Recommendations

[speakerman1]

What would you recommend? Me I have some I would recommend.

Creek if you can find it used.

Any AV123 or Acoustic Alchemy product. Very good gear. Old but very good. Won't break the bank.This is sounding so good.

Barelli TT amp. Good price good sound.

For the money. Not cheap but very worth it. The Shanling tubed CDP. You can buy more expensive ones. For the price it is worth it to me.

Speakers are a personal thing to me. I can tell you the pluses and minuses if you ask. Of ones I have owned. It takes a lot for me to recommend something.

Larry

 

[dingus]

if you have an older or middle of the road cd player with a digital output, a modern stand-alone dac may astound you with the improvement in sound.

 

[speakerman1]

I agree. It can blow your mind on the improvement.

Larry

 

[Gepetto]

Any of the OPPO high end BR/DVD/SACD players with 7.1 direct output. These are excellent quality units and they are constantly innovating and improving.

Digital is unique in that continuous improvements are being made constantly. Like your PC and servers, a new unit always performs better than one produced even 2 years ago. This owes to die shrinks, faster clock speeds, cheaper memory, better ASICs, better DACs, etc. all which are the domain of digital.

Couple that with degradation of the laser diode, it is inevitable that new works and sounds better than vintage in the digital category. This only applies to digital.

Thus my first recommendation is trade up regularly in this category to newer. Old digital is just old digital.

Second recommendation is Yamaha C-2a or C-2x preamp. This is an extremely well designed and sounding analog, 2 channel, fully discrete masterpiece with an excellent MC phono input.

 

[laatsch55]

When considering any mid-range horn driver, personal experience tells me a 2" throat driver is in another league compared to a 1" throat driver, and the wood tractix horns are a vast improvemenmt over the plastic or fiberglass models.

 

[dingus]

...Second recommendation is Yamaha C-2a or C-2x preamp. This is an extremely well designed and sounding analog, 2 channel, fully discrete masterpiece with an excellent MC phono input.

agreed!!! (they are hard to come by though)

i'm lucky enough to have a C-2a in the bedroom system. one of the better pre's i've heard from any era at any price.

 

[Hugh]

Onix, naturally.

 

[orange]

I like my old Pioneer PD-F907 file changer from about 1998 a lot. It seems slow when changing the disc but the fact that it's a 1-bit DLC (linear) unit puts it up with the 90s Sonys (PULSE) and Sonys tend to please me as long as they aren't broken.

The only preamp I ever owned was a Yamaha C-60 that had a bad channel, it was a gift and I sold it to an AK member who could get it fixed. I always wanted either Onkyo, Rotel or Crown amps because I'd heard them. I miss AAL although I'd mainly heard them in bars. The last two remodeled and they are GONE. Seeburg wall speakers (the Altec kind) and Wharfdales are fun but I'd build a house for the Seeburgs. Anything I can't really build speakerwise is generally not worth operating a brothel for.

Tom Bodett always stole my fantasy airtime, therefore he is my imaginary antiannouncer.

All dogs go to heaven, all cats eat a lot of catfood and have never learned to stop fighting, smoke a j and figure who's first. Like the hippies.

That is between you and me, of course

Cats are audio oriented but it's more like the extra noises the ambulance makes.

A boy's fancies turn from cards in the spokes to farty little cars. My sound of silence was quietly dusting Mitsus. Muffler implies reduced noise.

That's enough for now, I don't want smoke from your ears from the overload.

 

[mlucitt]

Can you give us some examples of modern DACs, say, in a few price ranges?

 

[dingus]

this is a good start
https://docs.google.com/a/sound-thi...C5yKnfvAdGFBSjNWdjZOYTdPaFpYVHVBVHFDbVE#gid=0

 

[orange]

I recommend a good, basic Pioneer Laserdisc player with CD capabilty at least, the price is right compared to the DVL series with DVD and you can find a tonne of really nice music and old movies from pre-2001, usually at a half decent price. The quality of the picture may suffer now and then but for audio and general picture quality pre-DVD you will absolutely NEVER regret them.

My CLD-M90 features a special 5-CD pick loader and when they work they are art (mine has never made a bad peep).

PS I have never had trouble finding a player locally, they come up on Craigslist now and then, sometimes at a thrift here and lately get offered with LIBRARIES.

Same thing lately for RCA CED players on eBay.