Dougs Big Messy Stereo

[dougmon]

What do you think? Do you really believe what Alan says about amps sounding the same? Funny forum that one imo. I enjoy prodding them a little

Well, nothing against Alan, who after all designs very good-sounding speakers, but...no, I can't go along with him at all if that's what he says. I believe the original statement was a little more qualified than that, though, wasn't it? I can't remember it, though. And although I didn't agree with it, it made more sense than the blanket "all amps sound the same."

EDIT: I missed the post by DSJR where he repeats what Shaw said. If the quote is accurate, it's "all 'good' amps sound the same when closely level matched". There is a lot of wiggle room in that statement. In the end, though, I don't care that much; I would still buy another pair of Harbeths because they're simply very good speakers. And for my listening room and levels, I find that the Luxman (which after all is 30WPC into 6ohms) is quite enough power. I just wish it didn't sound so different from my last amplifier...

I think I went off subject there.

But don't you wish that were true, that all amps sound the same? I certainly do. I'd still have a Denon receiver if it were.

[dougmon]

This is the end...

What I'm thinking of as my retirement stereo is now complete, in that the main components should last a good long time...

Luxman integrated, Harbeth speakers, Rega turntable, EAR phono stage...and now...

I pulled this from the mothballs, because I don't always want to rip a CD to my server before I listen to it:



It's the old faithful Rega Planet 2000. It replaced my original Rega Planet (yes, the CD player) when the laser assembly went haywire and the repairman couldn't fix it. I don't use this much, so I hope it will last quite a while.

I used to plug the analog outs from the CD player into the amplifier, until I got my early birthday/Chanukah/Christmas/Anniversary present, shown here:



Now all of my digital sources (okay, both of them) go into the DAC. My thanks to forum members AlfaGTV for suggesting that I might like an NOS DAC (I do) and Pieoftheday for pointing me towards an inexpensive NOS DAC so that I could determine whether I liked the NOS sound (and as stated before, I do; I do like it). After a lot of research, I decided on the Metrum Musette. It's a nice NOS DAC, and the only drawback I see so far is that the indicator lights are far too bright; so I'm using a simple product called LightDims to mask the light.

It's a happy day at Chez Doug.