MadcatSowega
Member
The Evolving Listening Space on a Modest Budget
Hey there AK'ers! I've been a long time lurker, then created a profile here about a year ago and now I'm finally posting for the first time. I don't have pictures of all my gear at the moment but I'll try to take some and upload them soon.
I have been someone that cares about sound quality for about as long as I've loved music and I loved listening to good music on my parent's system since as far back as I remember. Now that I'm a 25 year old grad student living in my own apartment (couldn't do much when I was living in the college dorms!), I have been working on building a solid stereo system. For the past year and a half, a ton of gear has entered into the rotation, only to be traded out for something new as I have sought after the perfect sound. I have a very picky ear and have a precise picture in my mind of how things should sound.
My biggest limiters to building a great system have been funding (poor grad student here!) and my listening space (the family room in my small apartment). But I make do with what I can and I have a system right now that I'm pretty satisfied with.
Currently my family room system runs off an early 80's Kenwood system including:
Kenwood Basic M2 Amplifier: a high current amp that provides heaps of clean power (far more than I'll ever use honestly). I would describe it as a somewhat warm sounding amp. Bass detail is great, IMHO.
Kenwood Basic C2 Preamp: one of the sweetest sounding pre-amps I have had the opportunity to hear. I recently had her serviced as the balance knob wasn't making a good connection and a channel was cutting out. No ammount of de-oxit was solving the problem; I understand this is a somewhat common problem with these. Other than that, I really believe these are well worth the low prices they command on Ebay.
Kenwood KT-990D: A well regarded tuner that was reviewed favorably on fmtunerinfo (http://www.fmtunerinfo.com/shootouts.html#KT-990D). This is new to my system and I was running the KT-880D (the tuner just a step below the 990D) before that. Honestly I liked the 880D better. I'm going to take the 990D to the shop at some point to see if it needs any refreshing/servicing/allignment.
(old pic when I still had the KT-880D hooked up)
Magnavox CDB-492: A cd player running the Phillips TDA-1543 DAC and CDM 4/19 cart. I picked this up at Thriftstore for $5-10 bucks and love it.
It plays every CD I throw at it and it sounds pretty good actually. It has a very warm and analogue-ish sound which is surprising to get out of a CD.
Trio WX-400 Tube Receiver (also sold as a Kenwood KW-70 and LR-800): This gal is totally mint cosmetically, minus missing the cover since it was mounted into a custom stereo console by the original owner. Currently she is in the shop being restored and having all the fifty-million bad caps in it. I can't wait to finally hear it once I get it back.
BIC 940 Turntable: I'm new to the turntable business as I've run most of my music off off my CD player or streamed music off of my media computer through an ASUS soundcard. This is my current turntable. Not likely to hang around for too long but it is doing the job for now.
Main speakers -- Bozak 302a: These are really quite amazing speakers and I love them. Mine have the aluminum mids and tweets. The seller I bought them indicated that he purchased them from an audio store 8 years prior and that they had some work done to them; he didn't know what. I have yet to check to see if they have been recapped or had the Pat Tobin mods applied but that's because they sound so good as they are now that I just haven't bothered.
They've been my mainstay speakers for quite some time now and I've auditioned few speakers I like better. They have an incredible warm and natural sound that you can listen to for hours with zero fatigue. They have great detail at any audio level (quiet or loud) and a very nice soundstage. Honestly, I find it shocking that they sound as good as they do. To be honest, they are not as hyper-detailed and clinical sounding as other high-end speakers I've auditioned, but they are not by any means muddy sounding. In my opinion they are more natural than most speakers I've heard and to me that is a good thing. They sound more true to what I hear when I go to a live show than some of the ultra high resolution speakers do. Not to mention, they are one of the most versatile speakers I've listened to, sounding good with just about every genre of music, IMHO.
Of course, everyone everyone has their own tastes in music and audio quality can be quite subjective (and also dependent on the other gear used, listening space, etc). But to have an idea of how highly I esteem these speakers... they ousted the Monitor Audio Silver 9i's and Snell Type D's I previously had for my system. I really do prefer these to the far more modern Snells and Monitor Audios, both of which were roughly $2,000ish speakers when they were sold. For the person that prefers a more natural, smooth and musical sound, I really feel like the Bozak's are a stupidly good find/deal for what they typically sell for. I've only definitively auditioned one other speaker that I liked better and those were the Sony SS-M7's. Those speakers... wow. :tresbon: I've also auditioned the GoldenEar Tech Triton (One's I believe) at my local Hi-Fi store and I was pretty impressed with those. But I didn't really have enough time or really an opportunity to a/b them against mine so... it's a tough call.
Now the Snells and Monitor Audios reside with other family members, btw.
Lessee... For fun, I'm also in the process of restoring a pair of Sansui SP-300s which are nice speakers but not really in the same league as the other gear. They are beautiful cosmetically though.
Well, I'll write more and provide better pictures but this will do for now. What are your thoughts on the system????
