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Finally stepping into the hobby after 30 years of watching from the sidelines

Ok, so I hope you are all ok with a longwinded post from a first time user of the forum.  I have been obsessed with vinyl and tubes since my dad played records for me as a 5 year old.  My wife and I are finally in a place that we can take the leap into the scene.  We want to grow our system over time and may even create 2-3 systems along the way as we have a bed and breakfast where we want to make analog part of the theme. 

We have made up our mind that our first speakers will be Vandersteen 2CE sigs.  That is about as far as we have gotten.  We definitely want to power them with tubes and have very little idea of where to start.  Obviously the mainstream option would be a Mcintosh mc275 and our local HiFi salesman would LOVE to sell us a pair of those.  However, we know that there are several cheeper/better options out there and would love some input from the board.  We'd like to keep the first amp under $3,000, but we aren't locked into that.  Keep in mind that we are ok starting with a single amp and then adding a second one along the way to mono them.  Also, we would love some help with a table/arm/cartridge!  One with an integrated phono stage is fine to start with and we would again be open to upgrading and adding a stand alone phono stage later on.  

We will be doing some electrical work soon to run a 40 amp fuse to the BnBs espresso machine and would be open to setting up a dedicated line for our main system at that time so that we can have clean power.  Has any one had any experience with this?  Any ideas or recommendations that you may have would be a big help here! 

Thank you all in advance, and we are really excited to finally be part of the scene! 
128x128cottguy
terry9
2,333 posts
 
Hello Eric.

Agree that planars integrate into the room. As to subs, not in my experience - but perhaps that is because of my insufficient expertise.
erik_squires
16,058 posts
 
@terry9

I'm not at all surprised you've not heard this. Subs are in fact a giant PITA to integrate well. If this was work, I'd say they have a very high Total Cost of Ownership, or that the "care and feeding" is much higher than most people realize.

I think that the experience that subs usually muddy and bloat the music is correct, attributing these symptoms large slow drivers is not.

As a result, it is extremely rare that most listeners have ever experienced really good use of subwoofers.  I'm not saying its impossible, or that there are not such people on Audiogon.  Just saying it's very rare, and not part of the sales brochures. :)

Best,


Erik
cottguy's avatar
cottguy OP
56 posts
 
Does any one have thoughts or info on Audio Space?  It looks like their products were well thought of some time ago, they seemed to disappear for a while, and now I've seen them pop up in a few places.  Cosmetically, their products haven't changed at all.  So I'm wondering if they were updated or if they were so solid that they don't need to be updated?     
terry9
2,333 posts
 
Cottguy, have you considered Atma-Sphere? Their designs have no output transformers. I owned a pair, and found them to be very clear and sweet, and very decorative in a retro way, with their 12 glowing tubes. People would often comment on them, even if they weren't running at the time!
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,200 posts
 
Atmasphere s30 would be a very nice piece to build around that would also attract some buzz visually.

Let us know when this is all done and ready.   A trip to Colorado might be in order.  :^)
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