1st Post Intro & Ramblings


Hi all, I have been a member for about 10 years and never posted anything although I do read a lot. Figured at some point I would, 10+ years later......

 Profession, Audio Visual Tech 22 years. I mostly work in house corporate, conventions and trade shows. Spent some time building clubs, worked a few concerts and home audio has been more of a hobby for a very long time and I have designed and built a few very high end setups years ago. I always hated working professionally on home audio, the customers and sales people are either to cheap or knee deep in marketing and cannot take advice from professionals. My experience has led me to be more aware of the budget, a vast majority cannot spend $10-20k on a stereo and yet some of us spend that on a just 1 component. 
I think that will suffice as an introduction, next I will post some of what I have learned along the way. Keep in mind, most of my recommendations come with a budget mindset instead of $$$ all out performance $$$.
kreapin
Cables. WTF is what comes to mind when looking at the price tags. I am a firm believer in spending some in cabling. Starting with shoring up your power as far as you can afford, literally swap out the 14 gauge cables in the wall if you can. Amplifiers are dynamic and need loads of current in waves, this is where all the life in sound comes from, power. Almost all of the amps I have enjoyed the most have always had 1 thing in common, large toroidal transformers. Clean, quality power is important for sound quality. But a few grand for 3ft of cable touched by thanos? Most amplifiers will see an improvement in overall performance starting with a quality 10 gauge copper cable, after that initial jump it really gets expensive for a marginal increase in performance. I still say to invest in quality cables, your whole system can and will evolve but cables and bass always stays put. 
Huh?

The question is Why do so many stereophiles, audiophiles and/or avid listeners still go full surround to watch a movie?

I said ramblings in the title. If theater sound was created to reproduce the stereo image on a larger scale for a larger audience, then why not listen to it in stereo at home where you are catering for just 1 or 2. 
This is my first post as well, being new to the site and having recently returned to the world of high fidelity stereo after far too many years with bluetooth sound bars. In my fact finding stage there has been a wealth of information available, many wide ranging opinions and options out there to consider. I leaned toward a more minimalistic set-up given my listening space (a living room adjacent to dining room/kitchen in a condo), and it needed to do double=duty to embrace my TV/Blu Ray audio as well. I emerged with the following:

- Peachtree Audio nova300
- Dali Oberon 5 floor standing speakers
- Martin Logan Dynamo 300 subwoofer
- Primare NP50 streamer
- Rega Planar 3 turntable

This ended up at the $4,400 mark which I feel satisfied with for the sound that I am basking in now that it's breaking in. A pair of Meze 99 Classic headphones is on the Christmas list to round it out. 
And now on to buying back all the LPs I got rid of a decade ago....