Ibemiked
Active Member
So on Sunday I went and picked up a pair of Mint Paradigm Monitor 7's and i really do mean Out of the box mint. Very happy with the speakers, the guy who I share the same name with Mike had them hooked up to a beautiful JBL UREI 6290 Amp and played a cd for me, they sounded perfect. I noticed his speakers, Carver Amazing ALIII's, I complimented him on them and he asked me if I wanted to hear them, he hooked them up and played the same cd, It was Amazing! No pun intended. What was even more amazing is when he told me to move over about 2 feet to the sweet spot, it was incredible, the sounded good from where i was originally standing but when i moved over it was jaw-dropping. Now here's where it really got cool. He turned down the music and we got to talking about our stuff and he says let me show you my real setup.. I was already impressed now im wondering what speakers could top those. We get up to his attack and it's and audiophiles playground, he's got speakers, amps, and i'm talking good speakers and good amps and lots of them just stacked all around this attic, and it's neatly arranged. Now we get to the front of the attic and the main system consists of 2 pairs of speakers each powered by 2 Yamaha PC9500N Amplifiers.. There was a ton of nice stuff on this rack, it was probably 6 feet tall, He had a nice Carver Amp that was not in use, A Carver C-4000 Preamp, a real nice Sony ES Wood Sided CD player, a Sony ES SACD, 4 EQ's which were only used for Spectrum Analyzers.. Now the speakers... Not only did he have a mint Pair of AR90's which were the B speakers, He had the 'Holy Grail" AR9LS's! Needless to say the system sounded f*****g Incredible! He played a Herb Alpert song, It was one I had never heard before would guess it was from the late 70's early 80's, real nice song and I was hit with goosebumps and it sounded like Herb Alpert was in the damn room. So after that I had to run but we exchanged information and I will most definitely be doing some trades and deals with my new friend Mike. Always cool to meet someone who shares your same addiction/passion/whatever you want to call it for audio. And its even cooler to meet someone whos taken it to a level well beyond your own. Now I know what I really what as an end all, beat all system for me and for what I want.