U can also consider open frame speaker stand..they do sound different

if the plate that supports your speakers should be close to your speaker size, preferably same or slightly bigger is ok

for the base plate, usually it is 25% larger

i still feel bad about it though.
anyway, let's try to put the past behind us.
well, as they say, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
i need to know the correct first step lol

first step.....is to love music!

2nd step is to love the equipment that makes the music

hushymushy,

All very good suggestions. I agree about the proximity of the floorstanders to the wall. Generally when listening to music I pull them out to about 1m. It actually helps, especially with all of the solid surfaces.

I will try to disconnect and just bi-wire or jumper from the MM7025. They are supposed to be fairly balanced though, but I will take your advice.

I can bypass the Belkin, but I do not have enough outlets in the wall. Need to figure something else out. The Belkin Pure AV has several "High Current" sections that bypass the balun choke filters.

I agree that the Marantz's might be a bit thin sounding, although their philosophy has always been near exact reproduction of the studio sound. I find that their close cousin, Denon is a bit heavy handed on the Bass, and for the most part I bypass all of the EQ settings and just run Direct. Unfortunately, I've committed the setup to Marantz, including the source, which is a Marantz UD5007 SACD/Blu-Ray player. It has a decent DAC that is shared with their higher models, but is a far cry from the reference models Marantz is known for. I find that it has a very balanced sound.

Btw, I love teh tarik.

I've heard very good things about Krell and will likely redo by entire electronics setup from source, pre-amp, and power amp (wife permitting), although I am not sure what brand. For me aesthetics is very important, so I will probably stick with the same brand, even if one brand cannot expect to be the best in all things.

And yes, I am a bass junkie. I had all sorts of 12" subwoofers in several cars that I owned, until I outgrew the car audio stuff and graduated over to home audio. I'm just starting to learn more about it.

Grabbed a pair of audio connects for my subs from Wireworld (Luna 7).




I actually prefer the ones I was using before - they have a beefier jacket and a much heavier interconnect in comparison with the Luna's. (Philips)
No noticeable difference in sound.





They are Sunfire True Subwoofer MK II's. A very compact 11" cube with 10" drivers and passive radiators. One is from 1999 and the other from 2003. I've taken both apart and the internals and speakers are ever so slightly different, even though they are both technically the same model. They were ahead of their time, and I keep them as a reminder that some of the old, made in USA stuff is better than the new Made in China stuff (not always).

They do look mighty beautiful together. These are actually completely refinished in automotive grade paint and clear coat. The electronics have also been professional refurbished with many caps replaced with better Japanese ones. Hard to believe that one subwoofer is 11 years old and the other one is 15 years old. I've noticed that the sun in M'sia is very strong and tends to discolour just about everything it comes into contact with over time. You can see that the woofer surrounds in the foreground are turning a greenish hue.






Some other stuff that came with these beautiful American made subs. They actually never made a 230V 50Hz, so I had to purchase a rather expensive power transformer to get the native 120V 60Hz subs to run on local power. It is quite large, probably inefficient, and very ugly.




Speaking of bass. I also acquired a Velodyne Minivee 8 that will do about 1000watts RMS. It sounds decent in a small room for computer games, but it is a bit underpowered for the deep bass needed for a decent home theatre setup. It is also rather cheaply constructed in comparison to the Sunfire's, despite being fairly expensive. It's rather disappointing and I'd probably stay away from Velodyne in the future. With the three here, I figured I have about 6400 watts of manufacturer claimed RMS power. In reality I've never seen these guys pull that much, even under some intense load, but they are enough to get the lights to go dim when cranked up.



This post has been edited by CHiNO730: Aug 5 2014, 05:14 PM

salute chino for being a bass junkie...

if you want nice looking brands....banyak mar

Mcintosh....
Goldmund
Luxman
Accuphase
Audio Research

I can't help but to love earth shaking bass.

Will probably start looking at redoing everything in McIntosh, most likely finding a vintage amplifier and older model pre-amp. At the same time I've been looking at finding a nicely used set of 800 series B&W's.

We will see. Lot's of other things competing for budget.

This post has been edited by CHiNO730: Aug 6 2014, 03:45 PM

i think there's used pair of mcintosh monoblocks in the market....
heard the owner traded in for goldmund.....

I am planning to form a Hi-Fi set at my hometown medium room, it's not close field listening, 1 meter or more from the speakers, I currently have the following items in hand:

- HTC One (M8) will be used as temporary players until I get better player, I would like to emphasize on few things for audio player, first will be sound quality, second it must be able to at least play audio files in random shuffle order, best if it can play wide variety of file formats at least include mp3, ape, wav, and flac. Though ac3 files will be hard to be played?

- Lepai Tripath TA2020 Class T Mini Amplifier will be used to drive the speakers until I got a better unit
- XLS Encore bookshelf speakers, a very flexible and easy to driver speakers, the speakers will be placed where the back is window curtain
- Speakers stand, any recommendations?
- Speaker cables, I will use thin Edifier standard copper cable

Also, I'm having difficulty to find a clear difference between stereo amplifier, tube amplifier, integrated amplifier, preamp, cd player, and AV receiver, though I have the following to be buy list in mind:

Topping TP60 Class T Stereo Amplifier - RM600.00, this is most probably the best bang for buck you can get, though there are some reviews claiming that tube amplifier sound 9 streets ahead of T-amp? Is this true? Anybody can give some in depth opinion?

