How do you listen to music in the home?

Gotta reply to this thread.

 

My current "Main" basement Mancave system in a dedicated 23'x25'x7' listening space:

Amp: dynaco MKIII monoblocks/PAS3X pre (both rebuilt w/mods&upgrades) 

CDP: Oppo BDP-95/Rega Apollo 

TT: Denon DP-47F/cart:Grado Gold1

Loudspeakers: Klipsch Cornwall 2(w/Crites)

Powered subwoofer: Klipsch RSW15

 

Recent divorce, no kids and a big old 1916 Portland Bungalow has allowed me to go a little crazy in the past 5-6 years with audio. I have 4 separate stereo systems in the house. Yeah, i guess i'm one of those "Audiophiles" now. I did/do try to keep the $pending sane. (Doing your research/cherry pickin' local vintage gear on CL is great for that.) Most of my stuff was had that way. Very rewarding hobby/Money well spent!

 

To be honest, I've had to scale it down a bit volume wise cause I moved back in with the parents, so I bought a very expensive set of headphones(sennheiser HD800's) and I connect them to my stereo amp. This system allows me to enjoy music quite well considering I cannot blast my music through my 1260watt Bose 10 speaker sound system. I'll have to wait till I move out again to enjoy that pleasure. Oh I miss my Bose, but the Sens are a wicked-awesome tie me over. :)

libertycaps wrote: <FONT size=2 face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Gotta reply to this thread.   My current "Main" basement Mancave system in a dedicated 23'x25'x7' listening space: Amp: dynaco MKIII monoblocks/PAS3X pre (both rebuilt w/mods&upgrades)  CDP: Oppo BDP-95/Rega Apollo  TT: Denon DP-47F/cart:Grado Gold1 Loudspeakers: Klipsch Cornwall 2(w/Crites) Powered subwoofer: Klipsch RSW15   Recent divorce, no kids and a big old 1916 Portland Bungalow has allowed me to go a little crazy in the past 5-6 years with audio. I have 4 separate stereo systems in the house. Yeah, i guess i'm one of those "Audiophiles" now. I did/do try to keep the $pending sane. (Doing your research/cherry pickin' local vintage gear on CL is great for that.) Most of my stuff was had that way. Very rewarding hobby/Money well spent!

f**king Awesome!!!

My PC's integrated speakers, they work good but the sound doesn't get loud enough a lot of time. When I want to get loud and better quality I put on some headphones.

Slartibartfast wrote: I don't think I've put in my thoughts on this yet, so here goes. Audiophiles may turn up their noses at this, but if I were on a tight budget and had a computer with a 5.1 surround sound card, I'd get any of your basic off the shelf 5.1 speakers with a bass unit.  You really want to be able to enjoy surround sound these days.  My, uh, mancave btw is actually a mancarport.  My wife hates it when I crank it up and I love to crank it up.  The carport is enclosed and connected to the house.  We've got surround in the living room and bedroom but again, the whole crank it up thing.  I also have all my musical instruments set up in here.  Yeehaw!

I call them audiophilists to avoid confusion, that way I can be as rude as I like about litz wire and sound absorbing wallpaper (at $1000000000 a roll) and not upset any true audiophiles that may be reading.

Absolutely no regrets diving head first into audio. I spent 6 months lurking at http://www.audiokarma.org first before buying my first vintage "audiophile" int. amp off local CL: A Sansui 990DB (The rare black faced Euro version of the 9090DB.) Still have it. It drives my Mancave Solid State rig. FFW 5-6 years and i've sunk around $10K into the hobby.

Edited by libertycaps - April 26 2013 at 21:48

Catcher10 wrote: progbethyname wrote: Catcher10 wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: I don't think I've put in my thoughts on this yet, so here goes.Audiophiles may turn up their noses at this, but if I were on a tight budget and had a computer with a 5.1 surround sound card, I'd get any of your basic off the shelf 5.1 speakers with a bass unit.  You really want to be able to enjoy surround sound these days.  My, uh, mancave btw is actually a mancarport.  My wife hates it when I crank it up and I love to crank it up.  The carport is enclosed and connected to the house.  We've got surround in the living room and bedroom but again, the whole crank it up thing.  I also have all my musical instruments set up in here.  Yeehaw!   "Audiophile - A person having an ardent interest in stereo or high-fidelity sound reproduction"   I think we all have this interest....we are music lovers, so it makes sense that we are all audiophiles. I sure the hell am. God I've spent so much coin on sound equipment, but it's so incredibly worth it. :) You have to really hear the music to fully understand and appreciate it. :)   Absolutely worth looking into higher end gear to fully enjoy your music...I agree. But its a choice people have to make as far as how much and what you buy. You can spend triple the money if you jump into all the tweaking scenarios, like wallpaper (weird) or super duper high end cables or blocks of wood to keep your cables off the ground that "improves resolution and clarity"...huh? Similar to a friend at work that buys several versions of albums like the CD, SACD, DVD-A and 5.1..the music is the same. Give me a redbook standard CD or better yet a vinyl version and I am a happy camper enjoying a fantastic listening session without 4 different versions.....  But that is just me....

Right you are, but it's incredible the difference in quality out there. You really have to take it upon yourself to explore and of course hear equipment before you buy it! That's the best buying power you can have. Also, I'd really like to see if that sound proofing wall paper works!! My god, that seems like a stretch. Watch it be 10 feet thick lol. Also, you are right about 5.1 24bit/96khz being the same as an SACD. It's just british sound formatting for North American dts/Dolby 5.1. It's all the same. I've tested it. Your right. And it is soooooo easy to get ripped off with sound cables. So much flowery language to describe them. I say, 'yeah be very careful buying your audio cables.' especially for headphone to amp connection. :)

I have a pair of nice speakers in my music room with my CD player (A Walkman, actually, since my disc changer died) and turntable. But I am not always there and listen from my Bose headphones sometimes, or even straight from the laptop speakers when my wife and I are playing minecraft together. The music all moves me the same, as long as I can hear it well enough to tell what's going on, but the speakers in the music room certainly feel nicest on the ears and have the most oomph for a loud, detailed listen.

For any audio nuts here curious, this is my current Solid State Man Cave set-up:

Edited by libertycaps - May 04 2013 at 20:04