Has your system evolved in the past 10 years?


Compared to 10 years ago, how has your system evolved if at all? The only piece I now have which I also had 10 years ago is my turntable, albeit my table isn’t what it was 10 years back- 

Of course my zerostat soldiers along since the 1980’s

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10 years ago, I had a Jolida tube integrated (EL34) and Jolida tube CDP, with Silverline SR17.5 monitors. 

I upgraded the integrated to  SS Wells Majestic and replaced the CDP with a Sim 260D transport feeding an Aqua LaVoce S2 DAC.

Last spring, I put components on Symposium Svelte+ shelves and Rollerblock Jr's. Last fall, I upgraded my integrated to a Hegel H390. The latter was a huge step up in resolution and bass control. The Wells made the lower mids sound veiled and that veil is gone, now. The Hegel enabled the Silverlines to show, for the first time, just how good they are. It was as if I got a free speaker upgrade when I bought the Hegel. That took me completely by surprise. I don't see ever replacing the Hegel.

There have been cable upgrades along the way, as well.

My next anticipated upgrade will be replacing the Sim transport with a Jay's.

I am constrained by not having a dedicated room but all in all, I'm very satisfied with the steady improvement of the system. 

At some point, I'd like to demo some higher-tier DACs but I can't afford to do so anytime soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Among my challenges for the past 10 years has been a love of home theater as well as stereo and little money to do either well.

Ten years ago I had a Theta Casanova, I went through trying an Onkyo and Emotiva to upgrade/replace it but both were fails.  I finally settled on an Oppo 7.1 out BD player with a Parasound stack.  P7 + A21 and miniDSP for the center and subwoofer.

That led me to experimenting with Class D monoblocks which I really liked, but to make a long story short, I'm now running a Luxman integrated right next to an Anthem MRX 540 receiver, along with a Mytek DAC.  I couldn't be happier. 

Well ten years ago I had actively biamped Maggie 3.3 with moon W3 amps Theda transport and DAC. Krell KPa phono stage an argon aurum pre amp and Linn lp12. Lashed up with transparent wire. Same lp12 now an audio research phono stage. Sonic frontier transport and DAC. An Ayre k1xe. Still lashed up with transparent wire but most of it a level or two higher. And harbeths being driven by Levinson 33 monos. I went from a McIntosh Marie tuner on the main system to a mr71 McIntosh. So a basic change piece by piece. I really liked my old system as well as my new one. They are just different presentations. I now have all tube sources on the front end with solid state after that. My secondary system is the opposite solid state front end and tube preamplifier and tube monoblocks. Both systems are fun to listen to but paint a different picture to the music. 

If your system hasn't evolved in the last 10 years, you likely wouldn't be spending time here. Or you're broke.