Looking for some guidance please

[bbones]

Regarding vintage/2nd hand.....especially now with Covid and travel mostly shut down.....I'm a little leery purchasing something where one is unsure of the care and quality. (saying that I will assume that higher end components are more likely purchased by like minded individuals as yourselves .......and therefore well taken care of)
Do components hold their value typically? Looking at some of these 2nd hand components for sale, and it is difficult to know whether it is a good deal.

[walpurgis]

I'd say steer clear of vintage gear for now.

Set yourself up with decent modern second-hand or new equipment if you want an easy life. It's all very well folk recommending their 'pet' makes or items, but that misses the point really.

Concentrate on working out on what you expect from your proposed system, like what it will be mainly used for. Casual listening at modest volumes or 'party loud' capability or reproduction of rock or classical music cleanly at realistic levels (much harder to achieve than you'd think).

[Macca]

Regarding vintage/2nd hand.....especially now with Covid and travel mostly shut down.....I'm a little leery purchasing something where one is unsure of the care and quality. (saying that I will assume that higher end components are more likely purchased by like minded individuals as yourselves .......and therefore well taken care of)
Do components hold their value typically? Looking at some of these 2nd hand components for sale, and it is difficult to know whether it is a good deal.

Best thing to do is break it down. Loudspeakers first, then everything else falls into place.

Things to consider - what size is the room you are going to put them in. What sort of levels are you going to want to listen at. What sort of 'sound character' or presentation do you want.

With the latter you can go from warm and cuddly all the way to a forensic 'studio control room' type of sound, and everywhere in-between. A good, big speaker will always be better than a good, small speaker. But if the room is small a big speaker may be too much.

I'd guess with being in Canada you have at least a decent sized room i.e at least 20' by 15', so you should be able to accommodate a large speaker. Will you be able to place the speaker in space well away from walls and corners or will they need to be close to a wall?

(Note - of all speakers the large Tannoys and Klipsch are pretty much agnostic to room size and placement, they will work well even in a small room, but that isn't true of almost all other large speakers).

For presentation, if you want a forensic sound then look at speakers like Focal or B&W. For warmer, more euphonic sound, examples would be Harbeth, Spendor, Wharfedale. Again the large Tannoys can do either depending on what you partner them with. (These factors are what make big Tannoys so popular, although not everyone likes them).

The problem with buying some good, big speakers brand new is that they are ruinously expensive. So even if you buy the turntable and amplifier new I would go for second-hand speakers. The speakers and the room they are in dominate the type of sound presentation and the sound quality above all other considerations so this is the most important bit to get right and the bit where you need to get maximum bang for the buck. It's worth the effort of a long road trip in order to do this IMO.

Price - assuming the speakers are in full working order and good cosmetically - In the UK you would look at between £1500 and £3000 for Tannoys. Focal and B&W about half that. That's a big generalisation and won't be exactly the same in Canada, but should give you some ballpark idea of realistic second-hand pricing.

[fatmarley]

Geoff makes a good point.

If there's a vintage item you're interested in, you could always ask here first just to check if there are any known problems to look out for. Old speakers can be a nightmare with tweeter ferrofluid drying up, foam surrounds rotting away, surrounds coming away from the cone, suspension sagging causing the voice coil to rub. With very old ones electrolytic capacitors in the crossover can wear out.
Obviously if it's recently been serviced by a reputable person or company then there's much less risk.

Listening distance is very important to know when choosing speakers. Large multi-driver speakers listened too nearfield are generally not a good idea because the drivers need a certain distance to integrate properly - But small bookshelf speakers (LS3/5a etc) sound best when listened to nearfield and not so good further away.

Something I would personally like to listen too If I were nearer the United States are Tekton speakers. Although I realise they are still quite a distance from you - Tekton. The Lore gets some excellent reviews and looks like a fun speaker.

[Pharos]

Speakers are the most reliable part of the Hi-Fi chain, and if something is wrong with one, it is usually blatantly obvious.

[fatmarley]

Speakers are the most reliable part of the Hi-Fi chain, and if something is wrong with one, it is usually blatantly obvious.

I'd argue it's not always obvious because the problems I mentioned are a gradual process. Ferrofluid drying up will make the tweeter sound gradually quieter, the worse it gets. Electrolytics drying up is a gradual proccess that will change the frequency response slowly over time. With mild voice coil rub it can often only be heard with the odd track, but most tracks will sound fine. Foam surrounds just before they fail can look fine.

Also, unless you have an exact pair of the same speakers up to spec to compare, you wont know what they are supposed to sound like.

[Pharos]

Of course you are right in principle, but foam is IMO easy to assess, it dusts, and cone rubbing checked with a finger placed around the coil on the cone and it pushed in around the circumference to check tendency. Caps are not expensive.

[walpurgis]

This thread seems to be drifting off into analysis of defects. Steve just wants some simple guidance and opinion on system building and buying.

[struth]

Best thing to do is break it down. Loudspeakers first, then everything else falls into place.

Things to consider - what size is the room you are going to put them in. What sort of levels are you going to want to listen at. What sort of 'sound character' or presentation do you want.

With the latter you can go from warm and cuddly all the way to a forensic 'studio control room' type of sound, and everywhere in-between. A good, big speaker will always be better than a good, small speaker. But if the room is small a big speaker may be too much.

I'd guess with being in Canada you have at least a decent sized room i.e at least 20' by 15', so you should be able to accommodate a large speaker. Will you be able to place the speaker in space well away from walls and corners or will they need to be close to a wall?

(Note - of all speakers the large Tannoys and Klipsch are pretty much agnostic to room size and placement, they will work well even in a small room, but that isn't true of almost all other large speakers).

For presentation, if you want a forensic sound then look at speakers like Focal or B&W. For warmer, more euphonic sound, examples would be Harbeth, Spendor, Wharfedale. Again the large Tannoys can do either depending on what you partner them with. (These factors are what make big Tannoys so popular, although not everyone likes them).

The problem with buying some good, big speakers brand new is that they are ruinously expensive. So even if you buy the turntable and amplifier new I would go for second-hand speakers. The speakers and the room they are in dominate the type of sound presentation and the sound quality above all other considerations so this is the most important bit to get right and the bit where you need to get maximum bang for the buck. It's worth the effort of a long road trip in order to do this IMO.

Price - assuming the speakers are in full working order and good cosmetically - In the UK you would look at between £1500 and £3000 for Tannoys. Focal and B&W about half that. That's a big generalisation and won't be exactly the same in Canada, but should give you some ballpark idea of realistic second-hand pricing.

what he said basically

[bbones]

Thanks. The reality is it will most often be "Casual listening at modest volumes"....although I'm a huge Genesis fan (with Gabriel) ...... Trespass and Selling England By the Pound.....will definitely be more than modest. (probably be the first albums I play (maybe Wish you were here)