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Good mornin', New Member Here

Chris Janak

Chris Janak

New Member
New member here, coming to you from Richmond, Virginia. Been playing around with electronics a little bit the last year, mostly buying guitar amps, pedals and related gear locally, fixing them, and then reselling online. Not a way to make big money if you take into account the time involved, but a fun hobby that "pays for itself" and let's ya play with lots of different gear.

Anyway, scanning facebook and craigslist for amps has me bumping into vintage component systems, speakers, etc. and I started picking up things here and there. Thinking it would be fun to have a modest vintage component system, I've picked up an Onkyo TX-2000, Panasonic RS-805, MCS 6803 and some Martin Super-Max IIs. At some point I'll get a decent single cassette deck and turntable.

Some of my earliest memories are playing my older brother and sister's records on my Dad's stereo system. Don't know the model numbers, but it was late 1970's stuff: Dual turntable, Kenwood receiver/tuner, Sanyo tape deck, and these speakers labeled "ma-1" on the front with multi-directional tweeters. I would guess it was upper middle-range stuff, but I really don't know.

One of my happiest days was getting my own component system for Christmas as a boy - Technics tuner/receiver, Pioneer 2-way floor speakers, Pioneer dual cassette deck and Pioneer or maybe JVC CD player. I wish I still had that stuff, although I'm sure it was all of modest quality.

In my early 20's I bought a solid Yamaha RX-V800 AV Receiver/Tuner and Yamaha DVD player, matched with some B&W 601 S2 (or maybe they were 602s) on the left, center and right, B&W LM1s as surrounds and a smaller Definitive powered sub. The B&W's were the first speaker's that really helped me hear music differently... like things I hadn't really noticed in song's before were apparent; exciting! Sadly, the DVD player died and I don't have those great speakers anymore, but I'm still using that Yamaha AV unit 20 years later.

In my early 30's I bought a Peachtree Decco with the matching speakers and invested in the Sonos system, linked to a NAS with a lots of music and much later to Spotify. This is still what's in my living room today, with the B&W LM-1s in an adjacent room. There are a few Sonos units around the house and I've got some adequate Pioneer SP-FS52 Andrew Jones speakers with the matching center and surrounds in the AV set-up. These all work fine, but I no longer have a proper stereo with proper speakers to really rock out with. So... that's what has brought me here.

Thanks!
 
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Welcome to AK Chris! I am Kevin. What a great write up. Yeah, it is hard to put a value on your time and like most things, I feel you never truly get your money back out of this hobby in any mind blowing sense but as long as you are having fun and learning, it is a rewarding one. Sounds like you have been through lots of gear in the past and now you are battling the sonos monster trying hard to get sound quality over convenience. I guess a good place to start on recommending gear would be with what type of music you listen to. I keep a vast collection of classic prog rock, jazz and blues to help fend off boredom. But I have a few different systems to audition various types of music on. I try to be era-correct all things being considered. I demo 70's rock on my vintage 70's silver faced system and listen to youtube streaming on my bedroom 90's system. I also have a 5.1 surround sound system for demoing soundtracks in my living room. Everything in it's place. What do you like to listen to?
 
Rectilinear1 said:
What do you like to listen to?
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Thanks Kevin, John, antpaubarcar, jbrainey and baeron! Yes, over time I made the transition to convenience and, while streaming from small devices IS very convenient, I would like to take a few steps back in the other direction to create a higher quality and more enjoyable listening experience from time to time. I'm not spending hours and hours listening to music like I used to and I wont be building a number of specialized listening environments based on genre/decade at this time (although that's a really cool idea!), but I do want to create a modest place to have a much nicer stereo experience again.

I listen to a pretty wide variety of music... some classical, 50s-60s jazz, 60's-70's funk, pre 1990 country, a little bit of 80's and 90's rap and hip-hop, definitely some go-go... but mostly I listen to rock and what I consider new wave and its offshoots. I don't listen to much music made after 2010... some, but not much, and I'm especially heavy in the late 70's, 80's and early 90's but definitely some 60's too. Punk, classic rock, garage, psychedelic, new wave, shoegaze, brit pop, power pop, indie, a little all over the place I guess. Definitely a fan of reverb, delay and wall of sound. And while there are plenty of great lo-fi recordings, I tend to prefer higher fidelity stuff. And while I can appreciate different formats, the truth is I tend to prefer CD for sound (although it's tough to be the aesthetic experience and ritual of handling an album). That said, I've had fun playing around with 8-track tapes lately.

- Chris

PS: antpaubarcar... my wife spent her senior year of High School as an exchange student in Portugal. Also, we spent our honeymoon there too... one of my favorite places I've ever been!
 
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squirrelnest and grillebilly in NOVA... although I live in Richmond now, I grew up in Vienna and went to Madison High School. My wife grew up in Alexandria and went to TC Williams.
 
Chris Janak said:
Thanks Kevin,
I listen to a pretty wide variety of music... some classical, 50s-60s jazz, 60's-70's funk, pre 1990 country, a little bit of 80's and 90's rap and hip-hop, definitely some go-go... but mostly I listen to rock and what I consider new wave and its offshoots. I don't listen to much music made after 2010... some, but not much, and I'm especially heavy in the late 70's, 80's and early 90's but definitely some 60's too. Punk, classic rock, garage, psychedelic, new wave, shoegaze, brit pop, power pop, indie, a little all over the place I guess. Definitely a fan of reverb, delay and wall of sound.
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You have excellent taste in music sir, I will tell you that. For that "wall of sound" you speak of, I've narrowed it down and I believe you will be most satisfied with large speakers. They will still fill a room at low volume but give you that "stadium feel" on weekends when you have friends over and want to crank it up a notch. Large speakers also sound great with reverb engines. My kenwood eq has reverb and delay built in and I love playing with it while demoing cassette tapes to boost signal 6db and open up the soundstage to more of a live sound feel. With large speakers, you can FEEL the music as most models will get you down into the 20hz range (window rattling bass). It is best to save money and pick out a 70's era silver faced receiver with plenty of dynamic headroom e.g. Marantz 22XX, Macintosh, Pioneer SX-XXXX, etc. You may want to consider some large advents or even Rectilinear III's if you are a bass head like me. What size is your room?
 
Welcome to the Land of Sound...AK!

Great intro by the way! :thumbsup:

You def have been bitten by
the Audio Vint Bug.


Q
 
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