My Home System

[Rabid1981]

Hi again

well having been encouraged to do so, I will show you my home system, but please excuse the crappy pictures, as i dont have my didgital camera with me atm, will upload some better ones when i get the chance.

As you can see the digital side is laptop based, I was at one point ripping my vinyl to my hard drive, but in the end, realtime recording left me bored to death, so nowadays I just play it as I want to listen to it.

Most of my Cd's have been relegated to the spare room, and I have FLAC copies of them all even singles, equating to 423GB.

So anyway, this is fed through a HRT Music streamer II, via an ordianry usb, nothing fancy as of yet.

http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt289/rabid1981/home%20rig/DSC00030.jpg

The hub of this is my Copland CSA-14 hybrid amp, the best hifi purchase I have made to date, and certainly the most expensive, this has been upgraded via swapping the solvetk valves, with a pair of Mullard 6922, gold pin valves. Sitting ontop of this is a Rega Planar 2 with Ortofon Samba cartridge, an ISOkinetik rewire, and ISOkinetik acrylic platter, and michell record clamp with a cambridge Audio 640P Phonostage.

http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt289/rabid1981/home%20rig/DSC00026.jpg

Also in the picture are my Quad 11L's sitting on atacama nexus 6 stands, sand weighted, but not spiked. All the interconnects are Nordost, as is the speaker cable

I have a Project Head Box II, which is soon to be replaced witha Graham Slee kit, i have just purchased, feeding either some AKG K701's or Senn HD600's

http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt289/rabid1981/DSC00062.jpg

Finally a wee pic of my vinyl collection, which as you can see encompasses Puccini to Kraftwerk, via alot of strange stuff inbetween. I admit I make alot of 180gm and 200gm purchases, but am making more and more second hand ones and experimenting with the PVA glue method I have seen on a few other forums, with alot of success i must say.

http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt289/rabid1981/home%20rig/DSC00029.jpg

http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=320.0

anyhow the reason I started using my pc more, was the loss of my krell CD player, which gave up the ghost at the end of last year. Due to an unfortunate broken pipe in the ceiling. grrr... wasnt quite as expensive as the Copland but only just behind it.

lastly my pride and joy, an Epiphone Casino Jazz, and marshall amp, can play abit, but need to get better

http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt289/rabid1981/home%20rig/DSC00024.jpg

anyway, thanks for looking.

Liam

[Alex_UK]

Great looking system Liam. Were you not able to claim off your household insurance for the Krell? I think the PVA glue method is one I must try - any recommendation on the best glue to use? It was mentioned before in this thread (http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7204) - has to be more effective than the other methods I tried... :) I'll report back when I get round to it...

[Rabid1981]

Great looking system Liam. Were you not able to claim off your household insurance for the Krell? I think the PVA glue method is one I must try - any recommendation on the best glue to use? It was mentioned before in this thread (http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7204) - has to be more effective than the other methods I tried... :) I'll report back when I get round to it...

hi alex, and yes i did, but because i was a second hand item when i bought it they gave me back 700, try replacing a krell for that I told them, but no joy I gave up in the end. Spent it on the car, as i was gainfully underemployed at that time.

PVA well i use a huge tub of B&Q pva, that i bought for sealing the floor, works well and peels off overnight.

[Welder]

Ahhh, Copeland……….they make some extraordinarily good kit but for some reason the Hi Fi press don’t rate their stuff as highly as some fairly mediocre products by comparison.
Maybe Copeland don’t send them free samples or take them out to lunch
Welcome anyway.

[DSJR]

Copland is UK distributed by Absolute Sounds as their "pauper brand" and with very few exceptions is darned good stuff..

Apologies to Marco (where is he by the way?), but your setup is crying out for some ADM9.1T's as the Copland wouldn't then be needed and the 640P could go straight into one of the analogue inputs.

I really feel that the Rega should have a better support. Sod the fancy add-ons (platters, clamps etc) and expensive MC cartridge, the isolation and minimal risk of picking up stray magnetic fields is paramount on these decks to get the best quality sound in the bass...

Welcome to AOS too :)

[Reid Malenfant]

Well they say you learn something new every day & i guess i have done today :eyebrows: PVA glue for cleaning records? Do you water it down slightly or apply it as is?

