Nightwisher's Systems In "Luxman's Room" And Beyond: Some New And Lots of Vintage

Ooh someone's getting bitten by the Polk bug. :) My first Monitor 7s quickly turned into 2 pairs of Monitor 7s, a pair of 10s, and then full speed into a pair of SDA 3.1TLs, the most impressive speakers I've ever owned. And I've owned a lot of speakers. They're my permanent mains. Enjoy the listening, check out http://forum.polkaudio.com/categories/vintage-speakers, and let me know if you ever need a hand resetting any magnets.
 
I finally got my Polk Monitor 4s fixed up. I'm very impressed with the sound of them. The tweeters are detailed and smooth. Imaging is excellent. Quite a big sound for a bookshelf speaker.

They beat the heck out of my Baby Advents, so these will probably stick around as my spare/test speakers and I'll find a new home for the Babys. Definitely a good deal for $35.75 ($3.75 + $32 for the replacement woofer).

And the parts came in for the Monitor 10s, but I have to wait about 3 weeks to be able to get the time to get those fixed.
 
The last two weeks it seems everything I've wanted has popped up for reasonable prices in BarterTown.

Found a Luxman T-02 tuner to match my C-02 preamp, courtesy of Bostown. It tunes really great, however my Cybernet STL-80 pulled in one of the stations a bit better which speaks to just how underrated their gear is. It's just that one station though. Looks beautiful.

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The Cybernet tuner is going to be recombined with the matching preamp in a new setup at home TBA soon...

I also got an Audioquest Dragonfly DAC, Dragontail and Jitterbug to upgrade my Asus Xonar U3 in my computer setup (courtesy of whyaskit). Haven't listened to it much yet, but it's definitely an improvement. No pictures because it's mostly hidden behind equipment.
 
Home for spring break, so some movement is going in these systems.

I found a Toshiba SC-335 power amp on EBay to match with my Cybernet gear. I snagged it for $50 untested, but it is fully functional. It all looks so nice together and sounds just as nice. Naturally had to move stuff around as well.
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The big black box sitting on the right speaker is an Audiosource AMP 200 I picked up at Goodwill. Weighs quite a bit, like 30 pounds or so. It works great and will do 80 watts/channel. Going to keep that in reserve for now.

The binding posts on my Polk Monitor 10s are repaired. However the one with the broken binding post has a blown tweeter so I can't use them until the replacement comes in, which may be after I leave. :mad:

Got a Sony receiver and some speakers on the way out for a vinyl setup my friend wants to do. Call it spring cleaning. :D
 
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The replacement tweeter for my Polk Monitor 10s came in today. They sound sweet! :jump:

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Also my dad pulled this beauty down from the attic, where it has been all my life. (Pioneer SA-6800) Never have I heard something that needed so much Deoxit but like half a spray bottle later, it works great.

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Got some more equipment via BarterTown: a Carver C-9 Sonic Hologram Generator and NEC CD-630 CD Player.

The Carver is interesting to play with for sure. I haven't found much yet that it really improves but still experimenting.

The NEC was an immediate improvement over my Onkyo CD player. Very nice looking too. I think I like it best with it's analog outputs and not run through my DAC but still comparing.

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Man, I would hate to see the nest of wires and cables behind all that gear.... Never seen your Nak in previous posts... That's a nice amp!
Yeah it's a mess but it's necessary for all that. All my cables are shielded so I got interference down anyway.

I've had the Nak since the summer, but yeah I love it!

Very nice! I found an NED CD 730 for $4 at goodwill and that is one nice player.:music:
Yeah it is really nice. It's the nicest sounding and nicest looking player I own for sure. The LED lit buttons are a unique touch. Not wild over the time it takes to warm up before it can play though.
 
A couple new additions.

I found a 48.5 pound TOTL Yamaha RX-V3300 at Goodwill. It was at the outlet no less (how the fudge did it end up there?); luckily they didn't charge me by the pound. It's in near mint condition with just a couple minor blemishes and a little shaky volume knob. All the caps are even still on the optical inputs. It was missing the power cord but I stock extra 3 prong plugs for just this occasion. May be a bit overkill for my small computer setup, but it was ridiculously cheap and is way better than the Kenwood it replaced. Proper surround sound finally :banana:

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I also found an Onkyo Integra TA-2044 cassette deck. Finally a fairly high end deck for my main setup.

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Some sad news...had to pull the Nakamichi PA-5 from the setup because it now refuses to power on. :(

I've got my Nakamichi RE-2 in as a backup. That's what I've kept it around for and it was about time to play it again anyway. As the motto of the current Super Bowl Champions goes, it's the "next man up". The good news is that that switch solved my background noise problem finally (so it was only the amp causing that... :idea:).

My plan is to let the PA-5 sit for a bit then see if it wants to power up. If not, I'll pop the bad boy open and see what I see. I'll get my dad to help me take some measurements and if we can't get it fixed (maybe with some AK help), I'll take it to the shop down the street.

I'll probably grab my Toshiba SC-335 from home to use as a more permanent solution cause it's prettier than the RE-2.

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System updates. All 3 apartment systems have been getting some love lately.

First off, grabbed a pair of ADC SS-215s from Meggy for a good deal. Got one working in my computer system (my dad gets the other one to mess with). Got that going right now as I type.

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My dining room system got an upgrade as I found some EPI Series 3 Model 120s for cheap. I replaced the tweeter in one of them with the help of Huw Powell from Human Speakers. They sound quite nice, especially over the Technics SB-CR55 they are replacing.
The Technics are either going to a friend for his vinyl system or being sold elsewhere. One way or another, they are going soon.

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And finally, the main system got one of the subwoofers of my dreams: a SVS PC12 Plus! I found it on Craigslist for an excellent deal. I had been leaning towards a sub upgrade after selling some stuff anyway, so I jumped on it. Man this thing is a real upgrade! That Klipsch sub was too slow and didn't dig as deep as I wanted, so this does the trick nicely. Maybe overkill for this small apartment power-wise (even the Klipsch was and it had less than half the power), but it was the upgrade I wanted.

I also added bass traps in the corners about a week ago. That really took care of the standing bass there.
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The Nakamichi PA-5 is going home in a couple days pending repairs. That'll likely be more of a long term project since I used a fair amount of funds on the sub (I've got more stuff on the selling block so that should cover it; just gotta move em). I decided upgrading the sub took priority over the amp fix since the I'll be happy with the Toshiba amp for a while anyway.
 
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Congrats on your new sub! I always think adding a sub to any system can add more body to any music. It adds that fundamental frequency spectrum.
Thanks! Yeah I totally agree. I always have had a sub in the main system and the computer system. This is just a whole new level.
 
I'm home for a bit so my dad and I are working on several projects.

Down the work bench are:
Acoustic Research 94 Speakers (need foam and TLC)
dbx DX-5 CD Player (leaked power supply capacitors are replacement number 1)
ADC SS-215 EQ (one channel is out, haven't found an identifiable problem yet)
Nakamichi PA-5 (turns out the fuse blew so that's replacement number 1 but power supply caps are probably next to deal with the noise problem)

On the left are Cerwin Vega D1 Speakers that need refoaming and a grille fixed

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A pair of Advents in the dining room (again)

Out with the old. In with the new...I mean, older.

When someone offers you a pair of Large Advents, you say yes.

In all seriousness, another project for my dad and I (refoam), and these are taking the place of speakers on the chopping block.

These are the 1973 version.

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