o/t house hi-fi recomendations ?

[markcoopers]

Music Fidelity for me

[Gromit]

QUOTE

Music Fidelity for me

Me too. Still Listen to my old P170/172 set up with an original Cambridge Audio CD3.

   

Sorry Jeff for thread drift.

   

[KerryS]

Isn't the music on iPods compressed? If so doesn't seem worth spending huge sums on amp/speakers on the basis that the signal is has loss already.

This was always the Linn argument in vinyl days - and maybe still, lost touch with the hi-fi scene - that input signal had to be of highest order to stand any chance of downstream quality/enjoyment.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

My golden rule was (in analogue systems) always to get a decent source and decent speakers. The bits in between being of lesser importance. Now my ears are rather less 'decent' and, as often as not, full of b****y wax I don't worry too much.

[KerryS]

I think it was Linn (or magazines at the time of analogue) that recommended 50% of budget on sound source then 50% on amp/speakers.

I sort of stuck to that with £1000 on CD player then £600 on amp and £400 on some s/h speakers. Boring bit was £?00 on speaker cables, bi-wired of course!

Then the wax in ears thing happened = largely waste of ££

[PeP]

I spent more on my amp than speakers(only just) then spent 10% of the budget on wiring(bi-wired also).

Yamaha amp,Mission speakers with a top notch BK sub and 5* rated wiring.

Best place on the web for info (imho)

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Nothing (bar a cheapo cassette deck, but that's all cassettes are worth) in my main set-up is newer than twenty years. Philips CD deck, ReVox A77 open reel, Revox linear tracking turntable, ReVox tuner (second hand), Technics amp, and Teledyne Acoustic Research (AR) speakers. The speaker maker is long gone down the toilet. Hardly ever use it though. Like most people we spend most of our indoor life in the kitchen and the flush mounted ceiling speakers wired through from the sitting room twenty five years ago in a fit of enthusiasm aren't that brilliant. Mostly we listen to FM radio on a little JVC mini system in the kitchen. Now, where's that new battery for me hearing aid?

[KerryS]

ReVox A77 open reel,

[dhutch]

The Harmon Kardon Sound sticks i by far the best of the simular proportioned 2.1 setups i have listened. However the do still lack that sound that you get from an actuall prober speaker.

 - Although they will blow away pretty much any iPod Dock obvisouly.

- I have the Antec Lansing Eqiuvilent 2.1's at uni and there ok for what they are. (nothing more, nothing less).

In our kitchen we have a nice pair of 5" Mission's which are nice, if rather covered in cooking grease.

- Jamo S600's in the living room, and Clestion SL12's in the sitting room.

- Cambridge Audio power amp, Linn preamp, marantz cd player, quad fm tunner, jvc tape deck and a horrable sony md player for dad to record stuff to play in the car.

All accumulated over years.

- The tap deck was my mums at uni, the fm tuner dads gradautaion present form his parents (with a now retired matching preamp).

- Power amp was bought when i was about 6 (15 years ago) after i had melted rather a lot of tapes on the old valve amp.

- CD player is the newest one. After we got tired of the 15yo technics player not playing CD-R or anything with a scratch.

Daniel

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

- I have the Antec Lansing Eqiuvilent 2.1's at uni and there ok for what they are. (nothing more, nothing less).

I heard a wonderful Altec Lansing set-up in an hotel lounge in Tokyo in the seventies. The room was massive, as hotel lounges tend to be, but this equipment, with physically huge speakers, gently but more than adequately filled the room with sound. There was no eardrum damage risk - it was subtle but all-pervading. The nearest thing I've heard to live music. The acoustics of the room certainly helped, though. Little has changed in two decades in HiFi in terms of available quality, I reckon, it's just that the better sound keeps creeping down the cost spectrum over the years. More lately it's been different means of achieving that quality.

[pistonbroke]

Save spending a small fortune on Hi Fi

Get out there and listen to some real " live" music  

[The Great Fandango]

How computer / network competent are you Jeff?

Home networking for video and audio is REALLY taking off this year. The way forward for many people now is storing all their music files (MP3, WAV, FLAC etc.) centrally on a NAS drive or small home server.

Several options can then play that music in your kitchen... 'Sonos' & Logitech's 'Squeezebox' spring to mind.

I'm looking to invest in some serious central storage in the form of a TranquilPC SQ-5H home server. This will take up to 10Tb.

Unlike the kitchen scenario, I have a Logitech Squeezebox 'Duet' which outputs SPDIF to my living room setup.

That said, you simply can't fault the Bose... I have one of those for the bedroom and LOVE it!

PS: Picking up on a comment earlier, most new A/V amps have dual or even triple zone so you don't have to worry about what people are watching/listening to in the living room.

[dhutch]

I have looked at a Squeezebox myself.

- We have all our music (well, whats not on vinal or them odd CD things) on a central NAS drive at home.

- Currently we often use the laptop hooked upto the preamp, on wifi, running winamp. But thats a bit messy for a kitchen and a waste of a £800 laptop!

Daniel

[JeffC]

QUOTE

How computer / network competent are you Jeff?

on a scale of 1-10 about 2    

[The Great Fandango]

So perhaps if wiring up a set of speakers from your main hi-fi to the kitchen is an option, then there are plenty of A/V amplifiers with dual zone for less than £350.

Mine's the Onkyo SR606... I don't use the second zone but it has that functionality.

Just bought a lovely pair of small speakers... Cambridge Audio SR30s (I think?)... I use them as rear speakers for my living room cinema surround sound but was just thinking the other day how well they'd go in the kitchen. They get a good write up too.