A nice budget small scale audiophile stereo set up for those of you who want to jump in

I still have - and use - the Philip 312 turntable I bought in 1977.

Wish I still had the Alison Three speakers I bought at the same time.
 
originally posted by Yixin:
originally posted by BJ:
originally posted by Yixin:


The guy who sold me the Onkyo thinks Rega is spoofy.
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That is simply one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. It's akin calling CRB spoofy.

Re the Wharfedales, while I don't know that specific speaker, Wharfedales have a great reputation. What's your price range?
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To be honest I liked the Thorens TD150 more than the Rega, but I don't know how much was down to the cartridge.

Price isn't really an issue. It's just that I don't see the point of paying more if I can't hear the difference, and I haven't had a chance to audition the speakers at home. The KEF Coda speakers are fine, to be honest.

And this is a temporary set-up. I'll be moving it to the office once that's ready, and will have to start the entire process from scratch, probably with floor speakers.
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Which Rega? I’m really surprised.

For bookshelf speakers - epos, spendor, neat, dynaudio 1.3SE (probably my favorite monitor ever)

Neat’s whole range is perfectly tuned, fast, controlled but open.
 
originally posted by maureen:
I still have - and use - the Philip 312 turntable I bought in 1977.

Wish I still had the Alison Three speakers I bought at the same time.
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The 312 is great. I have a 212 out at zHome, basically the same thing. Listening to it this afternoon in fact. A little fragile though, and often been through many hands. Being an original owner is very special - don't let it get away from you. You have to love those buttons!
 
originally posted by Yixin:
The new one. Rega P3, I think.
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RP3. Wonder if it wasn’t set up well. For the price, it’s hard to beat. I just got an RP1 for Carson for Xmas, after listening to it for just a handful of tracks. I’m amazed by what they’ve managed to do for under $500. Of course I have a bias toward the British PRaT thing.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Ken Schramm:
I've been very pleased with the fidelity of NAD components. The receiver/amplifiers are quiet, clean and flat. Their turntables have always looked almost as good as they sound. My cartridge/stylus is a Grado GF-1. Not a lot of dough, but very good performance for the price points.
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Well, my system is antediluvian at this remove, but my NAD preamp is going strong at age 29, as is the David Hafler power amp it feeds into.

Mark Lipton
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I had a 20-watt NAD amp with plans of using only the preamp to feed into a Hafler 100-watt amp, but I never got the money for the Hafler. Odd to see someone else with the NAD/Hafler combination. It well thought of in the early 1980s.
 
originally posted by SteveTimko:
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Ken Schramm:
I've been very pleased with the fidelity of NAD components. The receiver/amplifiers are quiet, clean and flat. Their turntables have always looked almost as good as they sound. My cartridge/stylus is a Grado GF-1. Not a lot of dough, but very good performance for the price points.
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Well, my system is antediluvian at this remove, but my NAD preamp is going strong at age 29, as is the David Hafler power amp it feeds into.

Mark Lipton
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I had a 20-watt NAD amp with plans of using only the preamp to feed into a Hafler 100-watt amp, but I never got the money for the Hafler. Odd to see someone else with the NAD/Hafler combination. It well thought of in the early 1980s.
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NAD was well known for the solidity of their preamp design, as well as for their good pricing. Hafler, likewise, was quite popular among the audiogeek set back then, and sold amps in kit form, which is how I afforded my DH-220 back in the day. So not entirely surprising that others came up with the same bargain audiophile setup as I did, Steve.

Mark Lipton
 
B&K amp and pre-amp with Joseph Audio speakers, since the early 1990s. My latest addition is a music streamer II+ DAC.
 
And speaking of geekiness, I got rid of my Linn LP-12 a couple of years ago when I realized that keeping up with the upgrades was costing me more than my Soliris prescription. I got a Rega P2 and it works just fine. It goes around and around, just as a turntable is supposed to. I've got a Clark pre that nobody's ever heard of or seen (it looks like it might have been constructed on Yanniger's kitchen table) and that goes to a Bedini 45-45, finally winding up at a pair of Vandersteen Model Ones with some cheap passive subs I bought off of some Russian guy in Glendale off of Craigslist for $25. Most of this shit is so old that if it were Bordeaux, it would be pre-phylloxera, but it sounds pretty good most of the time.

From whence arises a question: does playing older music on an older stereo system enhance the musical experience? Maybe we could take a cue from the Riedel glass thing where we'd have a couple of different music reproduction systems around so that the music is being played on equipment appropriate to the genre of music we're listening to. I could rationalize it as kind of like keeping kosher in an audiophile household.

-Eden (or would my friends consider it yet another manifestation of OCD?)
 
Great to read about others still using their "legacy" audio equipment. I still love my B&K amp and Hafler pre amp (both from the early 1990's) and am now in the midst of figuring out whether to continue using them, incorporating modern music media along with these old components. For instance, I am giving thought to digitizing my thousands of CDs into FLAC files, and then feeding the digital music into the older analog components via a streaming component or digital processor (I don't want a laptop connected to my audio). Olive makes a well-regarded product for this very purpose, which I can plug right into the pre-existing Hafler preamp, but it rips the CDs into some proprietary Olive storage file (even on a backup hard drive) and I have doubts whether I want to forever be locked into this Olive format.

One thing I will upgrade is the speakers. My old Tannoys are shot. Based on a few recent listens, I like Spendor.
 
Quick question.

If you are going to invest heavily in one component of a sound system and go cheaper with the others, which component should you spend the most money on: the receiver, the turntable, or the speakers?
 
originally posted by Yule Kim:
Quick question.

If you are going to invest heavily in one component of a sound system and go cheaper with the others, which component should you spend the most money on: the receiver, the turntable, or the speakers?
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Turntable - much akin to starting with the soil.
 
originally posted by Yule Kim:
Quick question.

If you are going to invest heavily in one component of a sound system and go cheaper with the others, which component should you spend the most money on: the receiver, the turntable, or the speakers?
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What proportion of your listening is really LPs, though? I guess if you have a lot of old and rare classical or jazz it pays to invest in a turntable. Otherwise, go digital. And then you want to prioritize the speakers.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg: Proprietary formats are one thing I absolutely can't abide. It's the only reason I haven't bought a Kindle yet.
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Keith, The Sony ereaders are the best...and are non-proprietary.

. . . . . Pete
 
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