My High-End Hi-Fi Set-Up

[weetabix]

Hi All,

I thought it time to post up my little system after years of building it and reaching a completeness.

You'll be pleased to know, the radiator is never on.

System comprises of:

Source: Restek Concret CD Player
Pre-amp: Restek Consens
Power amplifiers: Restek Extracts Mono-Blocs
Speakers: Ruark Equinox
Interconnects: Van den Hul The Second XLR - Carbon
Speaker Cable: Van den Hul The Third - Carbon

http://theartofsound.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=11475&d=1391025898

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Thanks for looking

Regards

Stephen

[Tarzan]

Nowt showing mate.

[RichB]

Always had a soft spot for a VU meter or two.

Used to love my ruarks too... all looks v tidy mate

[RobbieGong]

Sweet ! I love the huge variety of systems and component choices on the gallery, it's great ! :)

[losenotaminute]

I like the speakers ;-)

[weetabix]

Cheers guys,

Yeah, I also enjoy watching the VU meters flicker whilst the music flows.

The Equinox's are a very special speaker, I've always referred to them as "magic speakers" as they deliver music as music should be delivered, full of vibrancy, seamless, syncopated, expressive, light and airy, and yet if required can also sound like floorstanders, all courtesy of the large rear port.

The hard-wired crossover, housed in the stand provides a very dynamic delivery.

[Macca]

Looks superb.

[Tarzan]

Looks superb.


x2

[Spectral Morn]

Very nice

I love the Ruarks I own a pair I have been trying to sell, but I keep getting offered low ball offers. Seeing yours makes me want to keep them.

I am surprised they work in that room as I always felt they needed quite a bit of space round them to work to their best.


Regards Neil

[weetabix]

Hi Neil,

Thanks, that have a great build quality, and it's the sound that really makes me keep them, I completely forget about the system and enjoy the music.

Whether it's dance, trance, r&b, pop, rock, classical, jazz! they just play music.

They work surprisingly well in this small room, even I thought they'd be wasted, however I still get great results.

[Spectral Morn]

I agree

Ken Kessler loved them when he reviewed them (before the XLO umbilical cable upgrade Ruark brought in) called them British Sonus Fabers. I think they are the best speakers Ruark made.


Regards Neil

[RichB]

I still kick myself for letting go of that pair of talismans I had nearly 20 year ago....

All because I needed beer money too:doh:

[Marco]

Hi Stephen,

Welcome to AoS! That's a very nice system :)

Aside from the actual components that make up the system, what I like about it are the rather 'leftfield' choices (very different from the norm), and that you've obviously put a lot of thought into assembling it. The lateral thinking is to be applauded, and is precisely the attitude we promote on AoS - respect!

All that's missing is a nice turntable... ;)

Love the Ruarks, which are from an era where they produced some truly excellent designs. I loved the huge floor-standers, which I think were from the same range as your Equinox - can't remember the name, maybe you know?

May I ask what attracted you to the Restek kit, and can you roughly describe how it sounds?

It's a brand that has always intrigued me. Also, what made you go with the VDH speaker cable? VDH cables are rather maligned in the UK (and in many cases rightfully so), however, in my experience their high-end speaker cables are superb. I use 'The Wind' with great results!

The only thing I'd do with your system is place some supports under your monoblocks, in order to lift them off of the floor. Since you like Quadraspire racks (I love their Sunoko-Vent stuff), I'm sure they'd do some custom-made supports for your amps, to match your rack. Trust me, doing that will improve the sound quite significantly.

Anyway, enjoy your superb system, which I'm sure you already are doing! :cool:

Marco.

[Spectral Morn]

I still kick myself for letting go of that pair of talismans I had nearly 20 year ago....

All because I needed beer money too:doh:

I think if I let mine go I will be kicking myself too.......

Those look like early Equinox - Ruark logo on them is an old one. The ones I have are rosewood (only look red in certain light rest of the time look black), with the XLO umbilical cables and no longer use the bolt arrangement that the early versions used to keep the speakers on the stand.

I agree Marco lifting the amps of the floor will improve ventilation (didn't notice that last night they were sitting on the carpet - very tired) two RDC platforms would do it, large RDC cones or dedicated amp platforms.


Regards Neil

[Macca]

Love the Ruarks, which are from an era where they produced some truly excellent designs. I loved the huge floor-standers, which I think were from the same range as your Equinox - can't remember the name, maybe you know?

.

I suspect you are thinking of the Solistice, Marco. Here's a link:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=ruark+solstice+images&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4NDKB_enUS545US545&q=ruark+solstice+images&gs_l=hp....0.0.1.27457...........0.&safe=images

[Reffc]

Love the Ruarks; really nicely made speakers, the Equinox. Do yours have the external crossovers (in the stands?). Sensibly, I believe early models used the Speakons connector too.

[weetabix]

Hi Marco, Neil, Martin & Paul,

Thanks for your comments, I sadly own no vinyl and built my entire music collection from CD's.

The Solstice is indeed the model you were thinking-of which were kind of like the older bigger brother to the Equinox's.

Restek was introduced to me by Worthing Audio, and at first I wasn't taken by it, as at the time I had an Exposure integrated, which I had a small accident blowing one channel, when I took it in for repair, he lent me the Challenger which was the entry level integrated amplifier, but longed for the Concret CD player, Consens pre-amp and the Extract mono-blocs.

Restek has a sound which I can describe as tonally balanced, dynamic, rhythmic, delivering oodles of grunt when required, the sound has an immediacy, an expression, delivering the full "colour" of instruments, which can also be delicate & airy if called-for. There is a correctness about the presentation. Vocals tend to "hang" in the air with a transparency, around which all the instruments envelope, a convincing soundstage with width, depth and height. Bass that has authority and true slam, clean balanced mids and an open extended airy top end, never sounding artificial or compressed.

