Charles' Little 2-ch Hi-Fi System...

allhifi

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Jun 19, 2016
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You do realize you're referring to a post from over 4 years ago, right?

LOL. Yes ! ...actually, 4-years is rather good/recent for me !

Even so, the same would apply today -firm concrete/marble/slate foundation.

Be well

peter
 

Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Went ahead and added my dbx 224 to the stack. I purchased this first about 11 years ago when I had the Teac A-3300SX, then shortly after purchased the 224x. Sold the 224x when I sold the Teac.

As you can see, especially in the close up shot, this unit (like all of my gear) is absolutely mint. You may also notice the pile of Pig Hog XLR cables sitting up top, waiting for the Rane Balance Buddy to show up later this week along with the dbx 400x. I'll finally be able to start listening to these decks again.

Very nice, beefy and flexible cables I might add. They also make regular RCA cables, which I'll get eventually to wire all of the decks as the four cables I'm using now are rather stiff.

Anywho...



 

Chops

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And another little update... Introducing the Rane Balance Buddy BB 88x (44x upgraded to 88x) and the first of two dbx 400x units.

I promise to have this corner looking really good once I get a proper rack and the gear placed the right way. Until then, I'm just stacking it to get it up and running. It sure is nice to hear these old cassettes again!





 

Chops

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And a couple of cozy night time shots, listening to cassettes...



 
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Chops

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I've been playing around with these little guys the past few days and am really surprisingly impressed with these things. The mighty JBL Studio 530. I say these easily outperform the Monitor Audio Silver 3i and Sonus Faber Venere 1.5's that I had.


Luckily, there's no real difference in sound with the grills on or off, so I keep them on as these speakers are sort of ugly with the grills removed.






 

Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Listening to this album right now via Qobuz...



Some of her more "odd" music, but the sound quality is there in strides, and makes these JBL's sound even more impressive. I've listened to this album several times lately and in recent years, and it never sounded this good even with my beloved X-Statik's! Now that's saying something! Obviously, the Sonus Faber Venere 1.5's and Monitor Audio Silver 3i's don't even come close to what these JBL's are doing.

Yes, I know, totally different gear, totally different room... Still, those speakers couldn't get anything near this level of sound.

Very convincing reproduction of vocals and piano with weight and body, detailed, silky smooth treble that has space and air, and the fact that they completely disappear in the room. Finally for the first time in years, I've got a pair of speakers in a room that are capable of vanishing, leaving only the music behind. For the past couple of days, I've been tweaking their placement as well as crossover points and gains on the subs.

In short, there were plenty of super high dollar systems at that Florida Audio Expo show that I went to earlier this year that didn't even come close to this kind of sound. There were some of those smaller systems that were priced up to the $70k mark that didn't sound anywhere near this good. They were either way too shrilly or dull, and drastically recessed mids, and either no bass or way too much.
 
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Chops

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Playing around a little bit with subwoofer placement.

 
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Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Central Florida
Been tweaking subwoofer positions and settings a bit more. Getting better and better all the time.

 

Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Central Florida
The Martin Logan SL3...





 
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Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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So, how do you like The Martin Logan SL3 in your system?

Tonality wise, they're excellent. I can tell though, I'm going to have a busy day ahead of me, measuring, adjusting distances, angle, toe-in, etc, etc to really lock them in. It's almost 2 am and I've been tweaking them a little for the past hour and about to call it quits for the night.

After plopping them down in the room and adjusting toe-in, I only eyeballed their distance from the front wall. I noticed all night that vocals and the center image favored towards the right quite a bit. After doing a little measuring, I had the left speaker 4 inches further back than the right. Not the case now.
 
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Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Here's a closeup of the minty fresh walnut rails on these 22 year old beasts.



 
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Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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The Aegir amps are for sale, and have been swapped out for a Roksan Caspian Mk I. Also removed the DAT recorder.

 
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Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Here's the latest, with the 22 year old Roksan Caspian powering the 22 year old Martin Logan SL3's. Surprisingly, a fantastic combo! Also swapped in the old NOS 1930's RCA 6F8G tubes into the preamp stage of the Freya+, keeping the stock JJ 6SN7's in the voltage stage.









 

Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Central Florida
Update... Polk PSW505 subs out, JL Audio e110 subs finally back in after 3 years of them sitting in the closet with faulty amps. Finally repaired and updated.





 

Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Some better daytime pics...







 

Al M.

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Cool, Charles. You said you had previously done experiments with the subs further upfront, with good results -- as you will know I got great results with moving my subs foward, after you thankfully reminded me of trying. So why further back now?
 
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Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
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Central Florida
Cool, Charles. You said you had previously done experiments with the subs further upfront, with good results -- as you will know I got great results with moving my subs foward, after you thankfully reminded me of trying. So why further back now?

I really just plopped down the subs and left them for the most part. I put them there for ease of access just to make sure they were going to operate as they should, and be able to get to them in a jiffy if they decided to start acting up.

I've only started messing with them a little bit today in fact. Been busy doing other things unrelated to the system unfortunately.
 

Chops

Well-Known Member
Apr 27, 2016
876
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230
Central Florida


 
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Chops

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Apr 27, 2016
876
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Central Florida
Just reinstalled the IsoAcoustics iso-200sub isolators under the JL's. Man, putting the subs on these and getting them off the suspended wood floor, it's like the subs gained a solid 3+ dB of output below 30 Hz, now easily pumping out very usable output below 20 Hz. I actually had to turn the gains down a touch. Apparently, the suspended wood floors soak up a lot of that low frequency energy. I listened to the Greyhound soundtrack (Tom Hanks movie) the other day with these subs, and there was plenty of deep bass, but not like now. Now it's really deep.








And of course, my "little" music girl, Charlie.

 
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