they aren’t quite bookshelf sized…
Happy to share details and curious if anyone remembers TDL ;)
Cheers!
Hi all,
I’ve owned a Marantz Project D-1 (1998) for a number of years now, and it’s one of those pieces that keeps pulling me back in.
Recently, while digging deeper into the Philips LHH series, I started to better understand where the D-1 fits in historically. It was developed by the same Sagamihara team behind models like the LHH900R, but instead of following the bitstream direction of the time, it deliberately returns to a dual TDA1541A S2 Double Crown setup. On top of that, it uses a custom DSP and a fully Non-NFB analog design.
What I find interesting is that it doesn’t come across as nostalgic or “old-school.” It feels more like a very deliberate attempt to extract everything possible from the CD format, using multibit pushed to its limits.
I ended up writing a detailed blog about it, focusing on the technical design and the context of that transition period:
https://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/context/Marantz-Project-D1/
I’m curious: are there people here still using TDA1541A-based CD players or DACs? What keeps you coming back to that architecture compared to newer designs?
Would love to hear your experiences.
After way too long putting it off, I finally ripped and backed up my entire physical collection of Blu-ray audio, SACD, DVD-Audio, and a pile of CDs. Honestly it's been one of the best rabbit holes I've gone down in years.
The Atmos discs in particular are jaw-dropping on my new setup. Full lossless object-based audio streaming in the ceiling speakers over the network to my Denon — no compromises, no lossy passthrough nonsense.
The workflow that finally made it feel like I wasn't missing something:
The Shield (bottom right corner of the TV in the pic) now bitstreams everything — TrueHD, Atmos, DTS:X FLAC, DSD — straight to the Denon (bottom left). Kodi's audio passthrough settings make this dead simple once you know where to look. there are 4 or 5 toggles in the settings for each codec
Replaced my Oppo with this setup and genuinely can't believe I waited this long. The Oppo was great but being tied to physical discs in 2026 just doesn't make sense for me anymore when you can have your whole library one click away in Kodi with bit-perfect output. Only remaing thing is a few acoustic panels.
Happy to answer questions about the the workflow, Kodi setup for lossless audio, or the Shield → Denon bitstreaming config. What formats are you all archiving from?
As someone born in the 80s why are people collecting cassettes? Cassettes were a necessity for mobile listening at the time. Prior to cassettes people listened to 8 tracks but they were big and had a lot of quirks but you could listen to them in the car. Cassettes went one step further allowing people to record and release their own music or mixes. I understand vinyl for its unique properties and cd for clarity and quality but cassettes are an odd duck in the ecosystem today given mobile, digital download, and streaming for music today.
On another note, how many people feel their living this guys life. If you’re out here on the Reddit brother you do you. Hell with what they say. Installing a telephone pole is the ultimate flex. https://youtu.be/XJJy6VJvSCk?si=YERmh32RN\_CqZ5Kn
Got tired of streaming and started buying CDs again at thrift stores for like a dollar each. But I didn't have anything to play them on. Found an old Sony CDP-XE330 at a garage sale for fifteen bucks. Cleaned it up, plugged it into my amp, and put on a 90s pressing of Dark Side of the Moon. I don't know if it's placebo or real but it sounded warmer and more present than the Tidal stream I've been using. No skips, no buffering, just a disc spinning and music playing.
The weird part is how it changes the way I listen. With streaming I skip songs constantly. With a CD I just let the album play. I sat through the whole thing without touching my phone and realized I haven't done that in years. The player has a 5 disc changer which feels ridiculously luxurious for no reason. My girlfriend asked why I needed to load five CDs at once and I didn't have a good answer.
Now I'm looking at older players online and falling into a rabbit hole of DACs and transports. I told myself this was supposed to be cheap.
For anyone else who went back to CDs, what player are you using? And do you actually hear a difference or am I just convincing myself because I want to?
1986 DSP-1
1989 EQ-330
1993 RX-V870
Just about two years perusing and picking up vintage Yamaha in my local area. Not a lot of opportunity in my area unfortunately to score a glistening diamond but am happy to have found some history.
On the lookout for a tape deck and a cd player that match the relative quality of my already owned units. Any recommendations?
What kind of speakers do you guys like power with something similar to the era?
