Official System Photos Thread

[AudioNut]

Is that telephone to call James Tanner with Bryston if he needs help with the controls?

[prepress]

Originally Posted by jprice

I've posted various pictures of my "stereo stuff" but never posted my "upstairs system"

This stuff is located in a rather awkward place - a room about 48' X 24" over my garage, so good sound is rather hard to come by. The speakers and equipment are located along the long wall. The wall behind the stuff is a "knee wall" which comes up for about 4' then slopes to the front. The television cabinet is "built in" and follows the contours of the wall and ceiling. Ceiling height is about 10'.

The Sonus Faber Guarneri Memento speakers are sitting on Symposium Acoustics Svelte pads, which helped their imaging considerably.

My new OPPO BDP-95 can be seen wedged into the rack, below the VPI SDS - I'll do better with that unit when I have time.**

I have no idea if my JL Labs F-112 sub woofer (seen to the left of the TV cabinet) is located in the right place, it's just the only place where I had room to put it, and it seems to sound alright.

I know the antique bass drum is ruining the music, I usually move it when I play stuff I care about. The didgeridoo is not too threatening to the sound, so it usually stays in place.

I also know that I need to dress up my wires, but that is a project for another day.

Criticism is absolutely not welcomed (but nice suggestions are solicited and appreciated - so please suggest anything that comes to your mind)

**EDIT: After I looked at the pictures, I moved the VPI SDS Speed Controller (for the turntable) to the bottom of the rack - so the OPPO now has lots of room to breathe, on a shelf by itself.

I think it's a great idea to give the heat-generating components room to breathe. I moved my SDS out of the cabinet it was in for that reason, and try to avoid stacking pieces, especially any serious heat-producers.

How far back do you sit from the plane of your speakers? To me, a room that large cries out for near-field listening, even if you're firing across the room's shorter dimension.

[chops-tube]

Originally Posted by Vintage Pete

Charles...thanks again! It's been a while since we've had a local get-together, it may be once or twice a year.

You're very local, so we could get together at either of our places almost anytime.


Pete

You're welcome Pete!

I think that yearly "get-together" ratio needs to be increase 10-fold!

[esteban]

Brand new shots, now including a Prima Luna DiaLogue One amp that I just received this past Friday. Hopefully I can get my hands on a nice amp stand soon...

[Vintage Pete]

estaban....very nice! Very nice photos and a really nice looking amp. the tube cage is very unique. I'll bet it sounds sweet!

Pete

[Masterlu]

That is pretty cool looking!

[esteban]

Thank you! This is my very first tube component, so this weekend has been a learning curve for me. I like the sound of the Prima Luna and I LOVE its looks, specially with the cage in place and the lights off.

Some albums sound absolutely three dimensional, warm and sweet, which is what I was after, while others left me scratching my head since they actually sound strident and quite a bit more "in your face" than what I was used to. This is definitely NOT your grandpa's tube amp, that's for sure. I am very much still processing the difference in sound coming from a Marantz receiver. I need to give the amp, and the tubes, a few more days to fully break-in before I can formulate a real opinion, though. If anything, the experience DID make me a believer in "break-in". I have been listening to it pretty much all day today, for at least 8 hours non-stop, and I could literally hear the sound transform (and improve) little by little. I had to re-position my speakers as well, and I'm still playing with different set-ups. Jazz, classical, folk and voices sound terrific on this thing. And for what its worth, its 35 wpc produce a ton more bass and bottom-end than the Marantz' 100.

Can't wait to hear the amp's full potential.

[chops-tube]

I never did post any pics of my main system. I guess I'll do that now!


First, just to get it out of the way and solve some of the possible confusion...

The "black" equipment is the HT gear. This includes the Onkyo receiver, Samsung HD cable box, Sony PS3 and Wii. That system uses the AR S-40 tower speakers which are furthest out from the system. It also uses the four little 2-ways mounted up along the ceiling in all four corners of the room. No subwoofer or center channel is used. There's a Samsung 50" plasma on the wall and a EliteScreens 100" powered drop-down screen that covers the TV for really good movies. Behind the couch on a shelf is where I have my Epson 720p 3LCD projector. Everything but the Wii is connected via HDMI, including the 30' HDMI cable running to the projector.



Now the main system...

At the heart of the 2-ch system is an Accuphase C-200 preamp that I recapped myself as well as replaced/upgraded a couple of resistors on the power supply board. This piece dates back to 1973 and is in mint condition inside and out.

