Any audiophile types...or (like me) just wannabees?

I'm probably a wannabee since I don't consider my "rig" particularily high end. But just like with art, I know what I like and unfortunately I have champagne taste on a beer budget. I do like to hunker down with an enhanced beverage and play some tunes after a few hours of running the saw/splitter. Most of my gear is vintage..partly by choice and partly due to the beer budget thing.....how about you?

 

he he he... Ya gone and did it now... Ive got two main system (1 music system- all tubes and vinyl, 1 home theater) and enough random components in the basement to build a couple more.

About half my gear is pre-1970 and some of it I built (speakers) or restored (old Macs).

I'll elaborate more when I am home later if there is interest........

 

Oh yes... man cave photos to follow. ESS, Mac, Marantz, Klipsch, Boston, Polk, etc. etc.

 

A teaser....

 

Oh yeah! Nice Mac Jeremy. I've got a pair of dynaco tube monoblocks, but don't use them much any more. I have to admit, I don't much like the word audiophile, but I'm an audio nut for sure. I mostly work on the other end, making the sounds, which I have done on and off for income over the last couple decades. Just got a call today and will be mixing a record this weekend as a matter of fact. Of course, that gear lust eventually bleeds into the listening room too, so I've got some stuff on that end. I haven't kept up with modern times though, my main system is a SP-10 running through a fairly cheap rack mounted preamp/mixer deal into a Mac 2200 driving a pair of L-200 cabs. I've got quite a few thousand records and mostly listen to those as source material, but when I'm lazy it plays Pandora just as well. Nice thread!

 

Thanks. It was a basket case I picked up in 98 for a bit under a grand ( insane what the collector market has driven prices too now) silk screening all gone but from the serial I identified it as late 62 / early 63 production. Chrome is pretty decent. I did a full electronic rebuild - full cap job, all new tubes, new hexfred diodes and upgraded it with a kit that added extra filter caps and better resistors in key places.

Sonically its probably better than factory but cosmetically its not collector condition.

More later.

 

Yes I guess the word audiophile is kinda loaded... Im more into it as a vintage nut. Another teaser and I'll elaborate tomorrow. Fighting off a cold and need sleep.

 

That little signal tracer makes a sweet little guitar amp. I bet you knew that though.

 

I didn't actually, intersting. I'd be interested to hear more of your studio experiences though maybe that's worth its own thread?

 

Ok, so some background on that basement shot. Like I mentioned before Im not sure Id call myself an audiophile in the sense of guys who live this stuff and but all their gear off the stereophile recocmended list. I like vintage audio, and I like putting together a great system as inexpensively as I can.

I got into it in college because I had some EE buddies who were into old tube audio. Just happend to be a coincidence my Dad was doing a custom built in entertainment center job for a client at the time and the guy was throwing out his old stero which include a nice H. H. Scott Steromaster 340-B "tuner-amplifier '( aka reciever) complete with all original docs and wood case that he had bought new in the 60s. My dad collects all kind of stuff from clients so I got this as a freebee.



I got a copy of the factory schematic and service manual from the hh scott collector club and with help from my EE buddies got it running. This with some used NHT bookshelf speakers I bought from a buddy and a portable CDP was my college stereo. These old big iron sets of the 60s are amazing. The construction quality is phenomicall - copper plated aluminum chassis, all point to point wiring - very complex. It has all kinds of unusual features from the time stereo was a novelty - the center "ambiance" channel, and independent L/R bass and treble controls so you could fake stereo effects on mono sources.

Right now its dead again. Someday I want to get it fully restored but I think this one is a job for a pro. Its needs an entire recap job, and alignment of the vacuum tube RF section is a job that only a few specialist know how to do. Ive also been trying for years to find replacement original bakelite knobs with the brass caps for the front.


Along the way as I collected more gear and did more of my own work I also got more test equipement. I picked up this tube tester off ebay. All it needed was a new rectifier to work and we (dad and I) built a new wood case for it.



As fate would have it, my wife's grandfather was a very interesting guy who was an Army radio tech in WWII (served in the occupation of Germany) and then worked at GE for 50 years designing electronics. When he passed on he left all his old electronic gear to me including some sweet 50s vintage test gear and old RCA manuals, etc.

 

One day I need to get into tubes, for now I just want to start spinning vinyl again. My modded Polk SDA speakers need some good juice and a turntable. Our living room is now and probably will forever be the HT area as the room is too narrow and speakers cannot be placed other than in the corners. I was thinking about getting a multi channel amp and pre with HT bypass but still it's just not a good room for decent 2 channel listening. The Mrs pointed out that in the game room there sits a 9' Brunswick pool table that we hardly ever use anymore and why not sell it. Much as I hate to lose the table it would be a much better environment for serious listening. I could then connect the Polks to my Parasound amp with my Denon turntable and a yet to be purchased preamp and get back to real music listening again....what a delima!