I use an old pair of (don’t judge haters, I got them for free) Bose 901 series V for this setup in particular. I have a full home studio recording system as well as a Dolby Atmos Home Theater Surround sound and these three systems are seamlessly integrated for unlimited experimenting which I find a lot of fun albeit was hard to setup Pro-Audio recording and gear to work as best possible with consumer level gear from both modern and vintage eras and then the damn Bose 901’s EQ box being the worlds biggest inconvenience to incorporate in a modern digital/analog complex setup that can support true Dolby atmos, live playback and recording of instruments and also a dedicated vintage stereo that can be switched in/out and correctly play the placed channels for the Dolby Atmos signal. Probably 2 years worth of heavy study.
Thats what I call a run-on sentence…
I’ll use this setup just for the Bose as I have other mains but what started this was being super curious what the 901’s would sound like if a truly placed modern digital atmos surround source was played through them with a full home theater setup. Honestly it’s a very very unique experience and is suuuper wide. This Yamaha being used as a power amp for them receiving the atmos front L/R and then using that to create a tape loop to incorporate the Bose Eq box is what i basically did. Works great for them and the active EQ they require to sound less than shit. I can’t so far deny it is a lot of fun. very full and enjoyable sound despite the 901’s controversial shortcomings.
First morning in the sun room listening to my Polk ES20s and WiiM amp pro. I was up early enough to see the sun rise. It may sound cheesy, but the singing birds were a nice background to Yo Yo Ma. I had lots of plans for this morning, but I’m still here. The WiiM amp Ultra gets all the love, but there’s not much point to 100 WPC in a room that’s 13’ x 10’. The Polks aren’t my Revels or Harbeths but for $320/pair they do a pretty nice job. With 3 glass walls and a big sliding glass door on the fourth, not acoustic perfection here, but not nearly as bad as I feared, especially with some of the windows open. You don’t need a big budget or great acoustics for a nice sounding system.
Been into my home stereo era, I’ve only been interested in subwoofer, but I found these and knew I need them, and after digging I found these remote hidden away across the store
Over the past months I’ve been paying more attention to how systems behave rather than just what components are in them, and I keep coming back to the same question.
If two systems measure broadly similar (flat response, low distortion, etc.), why do they still end up sounding noticeably different over longer listening sessions?
Not in an obvious “this is brighter” or “this has more bass” way, but more in terms of:
-how stable the image feels
-how easy it is to follow complex passages
-how “effortless” or strained things sound over time
What’s interesting is that these differences often show up even when swapping things that are supposed to be transparent on paper.
My current thinking is that a lot of this comes down to how the system behaves as a whole rather than any single component:
-power supply stability
-grounding interactions
-how energy is handled across interfaces
-how components interact under load, not just at idle
In other words, not just the signal itself, but the conditions in which the signal exists.
That might explain why small changes sometimes feel bigger than expected, and why systems with similar specs don’t necessarily feel the same to listen to.
Curious how others think about this.
Do you hear these kinds of differences as well?
And if so, what do you think is actually causing them?
I have noticed that none of the very high end brands use diffusers on their tweeters, and my Revels have them. Is Revel sacrificing sound quality to protect the tweeter?
Hi guys,
Setting aside Spotify's practices and everything else behind the music scenes, I’ve been a happy Tidal user, but lately, I’ve felt stuck. What I enjoy most about music is discovering new stuff, and as everyone knows, Tidal isn’t the best in that area—especially for niche genres like wave or witch house. In many cases, Tidal’s "radio" feature for these genres simply isn’t available.
I tried Spotify today and I have to say, within just an hour, I discovered a couple of amazing songs through the radio mode. Now that exclusive mode is available, I’m seriously thinking about giving Spotify a real try.
Has anyone here tried the exclusive mode yet? To be honest, I can’t hear any difference in sound quality between Tidal and Spotify at the moment.
Upgraded Home Theater also as you can see my grandson poked the left speaker little hard 😅. So repurposed the speakers and an old receiver had laying around.
Life goal unlocked an actual decent garage stereo. As an old Auto Mechanic usually have the worst beat up stereo usually picked up on the side of the road being thrown away.
Simple setup Kenwood KR-7200 receiver just using tuner if I find a used CD Player one day may add that and two Klipsch RP-600M speakers.
It's a bit high up (the speakers are on my head level if I stand up) and the speakers are on the same piece of furniture as the turntable so it's not ideal, but I'm very happy with the equipment.
Pro-Ject Debut Carbon Evo (350€)
Yamaha A-S301 (379€)
Triangle BR02 (348€)
No preamp