Sorry to hear about the Krell CD player :eek: I think i'd need councelling if the same happened to my transport :doh: As it is no water could get to it, well not unless the house got flooded to a depth of 4ft anyway :lol: The only thing that could possibly kill it would be a car coming through the wall...

Nice little system you have there, as John says, the Copland gear is very underated by the Hifi press & he probably has hit the nail on the head for the reason why :eyebrows:

Welcome to the forum, i hope you enjoy your stay :wave:

[Rabid1981]

Thanks for the welcome.

Ahh the Copland, 17 years old now, so its not that far behind me. I do love its sound, especailly since the valves were changed a year back, and it was serviced.

funny thing is, if the Krell had been sat in its usual place it would have been fine. I had boxed it up and left it in the spare room, as my friend wanted to demo it, with some speakers he was considering. Ho-hum..

as for pva, about 30-40ml is enough, i spread it using an old credit card, and rest the record on an old NAD turntable, i rotate it by hand and let it cure overnight. Its a slow process, but since i only buy a few records at a time and they are usually cheap, its worth a punt.

I agree about the rega needing a better support, especally away from the coplands huge toroidal transformer, and until recently it was. I had made a wall support, and it sat very happily there, until a job change required a move back home. I will sort somthing out eventually but i really dont have the space atm. also I might be going down the sl1200 route.:eyebrows:

[michaelhigh]

You have a very nice guitar, they are very affordable here in the States. Take your time, learn to read (I know; seems a waste on guitar but you will understand what you hear if you learn theory in general) and above all, take time to practice and have fun. Simple songwriting is a good exercise to improve your skills, and recording with inexpensive home multitracks are a good way to integrate your dual interests. I would love to own a Casino or Sheraton, even as a bass player...

[Marco]

Apologies to Marco (where is he by the way?), but your setup is crying out for some ADM9.

I was away for a week visiting family and friends in Glasgow - back now...

Glad you missed me, dahling! :eyebrows:

Marco.

[Alex_UK]

Marco, who's Marco? :scratch:

Oh him! ;) Of course we missed you me ol' China! Hope you had a good break.

[DSJR]

I was away for a week visiting family and friends in Glasgow - back now...

Glad you missed me, dahling! :eyebrows:

Marco.

Glad you're OK Marco. I thought the men-in-black had come and got you.......

[Rabid1981]

just added a Graham Slee Novo kit to replace my Pro-Ject Headbox.

Delivered today, so set about it this evening, all in all about 3 hrs to finish, including testing, so not to bad, and the instructions were pretty good tbf.

Got my Senns on and just giving it a listen as I begin to break it in. they are already better then the pro-ject.. so give them about 48hrs and will see again.

[Rabid1981]

Upgraded again, finally replacing my krell cd player with a Copland CDA 266, am very happy with it so far, bass is the standout feature atm, kicks very low and very articulate at the same time, think its time to replace my quads i think. but with what, think i need to find a speaker that better suits my current room, maybe a little leaner on the bass, more detail, slightly warm but only very very slightly so, looking for more transparent and controlled speaker all in all. any recommendations, was very taken by a pair of Jamo concert 8's even bid on them but was not prepared to go over £600 for a pair of standmounts. new or ebay purchases considered.

http://i620.photobucket.com/albums/tt289/rabid1981/home%20rig/DSC00066.jpg

[The Grand Wazoo]

Oh my word! Does anyone at Absolute Sounds know that you're upgrading Krells with Coplands? I don't expect they'd like any potential punters to hear about that!!

Still, never mind, eh!

[Bazil]

Hi Liam
I've got a P2 it came with the Elys2 not the Bias 2. I thinking of doing some upgrades , any tips?
(I've already fitted a techno weight)

[Rabid1981]

lol, well tbf, the krell got lunched in a flood, so I should have said replaced, not upgraded.

as for upgrading a p2, the acrylic platter hasnt made much of a difference on mine, but it does look better then the mdf one supplied. A rewire of the arm is a good start, and allows you to use a better mc cart, the original wiring picked up a little hum from somewhere.

otherwise a good phonostage and a good cartridge, those are the places i would look to gain the biggest advances first, cambridge audio 640p is a good start, maybe a graham slee down the road, I admit i really like my Ortofon Samba, very detailed and good bass.

Am looking to sell the rega atm as well as the cartridge, am going the technics route (Yawn), but am getting the deck for free so i thought i may as well have a go at it.