Van den Hul was a choice made years ago when a friend lent me their First Ultimate, it was from that point I looked deeper into the brand, they have some very good innovative products, which steer away from the norm, but I was generally very much interested in their carbon leads as they never imposed any character of their own, but allowed the music to flow with all the detail, resolution, body and soul. The introduction of The Third speaker cable was a total revelation, I had been using Cable Talk 3 (I think), but this all-carbon cable was so different and on a completely different level.

The Third allowed me insight into recordings details and resolutions never heard before, decay of recording halls, airy, treble so seamless in its integration it was like the music was as a whole and also fully intact with no distinct treble to speak-of, the mid-range so pure and uncoloured, with holographic energy and expression, together with a good tight bass with detail and rhythm, music had many layers, once compressed, now open and laid out with a sense of space, the system disappears. Each instrument occupies their own space and with it the presentation provides a relative volume to each other. Tonally, that Third was like hard-wiring the amplifiers to the speakers, the cable was acoustically invisible

It opened my ears to how coloured metal speaker cables are, you can hear copper for copper, brass for brass, silver for silver, tin for tin, in each instance, a metal cable tended to split-off the treble content making for a distinct top-end s,s,s,t,t,t,s,s,s, etc etc. perhaps this is the so called "skin-effect" audible, but it's just fake and electronic sounding.

Can you tell I like The Third??, nope, I LOVE it and will never ever look back at metal cables.

Now, to the equipment isolation......

You'll notice in the shelf holding the power supplies to the CD player and the pre-amp, in between are a set of 8 isolation pods and also behind that are 6 cones - they're not being used for the following reason:

I have listened to the Extracts placed on 3 and even 4 of the pods, and preferred the sound of them sat directly on the carpet, also I have tried placing 3 cones under the CD player, however it results in a drier, more sterile performance, touching on clinical, so I have left off those types of isolation, I have even tried the cones on the pre-amp and a thinner, harder sound results.

Experimentation is definitely key here, I have tried a good few things, however I take on board I may have overlooked some obvious paths of improvement, some of which provide a less listenable and emotional expressive performance.

As far as I know, these are an early version of the Equinox's as the plinths are black as opposed to matching the Rosewood side panels, however it did used to have the Cable Talk Concert 4 umbilical, however I modded that to a silver core cable to open up the top-end a little further - damn, where's more of the VdH The Third??

The crossover is indeed the original hard-wired version mounted in the stands padded out with BAF wadding to reduce microphonic resonance, and it uses the Neutrik connections.

Of course, I'll keep looking for more improvements and will investigate the opportunity of raising those amps up as suggested.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Best regards

Stephen

[Spectral Morn]

Love the Ruarks; really nicely made speakers, the Equinox. Do yours have the external crossovers (in the stands?). Sensibly, I believe early models used the Speakons connector too.

The later ones still used the speakons Paul

I am lucky Stephen in I have the stands that match the wood in the speakers



Regards Neil

[Marco]

I suspect you are thinking of the Solistice, Marco. Here's a link:

https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=&oq=ruark+solstice+images&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4NDKB_enUS545US545&q=ruark+solstice+images&gs_l=hp....0.0.1.27457...........0.&safe=images

Themz the boys! Awesome things... They're probably my all-time favourite floor-standers.

Marco.

[weetabix]

Hi Neil,

Yes, I'll agree with you on that one. :-)

Weirdly, the crossover housing matches the rosewood.

regards

Stephen

[Marco]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for the detailed reply - very interesting! I'll reply properly when I have more time :)

Marco.

[Reffc]

The later ones still used the speakons Paul

I am lucky Stephen in I have the stands that match the wood in the speakers



Regards Neil

Ah, thanks for the clarification Neil. Really liked them when I heard them a fair few years back now.

[jandl100]

Ooo :drool: - I'm jealous as hell about your Restek power amps!

I've had a Restek Consens pre-amp (silver fascia) for well more than a year now (a long time for a boxswapper like me!) - I think it's probably the best pre-amp I've had. Not that far off a good passive when it comes to transparency, and loads of drive (which a passive doesn't have) - and it just sounds good to listen to. :)

Lovely system you have there. :thumbsup:

[weetabix]

Evening Jerry,

I remember the first time I was demo'd the Consens, it was virtually invisible to the system, and as you say very transparent.

Since moving to completely balanced configuration, this has provided a very much more immediate sound with more expression and emotion, there's more description to the sound, the music appears from a more "inky black" background, everything is more pronounced, more textured and dynamic, improved focus.

I can certainly vouch for balanced XLR over single-ended RCA. It makes XLR sound HD, and RCA like standard definition, with XLR it enables far greater sense of richness to be heard, like it's handed on a plate.

Those Extract mono's pack a punch and a half!, and on the flip side can be a light as air with an ease of transparency.

That reminds me, what disc shall I play now?.........*thinking*

regards

Stephen

[weetabix]

Hi all,

I thought I'd post up the new member of the family to join my system, I have now added the Restek Cosmos FM tuner.

I managed to purchase this off a nice guy in Poland, it's superb, it's right up there with CD quality performance, fully RDS, it's quite superb, the imaging and sound-staging is truly excellent, once again I've used balanced XLR's to gain the best in acoustic performance, together with installing a dedicated FM aerial in the loft, the reception is crystal clear with little, to no background hiss that I can speak of.

http://theartofsound.net/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=11701&d=1393678885

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regards

Stephen

[jandl100]

Cor. :thumbsup:

Restek make loudspeakers as well you know ;)

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTAyNFg3Njg=/$(KGrHqJ,!lQFIetijf,KBSJJf80+Sg~~48_20.JPG