# Any Hifi Enthusiasts Around?



## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

Just wondering whether there is any shared interest in hifi? This is my second hobby apart from watches. I like British (relatively understated) brands as I own a Sonneteer amp and Exposure dac. Since I have now completed my hifi system, I have turned my attention back to watches


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## mach 0.0013137 (Jan 10, 2005)

One day I must post photos of the various insane systems I had before I switched over to collecting watches









Thankfully, I`m all better now - I only have one in the lounge, one in my bedroom & another in the kitchen :sweatdrop:


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## ~tc~ (Nov 1, 2013)

B&K pro 20+, B&K AV5000, and Paradigm speakers all around... And that is nothing compared to my old car audio competition truck


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## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

Would be interested to see some pictures, sounds wild. Three current systems is still a good count. Apart from my main system, I have a second one in the bedroom. I have now moved from cd replay to streaming and very happily so. I am now finally (after switching various components) happy with both systems and not tempted to upgrade further.

System 1: vortexbox - sonneteer orton - exposure dac - totem rainmaker

System 2: Sonos connect - Rega dac - marantz pearl lite - totem sttaf


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## harryblakes7 (Oct 1, 2010)

Love my hi-fi.............

Rega P3 Turntable with acrylic platter & ortofon MC25 FL cartridge............. Cyrus Mono X Power amps & Pre X pre-amp........... Nakamichi DR tape deck........... Dynaudio Contour 3.0......... Marantz Ki-Sig 63 cd player........... used to have an Opus Resoultion 21 but sold it...........

Eventually want to get a nice Pionner reel to reel........


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

Unfortunately I live in a flat in London

Hi-Fi's don't go down well with the neighbours! In fact my 1500 or so collection of CDs are in the loft!


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## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

Must be a spacious loft;-) nice systems there guys.


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## harryblakes7 (Oct 1, 2010)

Hi watchdude, have you heard the sound from a Nakamichi tape deck? Shockingly good from old pre-records............ it's made me go all analogue...........

@ JOT.......... John, you can always get some nice headphones


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## Docta13 (Nov 18, 2012)

I just went for the Cyrus full stack. With keff uni Qs


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## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

Hi harry, not heard of the Nakamichi but maybe I should try one day. I have been into headphones before moving to a house, I must have had around ten different low to mid fi headphones at the peak (my favourite was akg k701) but have now sold them all.


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## ~tc~ (Nov 1, 2013)

Watchdude49 said:


> not heard of the Nakamichi ...low to mid fi headphones ...


Nakamichi makes really good stuff. Their tape decks are prettying the reference standard, true hifi


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## harryblakes7 (Oct 1, 2010)

Very nice Docta..........

Well watchdude i can strongly recommend Nakamichi tape decks, mine is a DR2, the sound quality is excellent, i did not know cassette tapes could sound that good, mind you back in the day these were mega bucks.......Â£500 - Â£1000 20 years ago, today you can get a nice one for Â£50 :yes:


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## harryblakes7 (Oct 1, 2010)

Here is their gold plated version, the 1000ZXL.......... other top of the range machines was the Dragon and the CR-7


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## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

Harry, I just had a look on google and these look impressive, nice retro look do you still have lots of cassette tapes?


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## harryblakes7 (Oct 1, 2010)

Have a few Queen etc as well as blank type iv metal tapes, surprising though what you can pick up at a car boot sale...... Frankie goes to hollywood sounds superb!! A head cleaner and a de-magnetizer is a must if you want the best performance.........


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## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

That thing looks awesome, very nice! Can see why a watch lover would also be into this technology.


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## harryblakes7 (Oct 1, 2010)

Well its still wheels going round, like turntables and tape decks and reel to reel machines............but like watches you don't have to spend much money to get something really decent!!


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## JoT (Aug 12, 2003)

harryblakes7 said:


> Hi watchdude, have you heard the sound from a Nakamichi tape deck? Shockingly good from old pre-records............ it's made me go all analogue...........
> 
> @ JOT.......... John, you can always get some nice headphones


Yes thought of that but they are a bit anti-social :lol: not sure the 710 would like me with cans on all night .... or maybe she would!