The speakers are a near mint pair of NHT 2.9's and are powered by a rebuilt and modified Baldwin Organ tube amp (around 1955 vintage) that I also recapped as well as upgrading those caps and the cheesy power switch with a heavy duty toggle. I rolled all the tubes in this amp with NOS everything including a pair of 5U4G rectifier tubes, a pair of 5751 driver tubes and a matched quad of Russian "coin-base" 6n3p-C tubes (6L6 equivalent). This amp is rated for somewhere between 23-28 watts and it has absolutely no problems muscling these 87dB 1w/1m NHT's.

My two digital sources include a Pioneer Elite PD-D6-J that plays both Red Book CD's & 2-Ch SACD's. I sometimes use my 32Gb iPad for Pandora and such, but mostly I use my old 8Gb iPhone 3G.

My three vinyl sources include a mint Denon DP-55K with a Grace G-707 Mk II tone arm and a Benz Micro Ace SH cart. The second one is a near mint Luxman PD277 with an Adcom HC-VDH II cart. The third and final is a totally mint ELAC Miracord 40A with an AT3100S cart which sounds amazingly good! I'm quite surprised with this deck and cart combo.

I also run three analog tape machines, or rather I did up until a week ago when I put my Nakamichi LX-3 into my secondary system. So now I run two tape decks, a mint Nakamichi RX-303 and a near mint Teac A-3300SX reel-to-reel with a dbx 224, just recently upgraded to a dbx 224x.

Anyway, on with some pics...

[f1 fan]

Originally Posted by chops-tube

I never did post any pics of my main system. I guess I'll do that now!

First, just to get it out of the way and solve some of the possible confusion...

The "black" equipment is the HT gear. This includes the Onkyo receiver, Samsung HD cable box, Sony PS3 and Wii. That system uses the AR S-40 tower speakers which are furthest out from the system. It also uses the four little 2-ways mounted up along the ceiling in all four corners of the room. No subwoofer or center channel is used. There's a Samsung 50" plasma on the wall and a EliteScreens 100" powered drop-down screen that covers the TV for really good movies. Behind the couch on a shelf is where I have my Epson 720p 3LCD projector. Everything but the Wii is connected via HDMI, including the 30' HDMI cable running to the projector.

Now the main system...

At the heart of the 2-ch system is an Accuphase C-200 preamp that I recapped myself as well as replaced/upgraded a couple of resistors on the power supply board. This piece dates back to 1973 and is in mint condition inside and out.

The speakers are a near mint pair of NHT 2.9's and are powered by a rebuilt and modified Baldwin Organ tube amp (around 1955 vintage) that I also recapped as well as upgrading those caps and the cheesy power switch with a heavy duty toggle. I rolled all the tubes in this amp with NOS everything including a pair of 5U4G rectifier tubes, a pair of 5751 driver tubes and a matched quad of Russian "coin-base" 6n3p-C tubes (6L6 equivalent). This amp is rated for somewhere between 23-28 watts and it has absolutely no problems muscling these 87dB 1w/1m NHT's.

My two digital sources include a Pioneer Elite PD-D6-J that plays both Red Book CD's & 2-Ch SACD's. I sometimes use my 32Gb iPad for Pandora and such, but mostly I use my old 8Gb iPhone 3G.

My three vinyl sources include a mint Denon DP-55K with a Grace G-707 Mk II tone arm and a Benz Micro Ace SH cart. The second one is a near mint Luxman PD277 with an Adcom HC-VDH II cart. The third and final is a totally mint ELAC Miracord 40A with an AT3100S cart which sounds amazingly good! I'm quite surprised with this deck and cart combo.

I also run three analog tape machines, or rather I did up until a week ago when I put my Nakamichi LX-3 into my secondary system. So now I run two tape decks, a mint Nakamichi RX-303 and a near mint Teac A-3300SX reel-to-reel with a dbx 224, just recently upgraded to a dbx 224x.

Anyway, on with some pics...

Chops...nice system.

Dave

Sent from my iPhone using A.Aficionado

[Vintage Pete]

Charles......very nice indeed! I love it, all of it. It's been years since I've seen a Elac-Miracord TT. Beautiful Accuphase amp, Teac R-R, and the list goes on! Did you move that (LX-3?) Nakamichi deck in from the other system you "slapped together" the other day, or is this a different one?

Sweet!!!!

Pete