My audio system, so near completion

SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
slimbob said:
Awesome news you are so happy with them. I bet coupled with your turntable and valve amp it brings an incredible warmth to the sound. I know a lot of purists prefer turntables to CD players as digital can sound cold sometimes. That's a really sturdy looking rack you got there. As you say you are still in the breaking in period so if you are blown away now it will only get better.
Glad you are so happy it's an incredible set up :cool:.
I am a big movie soundtrack fan and I bet Interstellar would sound other worldly :)
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I actually have interstellar on vinyl, shall give that a spin tonight 👍🏼
 
KippleKat

KippleKat

Enthusiast
SpyderTracks said:
Disclaimer - you would be right to assume I went over most things with a duster before taking photographs!

Well, they arrived, or at least I collected them. To be fair to UPS, they were extremely nice at the depot although it did take them 45 minutes to find my parcel!

I left home at 7 for the 1 hour drive either way, got back just before 10, but had to work at 10:30 so no time to play.

LONGEST DAY EVER!!!

There was this beautiful box sitting on the landing floor just beckoning me:

View attachment 27662


Then to rub salt in the wound, I had to work until 7pm tonight.

BUT THEN - the clouds broke, I wolfed down some dinner and made a cup of tea ready for setup.

Had a little cabling issue, then had an absolute panic attack before powering it on that it wasn't going to work so had to have a quick break and just calm myself.

Then settled in to listen to some OK Computer.

It already sounded really good. Like realms ahead of my old setup which was the best I'd ever had. At quiet volumes it's still just so easy. I was loving it, the range it goes down to is just rediculous considering these are bookshelf speakers. A few reviewers had stated it wasn't the most immediate bass and was more soft, but for me, it was really nice, great punch and LOW.

And then it really hit home.

Track 3 - Subterranean Homesick Alien came on and OH MY GOD! I've heard people talking about holographic imaging and soundstage, and I've definitely experienced them but usually when under the influence. But the sounds were swinging left to right, back to front, I had my eyes shut the whole way through and was literally in a trance by the end of the track. Just staggeringly good.

Now bear in mind these have only just been unboxed, they recommend 20 hours listening before they start to loosen up, the adhesives give way, the coils loosen and open the sound, so it's only going to get better.

View attachment 27661

As you can see, the room is less that ideal, it's tiny, currently behind the chair is just records everywhere.

So these haven't even been setup with regards to speaker placement, so there's a lot of room for improvement there as well.

Plus when I get them in a bigger room when I move in a couple of years, that will help enormously also.

But off the first night's listen, they're already miles ahead of anything I've had before.

Ignore those cables everywhere, it's a figment of your imagination.

So this is the final (ish) setup, just gotta get some speaker cables (currently using really cheap stuff), replace my cartridge and another interconnect for the computer to the amp:

View attachment 27666
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Look at those beauties! 😍 I am insanely jealous
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
slimbob said:
Awesome news you are so happy with them. I bet coupled with your turntable and valve amp it brings an incredible warmth to the sound. I know a lot of purists prefer turntables to CD players as digital can sound cold sometimes. That's a really sturdy looking rack you got there. As you say you are still in the breaking in period so if you are blown away now it will only get better.
Glad you are so happy it's an incredible set up :cool:.
I am a big movie soundtrack fan and I bet Interstellar would sound other worldly :)
Click to expand...
Big thanks to @slimbob for suggesting this album, it sounds INSANELY good, “No Time For Caution” and "Tick Tock" are the tracks that always gets me:

IMG_1958.jpeg
 
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Stephen M

Stephen M

Author Level
A good turntable system is next on my agenda but I need to find somewhere to put it first. At moment have got a fairly bog standard Sony Blu Ray system which I use for CDs as well. Nearly all the classical I listen to now is via Blu ray as the sound is so superior to CDs. The compression on CDs kills off far too much, especially at the low and high end, plus very soft notes.

A good way to demonstrate the difference is to play any pizzicato passage from an orchestral piece on CD then Blu ray and another is the Beethoven Violin concerto, at the beginning there is a very soft and sublime bit of timpani, on Blu Ray it sounds as if you are with the orchestra while on CD it is often hard to hear at all.

Sadly there is no Tangerine Dream vinyl at Cherry Red at the moment but they do re-issue a lot of old stuff and also put out previously unavailable recordings so worth check back from time to time: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/artist/tangerine-dream/
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Stephen M said:
A good turntable system is next on my agenda but I need to find somewhere to put it first. At moment have got a fairly bog standard Sony Blu Ray system which I use for CDs as well. Nearly all the classical I listen to now is via Blu ray as the sound is so superior to CDs. The compression on CDs kills off far too much, especially at the low and high end, plus very soft notes.

A good way to demonstrate the difference is to play any pizzicato passage from an orchestral piece on CD then Blu ray and another is the Beethoven Violin concerto, at the beginning there is a very soft and sublime bit of timpani, on Blu Ray it sounds as if you are with the orchestra while on CD it is often hard to hear at all.

Sadly there is no Tangerine Dream vinyl at Cherry Red at the moment but they do re-issue a lot of old stuff and also put out previously unavailable recordings so worth check back from time to time: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/artist/tangerine-dream/
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That’s the same I found when moving to vinyl, specifically, the first time I noticed “more” to a recording was a U2 track on Achtung Baby, can’t remember which one, there was a whole bongo section at the top of the track that I’d never heard on CD or digital. Gave a real different feel to the song.

Have bookmarked that site, they've certainly got a few releases I'd like to try out!
 
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SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
slimbob said:
Awesome! Must sound incredible, sorry if the below is not of interest it's only 3 minutes long but I found it interesting.

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I never knew it was an actual pipe organ they’d used, just assumed it was a synth, but makes absolute sense how they got such an enormous sound.
 
Stephen M

Stephen M

Author Level
I live the sound of a pipe organ. Once had the luck to be in Leipzig for a concert to celebrate the rennovatuon of the organ in the Gewandhaus. A real variety of stuff from classical to jazz but only on the organ.

It is an amazing instrument, not sure but about 1,000 pipes. It has a main console in the normal place for an organ but there is also a portable one so the organises can play from the main stage. At one point there was a duet with one organist on stage and the other in the balcony.
 
AgentCooper

AgentCooper

At Least I Have Chicken
Moderator
Crikey, that was a bit intense. I think I need something more sedate from the organ back catalogue…


 
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