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

Nakamichi, fantastic sound...............mines in the car, the older Lexus top of the range models had the complete system designed and made by Nakamichi and I must say the sound is amazingly clear and precise (and it doesn't have to go to ear popping levels to impress either).

Unfortunately I have no cassette tapes to run through it anymore, just relies upon the CD deck.


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## Retronaut (Jun 14, 2010)

Linn household here


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## LJD (Sep 18, 2011)

Boxbrownie said:


> Nakamichi, fantastic sound...............mines in the car, the older Lexus top of the range models had the complete system designed and made by Nakamichi and I must say the sound is amazingly clear and precise (and it doesn't have to go to ear popping levels to impress either).
> 
> Unfortunately I have no cassette tapes to run through it anymore, just relies upon the CD deck.


Lexus....excellent Hifi, but I bought alpine made the head units , I know the Mark levinson cars had alpine units re badged.

Same With the new Jags and their "B&W " Hifi............let's just call it "marketing" !!!


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## Boxbrownie (Aug 11, 2005)

LJD said:


> Boxbrownie said:
> 
> 
> > Nakamichi, fantastic sound...............mines in the car, the older Lexus top of the range models had the complete system designed and made by Nakamichi and I must say the sound is amazingly clear and precise (and it doesn't have to go to ear popping levels to impress either).
> ...


May well be Alpine on the newer models but when I took my unit out it says Nakamichi on the back.......


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## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

Retronaut said:


> Linn household here


Nice, are you streaming? I have heard a lot about Linn streamers, they are supposed to be amazing.


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## LJD (Sep 18, 2011)

Boxbrownie said:


> LJD said:
> 
> 
> > Boxbrownie said:
> ...


stopped using Nakamichi years ago. it had a terrible build quality issue and became a cheap US brand sold in "circuit city "


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## Odo (Mar 22, 2009)

I've been through loads of kit over the years, it can get a bit obsessive 

At the moment I'm running my Goldring deck with the 1012GX cartridge into my Mistral Valve amp via a Pro-Ject Phono Box 2.

I still use my Arcam 7 SE CD player as the sound is still excellent when I have the urge to spin a disc!

Recently swapped my B+W 303 speakers for some AE Compact 1's, much smaller but a very crisp sound.

Recently though I've been using a Bluetooth module plugged into the amp that works really well, not made the leap into full streaming yet but it is on the horizon.

And I've now got an urge to root around the attic for my old Technics tape deck..and come to think of it there are a couple of NAD record decks up there as well, and a Sony receiver..bugger now going to have to check


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## Timez Own (Oct 19, 2013)

Used to own a lot of nice separates, all gone now but my favourite system was naim based. Excellent build and very precise clean and powerful sound. Would love to revisit but my life has changed somewhat


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## LJD (Sep 18, 2011)

Various decks, a few bits of audio note stuff. quad 57's micromega

it cost me a fortune , but i made money on every single bit !

now down to 3gb of apple lossless files through a yamaha sound bar (TV) still does it for a party etc. very child friendly and the wife can almost use it !


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## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

LJD said:


> Various decks, a few bits of audio note stuff. quad 57's micromega
> 
> it cost me a fortune , but i made money on every single bit !
> 
> now down to 3gb of apple lossless files through a yamaha sound bar (TV) still does it for a party etc. very child friendly and the wife can almost use it !


Like how you say 'almost'


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## dazaa (Feb 28, 2009)

I love talking hifi with people, everyone expects an 18 year old to be listening to crappy mp3 music on an ipod, the reaction when I name some of the gear I own/owned is priceless.