 

After the Scott died I started working on building a big music system that's evolved to this eclectic mix over 15 years. It hides in the built in cabinet next to the stove:

Power amp- the Mac MC-240 I mentioned above. I did all the restoration work myself.

• I wanted to build a full mac system with a C-22 pre and MR71 tuner but collector prices are out of my range

Pre-amp - Conrad-Johnson PV-7 tube preamp (late 80s)

• Got this cheap off ebay. It blew the PS at one point and I had it back to the factory for a rebuild and power supply upgrade job

Vinyl stage - Music Hall MMF-5 belt drive glass platter turntable

• Only new piece I have, got it as a Christmas present one year.

Digital - Denon DVD-2910 universal player (CD/DVDA/SACD)

• Got this one used with a bad laser pickup. Got a replacement off the web and fixed it
• I used to run an old Marantz CD-63 CDP but it died a few years ago

Tuner - Onkyo T-4310R

• I really wanted to get a vintage Mac tube tuner or one of Kenwood units from the 70s that are often considered the best budget tuners ever. To much $$
• I selected this Onkyo based on tuner info center web page reccomendations, its cheap on the used market and one of the few digital tuners that has a tuning knob and can tune off center like you can do with analog (it tunes to .025 MHz increments)
• I ran antenna wire from that cabinet up to the attic

Speakers - DIY 3way - 10in woofers, acoustic suspension

• I did all the wiring from speaker building plans using parts express components
• My Dad the cabinet maker built the cabinets from veneered 3/4 MDF

Other

• The additional black box you see is a cheap 2 channel SS amp that drives the outside patio speakers

Unlike NMWalker Ive only got a couple hundred records... And its a pretty eclectic mix. Contemporary stuff (some Linkin Park on vinyl), the entire AC/DC box set , grunge (Nirvana, Pearl jam , Pumpkins), 80s stuff U2, Springsteen, etc - classic rock (Sabbath, Zeppelin, Hendrix, Doors, Beatles), some female vocals (Sarah M live), classical, even big band and Jazz (like Miles Davis and Glenn Miller - not the 90s crap). None of it is anything that special - no Beatles first pressings or Mobil Fidelity, but I do have a bunch of Classic records pressings of various things and a lot of imports/ heavy vinyl.

 

The other audio system I have is the surround sound for the TV in the den. Its also all used gear, I was going for the cheapest, but good quality setup I could find that would be future upgradable to 7.1 if I got into blue ray.

The receiver is an Onkyo TX-SR706 I got as a factory refurb for about 1/3 of the new price. Speakers right now are just a 4.1 setup (but actually works fine without the center since I have the fronts symmetrically placed on both sides of the TV) of all used NHTs (1.3A front, SuperZero rear) and a cheap Yamaha powered sub.

 

Very cool little H.H. Scott that got you into this whole thing. I had one, maybe even the same one, years ago. I wish I still had it, I'd send you the knobs. Finding those knobs for the stacked tone pots has gotta be tough.

I used to be really into the whole audio thing, and actually it's led to what I do for a living now, which is marine electrical design for boat builders with a little service thrown in there now and then. That's how I'm here so much, I'm usually sitting here drawing schematics and other documents like wire schedules and such. I learned it all from my guitar amps and wiring up studio stuff. I don't do too much of it lately, I'm too busy playing with stove designs and just plain working, but I still love the stuff.

A couple quick shots I just took of my studio/stereo room.....

 

nice studio! Like the reel to reels, never got into that myself.

When it comes to audio nothing beats vintage American big Iron!

 

I have a bit of tube gear also. Marantz Model 7, Model 8. Mcintosh MR71 with the Modafferi job for the old stuff. I run Joule Electra OTL's to heat my basement in the winter. My curbside find this year was a Fisher 400, in very good shape although I think it might get garage duty as it has some stiff competition in the gear rack.

I'm usually spinning records on either an Oracle Delphi or a Thorens Td124. I have somewhere near 1200 LPs with a wide variety of rock genres covered. I got huge collection of metal/hard rock from a coworker and a while back I found on Craigslist a 200 record collection of goth/post punk/almost new wave (the smiths/jam/Bauhaus/new order/pil and lots in between). Along with the run of the mill classic rock I have a pretty good selection of music.

 

Nice Paul. Quite a while ago I was cleaning out stuff and decided that vinyl was the one thing I would allow myself to hoard. Well, one of two things now! It is just so cool to go digging in the stacks and pull out something weird and wonderful, and they are so often cheap/free, I just feel like they are the best deal in entertainment going. That post punk score sounds like a treasure trove.

 

I love it when you have gusts over and put some on and they dont believe you when you tell them its not a CD they are hearing...

"Where are all the cracks and pops?"

 

Yeah, I can't say how many hours I've spent with guests just chilling in the record room there. People really respond to the format. What continually blows me away is when I've been streaming Pandora all day, or even listening to local files on Itunes, and then evening comes around and I throw on a record. It's not a subtle difference. Blows me away almost every time, still.