What is that one thing you own that suprised you the most.

Easy, my Hawthorne Silver Iris 15" coaxial OB drivers. I think I spent at least 10 hours per week listening for at least a year after I got them. They sound so smooth and natural, I can listen to them for hours on end. I have also greatly expanded my musical horizons in this time. Best money I have ever spent on audio.
 
My Tandberg 3008A is my favorite. It really opened up my EL84 toober and has MM and MC inputs.
 
My 96/24 files of Fleetwood Mac's Tusk from HD-Tracks. What surprised me was actually hearing new things, after owning the record and the cd for ages. It made my mind up about whether high resolution was overkill - it's not.
 
The audio thing which surprised me the most (but not anymore) is my old Tandberg TR2075 receiver, which played a bit loud at a party some 32 years ago. One of the woofers of the attached loudspeakers shorted out. Somebody came to tell me the receiver was hot. You could not touch it at the aluminium on the back of the top and also the wood on top you could hardly touch. So the heatsink inside will have been much hotter. Now it is over 35 years old, still in use in my living room, never a problem yet, still sounding good.
Nowadays you see people in discussions say they have something for 2 years and do not have a problem.....I am pretty sure 99% todays junk will not stay trouble free for 35 years
 
For me it is the Luxman M 05s I have. I bought a brand new Bryston 14B SST a few years ago along with my Paradigm S8v2s. I happened upon the Luxman and had always wanted one....so I bought it. I was going to use it as a sub amp and as fate would have it I decided to try the amp as my main amp, not even thinking the Bryston would ever be dethroned. I have not had the main amp change since the switch. I couldn't believe how much better the sound was and I thought there would be no way it could be better but it was.

My close second is the companion C 05 preamp. I don't know what the fuss some have over it "not sounding right" but when warmed up it is excellent, especially paired with the M 05. The M 05 might not be the last word in bottom end (although it is plenty good and strong) that is moot when used with subs. And I think to myself what I could of gotten had I not paid full retail on the Bryston......but it is all a learning curve.
 
Has to be my Yamaha C-80 preamp, for two reasons.

In the last 10 years I've been into using small headphone amps (mostly tube amps) for headphone listening. I got a lot of enjoyment out of that little side-hobby, especially swapping tubes, etc. I got my C-80 as a preamp, never giving a single thought as to how it might perform with headphones. When I ultimately tried it with my headphones, I was absolutely blown away by the quality and power output. All my stand-alone headphone amps were nearly instantly retired. I have had less than stellar experiences using vintage gear for headphones in the past. Of course, many receivers, integrated amps, etc just have their headphone output as a cheap tap off the main speaker amp. That's obviously not the case when talking about a preamp :)

The preamp has also blown me away just in the sense of how much extra it does for my amps. It allows me to bridge two of my amps that wouldn't otherwise be easily bridgeable. It allows me to invert one channel as it passes through my stereo amps, giving the power supplies extra headroom which helps especially were bass is concerned :)

How does your preamp allow your amps to bridge? Bridging means you invert the polarity of one channel of the amp and run the left channel positive and the right channel negative, and hooking up to the positives of each channel. This has to be done at the amp or you are going to do damage. Do you mean you can run two amps at the same time (thus having multiple outputs)? If not, are you sure you are not doing any damage? Just curious.
 
My vintage White body Shure M44-7 (with silver Shure lettering)

I don't have a first version stylus (with silver lettering) but the one just after)

Presently using a Jico N55E (non Improved)

Compare to the new M44-7 or even the brown body one they are better in many ways

Mine is mint without a screw marks on either side !

I like the original vintage non-improved N44-7 but they are getting rare so I use the Jico

Get that one !!!
 
A $39 pair of Dayton B652 6.5" 2 ways! :scratch2:
Bought 'em to assist in troubleshooting a scratch ST70/VTA build.
Damned if they don't sound way better than they have a right to.
 
I hope we can resurrect this interesting thread. I know the title says "one thing" but I cheated a bit. Sorry.

JVC HA-D610 stereo headphones. Must be 30 years old? Forty? They don't look special. Foam is now falling off. But they continue to sound great.

MCS-3233 receiver. Sounds even better than it looks. Wide soundstage. Loves vinyl. A total surprise. Makes me smile. It even pushed aside my NAK STASIS receiver for a while. Restoring this baby.
.
 
Realizing how good cd was way back, when I noticed it was a bad idea to have a fixed 2v output into a 1v input, with a wrong load impedance at that. One can’t blame a format on one’s not paying attention. I Waited and bought a good Sony player with a variable out so I could level match, and I also paid attention to the input impedance range and the published spec for the Sony so they were complimentary. Good cables helped too, so did paying attention to the AC cord phase. My buddy wondered why mine sounded so good and his sounded like S*#@.
I’m still a fan of the format, and use really good red book gear now. The 16/44.1 rate still has the ability to “shock and awe” even in the hi res era.
 
Dave: *lol* That's one of the reasons why I like my gas-powered soldering irons: silent -> off, emitting a soothing sizzle -> on. And depending on the model the glow of the flame can also be pretty well visible.


Well, and regarding the original topic: I wouldn't really have expected that I'd use a portable CD player (Panasonic SL-CT570A) and a portable headphone amp (Meier Audio PortaCorda II) more for CD listening at home than I'd use my regular CD players and headphone amps.


Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini
 
1968 fifty watt Kenwood TK-140X. Hardly anyone likes the 140 series. Bad tuner, bad amp, bad parts. The 140X is very different than the 140 and 140U.
And very good.
 
Two things … last couple of years.

1. Kef Q100's .. was not expecting to like these bookshelf speakers (paired w/ sub) so much. Was planning on trying a series of bookshelf speakers over a multi-year period (experiment) … now not sure.

2. How good that I have managed to get lossy streaming to sound (living room rig) .. using the Total System Concept (everything counts approach). Didn't see that coming .. sorry Neil.:(
 
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