Main System
Turntable: Heavily-modified Technics SL-1210MK5G [Mike New bearing/ETP platter/Paul Hynes SR7 PSU & reg mods]. Funk Firm APM Achromat/Nagaoka GL-601 Crystal Record Weight/Isonoe feet & boots/Ortofon RS-212D/Denon DL-103GL in Denon PCL-300 headshell with Funk Firm Houdini/Kondo SL-115 pure-silver cartridge leads.
Paul Hynes MC head amp/SR5 PSU. Also modded Lentek head amp/Denon AU-310 SUT.
Other Cartridges: Nippon Columbia (NOS 1987) Denon DL-103. USA-made Shure SC35C with NOS stylus. Goldring G820 with NOS stylus. Shure M55E with NOS stylus.
CD Player: Audiocom-modified Sony X-777ES/DAS-R1 DAC.
Tape Deck: Tandberg TCD 310, fully restored and recalibrated as new, by RDE, plus upgraded with heads from the TCD-420a. Also with matching TM4 Norway microphones.
Preamps: Heavily-modified Croft Charisma-X. LDR Stereo Coffee. Power Amps: Tube Distinctions Copper Amp fitted with Tungsol KT-150s. Quad 306.
Cables & Sundries: Mark Grant HDX1 interconnects and digital coaxial cable, plus Mark Grant 6mm UP-LCOFC Van Damme speaker cable. MCRU 'Ultimate' mains leads. Lehmann clone headphone amp with vintage Koss PRO-4AAA headphones.
Tube Distinctions digital noise filter. VPI HW16.5 record cleaning machine.
Speakers: Tannoy 15MGs in Lockwood cabinets with modified crossovers. 1967 Celestion Ditton 15.
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Also **SAY NO** to unjust 'vaccine passports' or certificates, which are totally incompatible with a FREE society!!!
Location: Dagenham Essex
Posts: 11,215
I'm Allen.
I have a Wadia Digital Sound Decoder and sometimes use it for youtube music , The down side is
" you are listening to a track and all of a sudden you get a advert pop up , Music stops you the listen to the add for a product you don't want then you chosen track starts again , FFS "
This has never happened with any LP's I own
[
IMO there's very little worth bothering with after 2000. The most recent album I own came out in 2013. I often check new stuff out on You Tube, it's mostly either derivative, not my sort of thing, or just complete crap. If someone was making good music in this day and age I'd be buying it. But they don't appear to be.
There's no proper rock stars anymore. It's all clean-living mummy's boys (and girls). You can't make good music with virtue signalling and a vegan diet. It needs drink, drugs and some rock n roll ethic. All proper music was made by alcoholics or drug addicts and the very best is by the people who were both.
That world now appears to be gone, replaced by the shiny, plastic-fantastic, Disneyland-safe-space-crapola future we live in now. And the music reflects that, sadly.
Current Lash Up:
TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.
Location: Suffolk
Posts: 246
I'm Ray.
I partly agree but there is some good music around today but you have to seek it out but it depends on your taste. Easy to find good albums in the 70s for rock but I agree today rock music does little for me, Tool, Foo Fighters and Royal Blood are ok, these days I listen more to Americana, singer songwriters and Jazz. Some artists are not well known, I don’t like mainstream stuff. The most recent album I bought was released in 2014.
Last edited by StingRay; 30-08-2020 at 12:40.
Location: Suffolk
Posts: 246
I'm Ray.
Most of my listening is rock or funk. Occasionally a bit of jazz. Mostly mainstream stuff, mostly pre-1995 which for me was around the point that rock music pretty much finished.
There's one Foo Fighter's album I really rate, I found out recently it's also Dave Grohl's favourite. Tool and Royal Blood don't do much for me. Maybe it's because it's all been done before and better and there's nowhere left to go? Or maybe I'm just getting old. I don't know.
I don't do background music so I don't listen that much, maybe 10 albums a week, so there's no need for a collection of thousands of albums, 300 or so is plenty enough to not get bored. I have a decent system to play the music I like, not to embark on some voyage of discovery. There's far too much made of the supposed merits of that I think. For me that's what you do in your teens and twenties, not in your fifties.
Current Lash Up:
TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.
AC POWER
Hardwired 10kVA balanced mains powering entire system
AMPS
Meridian 557 power Amp (Modded) / PS Audio BHK Preamp (Modded)
SPEAKERS
Wharfedale Evo 4.4
DAC
PS Audio Directstream (Modded)
TURNTABLE
Pro-Ject X8 balanced output via XLR / Ortofon Quintet Blue cartridge
PHONOSTAGE
Pro-Ject DS3 B balanced Input (TT and Phonostage powered by Pro-Ject Power box RS2 linear psu)
DIGITAL
OPPO 203 (Modded: Linear PSU, i2s output to Dac) - Roon Endpoint, HDMI input used for all things Streaming/ PS5 /AppleTV ... also good for movies apparently?
MUSIC PLAYBACK
Tweaked AP-Linux based Roon Server into Oppo 203 as Roon endpoint
Ipad Roon Remote.
Apple Music/ YouTube via AppleTV, fed to Dac via Oppo HDMI input/i2s output to Dac.
SPEAKER CABLES
Biwired: Duelund DCA10GA (Bass) Duelund DCA16GA (mid & treble) Duelund 12DCA used as jumpers (On "Blackcat Cable" Chris Sommivigo's advice - yup, even with biwire it sounds better - and it does)
INTERCONNECTS
All Balanced: Ghost+ recording studio XLR cables
Location: Dagenham Essex
Posts: 11,215
I'm Allen.
Location: Suffolk
Posts: 246
I'm Ray.
I thought rock music virtually finished in the 70s, there is the odd album after that worth’s playing. For me streaming is finding new music and the variety, if you have a large collection then I can understand why you don’t need it. It’s also great if you read album some music you can just play it. It is not just recent music, I’m discovering old music also. According to Deezer I played over 2,000 tracks last month. You can also try albums out before buying, so cuts down on mistakes. I have too many cds I would never play anymore even if I did have a streamer. Without a streamer I doubt I would have heard some of my recent favourite albums.
See I only listen to albums, never just individual songs, and always all the way through. Might cut it off before the last song if it's just filler though. You Tube is perfectly adequate for checking out anything that is new to me whether it is current or old. Then I buy the CD.
Even new albums are only £8 so it isn't the massive outlay it was 30 years ago. And then you've essentially got the master-tape, of the version you want, forever. You can copy it to a hard-drive or just play the CD but you still have the physical copy that can't be taken away. Of about 400 CDs I have maybe 20 I probably won't play again, not a bad failure rate.
Renting music makes no sense for me but I can see how it would to someone who goes through 2000 songs a month. Assuming ten songs on an album I'd maybe get through 400 in a month. Big difference.
There's still a fair few albums I need to get to replace the vinyl, Robin Trower, Pat Travers, Montrose, Golden Earing, Creedence, just off the top of my head. And I like jazz fusion but not really scratched the surface of that yet. That's where the Amazon music will come in handy.
Anyway I already have Amazon Prime so costs me nothing extra to use their music library.
Current Lash Up:
TEAC VRDS 701T > Sony TAE1000ESD > Krell KSA50S > JM Labs Focal Electra 926.