Nice Surprises. Equipment that sounded way better than expected!

[Macca]

Just picked up a mint pair of AR18s, condition is unbelievable for a speaker that’s nearly 40yrs old.. The sound has blown me away, I though most people just raged about it as a good speaker for its age, but damn these things will give a lot of modern speakers a good run for there money. I feel like a kid at Christmas again, I’ve just packed away my Mission 751 speakers, right now I’m pretty hooked on these AR18s

They would be expensive speakers if they were still made today, ten times the cost of those Missions at least. AR knew what they were doing. And a good speaker is a good speaker, regardless of the age of the design.

[Michael loves music]

I had AR 18s with a Nad 3020e amp and Nad 520 CD player for 30 years very musical but imho my tannoy Mercury V1 speakers sound better

[mannypr551]

They would be expensive speakers if they were still made today, ten times the cost of those Missions at least. AR knew what they were doing. And a good speaker is a good speaker, regardless of the age of the design.

I concur. A.good.speaker is.a.good speaker anywhere and anytime . AR made great.speakers and many of them today are classics .

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[mannypr551]

Richard Grey power conditioner . I didn't believe much in power conditioners because those that I had tried did very little to the sound , they did protect and some even made the sound worst as they constrained the current . But I needed one . Saw one at Ebay for 100 dollars ,list price was 800.00 . Bought it . Connected it to my system and has never come off since then . It really put my whole system on a higher level of musicality . Everything was better . Bass , mids , highs , soundstaging , prat . You get the idea. Never thought a conditioner could do that . In reality it isn't a conditioner but rather it creates new electrical power for your system filtering in the process everything thats in the current that not supposed to be there . And to think I bought it just for protection on a impulse . I was pleasantly surprise.

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In case some of you are wondering how the richard gray creates new current it does it by passing the electricity threw a inductor . When current passes threw a inductor the inductor creates another charge at equal level as the current that went in but all the garbage that your household electricity has picked up traveling to your house is not created by the inductor . It is esentially filtered out . What the equipment recieves is electricity as clean as that which was produced . In order to handle the high current demands the inductor has to be big making the richard grey very heavy . A caracteristic of inductors is the they filter high frequencies but since the current is 110-120 there is no liability . I admit after having read that I told myself " why didn't someone think of this in the first place " .It's so freaking simple that it bypass everyone . PS Audio has a power conditioner which does basically the same but it works differently , plus it isn't passive as the richard grey products

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[Ninanina]

My nice surprise was my Magneplanar speakers

They sound so different than any other speaker I've owned and I've owned a fair few over the years

For what I paid for them the Maggies were a complete bargain sound wise

[hifinutt]

got some little B&w 602 s3 standmounts that cost 120 quid on the end of a naim integrated and they should not sound so good , but by jingo they do . cracking vfm

[southall-1998]

Managed to source a Myryad Z40 Headphone amplifier last Winter. From Peter Tyson for £90. The Z40 originally cost nearly £400 back in it's prime days.

Can't fault anything for the price I've paid. The sound is fairly warm and slightly laid back. Provides enough detail for my ears. Even managed to drive the stubborn AKG K701's pretty well.

In some ways I prefer having the Z40 over the Schiit Asgard 2 & **DELETED**. Out of the trio, my ears finds the Z40 to have the least solid state sound.

S.

[Mike Reed]

Managed to source a Myryad Z40 Headphone amplifier last Winter. From Peter Tyson for £90. The Z40 originally cost nearly £400 back in it's prime days.

Can't fault anything for the price I've paid. The sound is fairly warm and slightly laid back. Provides enough detail for my ears. Even managed to drive the stubborn AKG K701's pretty well.

In some ways I prefer having the Z40 over the Schiit Asgard 2 .Out of the trio, my ears finds the Z40 to have the least solid state sound.

S.

I use mine with 300 ohm Senn. 650s and I'll go further than you in saying I'm amazed at how good this amp. is. Versatile, too. It is a class A design, but I certainly wouldn't call it warm; its bass is surprising too. Nice feature is the 20 min. turn to standby if no signal is detected but a caveat is that you need to remove the cans to divert the signal to the line out RCAs. One of these days I'll try it as a pre. (as it has 4 inputs). Better than my maxed out Headline, although not exactly an A-B comparison.

[southall-1998]

I use mine with 300 ohm Senn. 650s and I'll go further than you in saying I'm amazed at how good this amp. is. Versatile, too. It is a class A design, but I certainly wouldn't call it warm; its bass is surprising too. Nice feature is the 20 min. turn to standby if no signal is detected but a caveat is that you need to remove the cans to divert the signal to the line out RCAs. One of these days I'll try it as a pre. (as it has 4 inputs). Better than my maxed out Headline, although not exactly an A-B comparison.

Do you use the gain on high position?

S.

[southall-1998]

@ Macca, you had no fecking right to delete part of my content on post 67. Go and look at your signature!!!!

I strongly suggest you don't interfere with my posts again in the future.

S.