Current set up

BGW model 203 pre amp

Turner power amp

Linn axis turntable

Cyrus 2 amp (only use the phonostage)

JBL L100 speakers

ADC soundshaper eq (bought it purely for the looks as it matches the pre and power amps)

Technics slp-770 cd player

B&W DM602'S (4 way floorstanders) currently awaiting a full restoration

What i've had

A&R A60 amp

Quad 405 power amp (ex bbc, wired as a mono block, only had one 

Micromega stage 2 cd player

A really high end Nak cassette deck, really regret selling that as it looked so nice

Lenco l60 turntable

And loads of mainstream vintage NAD, Pioneer, Akai, JVC and Technics stuff,


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## LJD (Sep 18, 2011)

ADC soundshaper

they did them in 2-3 different models i remember

sexy mothers.... in their day . trouble is , every idiot wanted to play with the settings !


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## pugster (Nov 22, 2004)

all of mine is now .flac format , i use a netbook connected to an arcam rdac which feeds into a rega biro r then into kef r100 speakers, im very pleased with this setup and use an ipad to control it using either jriver media centre or monkeymote.


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## Retronaut (Jun 14, 2010)

Watchdude49 said:


> Retronaut said:
> 
> 
> > Linn household here
> ...


Yes we are streaming (I believe Linn were one of the first to ditch the CD player). Excellent piece of kit that seems to be able to work with most gear.


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## JTW (Jun 14, 2007)

I've recently started to listen to music again using mostly my old system - Audiolab 8000 series pre and power amps with Castle Chester speakers but with the significant addition of a Yamaha CDN500 streaming CD player. At the same time, against all the trends I gave my Vinyl away to a friend.

I have to say the system sounds very good.

The trouble is that this has got me thinking about upgrading and replacing my 18 to 20 odd year old kit as well as getting a "better" streamer.

Could be very expensive.

I listened to some Linn kit at a local dealers the other day and I was impressed, but I hear different things about ability to work with general purpose NAS drives - particularly Synology.

Any views?


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## LJD (Sep 18, 2011)

i prefer loosing a small amount of sound quality to gaining better access and low cost if not free music . also the space i save not having big Quads in the room is lovely !


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## Watchdude49 (Jan 6, 2014)

JTW, if your router is close to your hifi system, you can also get a vortex box and connect it straight into a DAC so you can stream without the need to have a dedicated (expensive) streamer. I use this for cd ripping, streaming flacs, Internet radio, spotify etc. I used CDs in the past but now accessibility is fantastic and sound quality just as good. Using a Sonos connect into a Rega DAC upstairs (streaming from vortex box) and the system is very enjoyable, not the most audiophile presentation but again fantastic user friendliness.


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## LJD (Sep 18, 2011)

i see little reason to buy good hifi these days.... the quality of sound engineers and the final products seem to be rubbish these days . they just don't bother any more


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## JTW (Jun 14, 2007)

Thanks Watchdude, the NAS will be in a different room, currently I use a PC with ethernet over homeplugs, I've read a bit more and Synology seem to be OK with Linn, I may put in a proper ethernet connection though.

LJD I think it depends on what music you listen to I play mainly Classical and a bit of Jazz with a healthy dose of "Classic" rock and some of the high bitrate transfers are brilliant..


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## pugster (Nov 22, 2004)

just purchased a class t amp to play with ( topping tp20 mk2 ) , i must say for under 50 quid it gives my Â£500 rega amp a run for its money , its a bit short on power (around 12 watts) - but it fills my 16' x 14' room with only a quarter turn of the volume , the detail in this little amp is amazing for the money and sounds like a bit like a valve amp.

well worth a play with if you have a second room or are looking for a high detail small amp for very little money.


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## LJD (Sep 18, 2011)

pugster said:


> just purchased a class t amp to play with ( topping tp20 mk2 ) , i must say for under 50 quid it gives my Â£500 rega amp a run for its money , its a bit short on power (around 12 watts) - but it fills my 16' x 14' room with only a quarter turn of the volume , the detail in this little amp is amazing for the money and sounds like a bit like a valve amp.
> 
> well worth a play with if you have a second room or are looking for a high detail small amp for very little money.


I played with a early T class amp running a pair of 4 ohm genuine 10 inch full range "Funktion One" speakers

they where in a very good enclosure . Could hold a party with them !!! Amazing how well the amp drove those speakers


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