Hey there AK'ers! I've been a long time lurker, then created a profile here about a year ago and now I'm finally posting for the first time. I don't have pictures of all my gear at the moment but I'll try to take some and upload them soon.
I have been someone that cares about sound quality for about as long as I've loved music and I loved listening to good music on my parent's system since as far back as I remember. Now that I'm a 25 year old grad student living in my own apartment (couldn't do much when I was living in the college dorms!), I have been working on building a solid stereo system. For the past year and a half, a ton of gear has entered into the rotation, only to be traded out for something new as I have sought after the perfect sound. I have a very picky ear and have a precise picture in my mind of how things should sound.
My biggest limiters to building a great system have been funding (poor grad student here!) and my listening space (the family room in my small apartment). But I make do with what I can and I have a system right now that I'm pretty satisfied with.
Currently my family room system runs off an early 80's Kenwood system including:
Kenwood Basic M2 Amplifier: a high current amp that provides heaps of clean power (far more than I'll ever use honestly). I would describe it as a somewhat warm sounding amp. Bass detail is great, IMHO.
Kenwood Basic C2 Preamp: one of the sweetest sounding pre-amps I have had the opportunity to hear. I recently had her serviced as the balance knob wasn't making a good connection and a channel was cutting out. No ammount of de-oxit was solving the problem; I understand this is a somewhat common problem with these. Other than that, I really believe these are well worth the low prices they command on Ebay.
Kenwood KT-990D: A well regarded tuner that was reviewed favorably on fmtunerinfo (http://www.fmtunerinfo.com/shootouts.html#KT-990D). This is new to my system and I was running the KT-880D (the tuner just a step below the 990D) before that. Honestly I liked the 880D better. I'm going to take the 990D to the shop at some point to see if it needs any refreshing/servicing/allignment.
(old pic when I still had the KT-880D hooked up)
Magnavox CDB-492: A cd player running the Phillips TDA-1543 DAC and CDM 4/19 cart. I picked this up at Thriftstore for $5-10 bucks and love it.
It plays every CD I throw at it and it sounds pretty good actually. It has a very warm and analogue-ish sound which is surprising to get out of a CD. Trio WX-400 Tube Receiver (also sold as a Kenwood KW-70 and LR-800): This gal is totally mint cosmetically, minus missing the cover since it was mounted into a custom stereo console by the original owner. Currently she is in the shop being restored and having all the fifty-million bad caps in it. I can't wait to finally hear it once I get it back.
BIC 940 Turntable: I'm new to the turntable business as I've run most of my music off off my CD player or streamed music off of my media computer through an ASUS soundcard. This is my current turntable. Not likely to hang around for too long but it is doing the job for now.
Main speakers -- Bozak 302a: These are really quite amazing speakers and I love them. Mine have the aluminum mids and tweets. The seller I bought them indicated that he purchased them from an audio store 8 years prior and that they had some work done to them; he didn't know what. I have yet to check to see if they have been recapped or had the Pat Tobin mods applied but that's because they sound so good as they are now that I just haven't bothered.
They've been my mainstay speakers for quite some time now and I've auditioned few speakers I like better. They have an incredible warm and natural sound that you can listen to for hours with zero fatigue. They have great detail at any audio level (quiet or loud) and a very nice soundstage. Honestly, I find it shocking that they sound as good as they do. To be honest, they are not as hyper-detailed and clinical sounding as other high-end speakers I've auditioned, but they are not by any means muddy sounding. In my opinion they are more natural than most speakers I've heard and to me that is a good thing. They sound more true to what I hear when I go to a live show than some of the ultra high resolution speakers do. Not to mention, they are one of the most versatile speakers I've listened to, sounding good with just about every genre of music, IMHO.
Of course, everyone everyone has their own tastes in music and audio quality can be quite subjective (and also dependent on the other gear used, listening space, etc). But to have an idea of how highly I esteem these speakers... they ousted the Monitor Audio Silver 9i's and Snell Type D's I previously had for my system. I really do prefer these to the far more modern Snells and Monitor Audios, both of which were roughly $2,000ish speakers when they were sold. For the person that prefers a more natural, smooth and musical sound, I really feel like the Bozak's are a stupidly good find/deal for what they typically sell for. I've only definitively auditioned one other speaker that I liked better and those were the Sony SS-M7's. Those speakers... wow. :tresbon: I've also auditioned the GoldenEar Tech Triton (One's I believe) at my local Hi-Fi store and I was pretty impressed with those. But I didn't really have enough time or really an opportunity to a/b them against mine so... it's a tough call.
Now the Snells and Monitor Audios reside with other family members, btw.
Lessee... For fun, I'm also in the process of restoring a pair of Sansui SP-300s which are nice speakers but not really in the same league as the other gear. They are beautiful cosmetically though.
Well, I'll write more and provide better pictures but this will do for now. What are your thoughts on the system????
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