NAD C316 BBE Integrated Amplifier - RM1,739.00, claimed to be one of the budget integrated amplifier, have enough power with good SQ, but I never use before due to the price.

Jolida Glass FX-10 Tube Amplifier - USD599, it's beautiful glass box but with only 10 watts output, but some reviews said that those watts are mighty! Also how high is the tube maintenance rate/cost?

Rega Brio-R Stereo Amplifier - USD895, I would like to know how this compare to Topping TP60?

Marantz CD6005 CD Player - £350, Most probably will go for this one, as I think there a lot features that mostly will be used like digital input, sound mode, random playback, USB playback support for mp3/aac/wma, also it eliminates the need to buy a DAC.

first off......1 meter away for the speakers is considered close
having your speakers in front of windows and curtains might be a bad thing
suggest you move the speakers out away from the rear wall at least 3 feet
your right listening distance from the speaker is almost 2 x the distance between your left and right speaker....
you can refer to Cardas golden rule too

speaker stands.....depending on your seat height and speaker size.....buy accordingly.....the speakers should be at your ear level when you are seated

stands are recommended to be solid. wood, metal would be preferred choice

i'll come to cables at the end

regarding amplifiers....first off...let me clear your confusion

what is pre and power amp?

typically you need both. in general pre-amplifier is to amplify the input signal before it gets to power amplification stage.

power amp is amplifying the pre-amplified signals to your speakers.

an intergrated stereo amp means you have both pre and powered amplifiers built inside the same unit...hence the term integrated

higher end and more flexibility, some people go for separate pre and power in which you incur an additional interconnect between them.

then comes the type of amps.....there are many ways to amplify a signal
tubes, torrodial transformer, IC and so on are the types of amps out there......the difference is the sound signature reproduction
in principal...they all amplify the signal to your speakers

AV receiver is another type of amp that has capability of multi channel amplifier....capable of amplifying 5 to 7 speakers at the same time for the usage of home theatre
and of coz it comes with built in DAC, sound processor and other stuffs for home cinema usage

in terms of sources.....a cd player is always a wiser choice from an audiophile perspective....however even the high end industry is starting to accept other digital forms.

in general....a cd player has 3 main items in it....
1. the transport that consists of your laser pickup and cd playing mechanism.....whats the difference between the cheap and the good? the good ones come with very good pick up laser lens, and very well built mechanism for vibration reduction

2. DAC. as cd is a digital format, therefore it needs to be converted to analog. to reduce the hassle of having an external DAC.....an internal is built

3. pre-stage out circuit where the analog output is being generated to pass through your interconnects into the preamp stage.

so what's the fuss over a high end cdplayer vs a normal cd player.....
typically its the quality and components used....
the latest cdplayers do pack some good dacs....and that's why they open up for the consumer to plug in other digital inputs to utilize its dac....and some how retain its market share in a way

cables.....

4 types of cables you need to understand

1. digital cables like your fiber optics, coaxial, USB

2. analog interconnects......typically your single ended rca or balanced interconnects.....typically pure copper cables inside for basic cables

3. speaker cables......from the amp to your speakers

4. power cables

now......there's a saying...your sound is as good as your weakest link.....if you are on highend systems.....it does make a difference

usually the budget for cables is 10% to 20% of your entire system

there are plenty of amp choices out there.....what's your budget for the entire system?

Thanks for your advice. I think I going to form a computer set, for DAC I will use JDS Labs ODAC with both 3.5mm/RCA output, so in short I just need to get a rocking good stereo amplifier, budget should be around 2 to 3K?

well if you don't mind used market.....sometimes you find good deals out there

i bought an audiolab 8000amk2 fr d used market....still loving that amp........and the price is around 1k

hmm...but used item also sell like cut throat (e.g. hifi4sale), where you get your used market item？

well you hv to know market price lor

some ppl there put high price kenot sell....hv to call to nego

i also got mine from hifi4sale

Any good recommendation for tube amp? Is it really better than T-amp?

tube amps.....well china made nowadays seems to be good

sound stage, consonance and all

there's a used audio research entry level amp in d used market....5k plus

brand new about 11k i think

worth taking a look.....nice amp with good tubes

T amp is really entry entry

wah entry already 5K, no wonder it sound fabulous! (it must be!), how about the maintenance?

maintenance wise....it should last roughly 5000hours of playing time.
some can play beyond that

the tubes are not that expensive....i think they are 6992 tubes....
Electro Harmonix maybe 100bucks a pop
the audio research vsi55 has 4 tubes

this 50watts x 2 rms can power up alot of speakers and sound like a 100watt

powerful.....speed....musical....

if not for my other attention on other stuffs....i would hv bought it...
put in my study room

Trying to find new tubes converts, eh? Tsk...tsk...