are all amps equal
Danmyers, I live ln a smoke, animal, children and wife free environment, but my adult children worry there wont be anything left. However Ajackson, my place is not Jack free, and I noitced as the evening progressed everybody begin to express themselves more freely. Bob, I don't know what to say about the connects, I guess that is something to look at in the future, I just have problems paying $500 for 6ft. piece of wire. Thanks |
Don, I'm with you and don't believe in spending a lot for cables. That said, I have Kimber Hero interconnects, which are fairly well regarded and on the low end of the audiophile spending spectrum. I got my speaker wire at an estate sale for cheap. Don't know who made them, but they are extremely well made 10 or 12 gauge and nicely lugged. If I was buying new interconnects today I'd probably go with http://www.bluejeanscable.com/. Very reasonable prices for low capacitance cable. Speaker wire? I prefer solid conductor, but not for any audio reason, just a thought that solid conductors transmit the signal more cleanly. As long as they don't get moved much, solid center conductor wire/cable is fine. Let us know what you decide, Dan |
I have a solution that would give you LOTS of high quality, good-sounding power to your Ushers and solve your crap-cable problem (your current cables will sabotage your upgrades and quest for higher resolution) and stay within your budget. For the amp, get a pair of Musical Fidelity Mono 550K power amps. These were released at $5K/pair, but Audio Advisor (and I assume, other vendors) are closing them out at half price. That's 550watts per amp for $2500. These have garnered many rave reviews and are said to be extremely neutral. They can accept either line level or speaker level inputs. Using the speaker level inputs, they retain the characteristics of the amp feeding them. Secondly, you need to lose the zip cord. There are a couple of good speaker cable and interconnect deals I know of. One source is HCM Audio, who has AudioQuest GBC speaker cable at about $80/8-foot pair and good interconnects to go with them. The other source is an eBay store called homenetworksupply. He has the Belkin PureAV Silver series cables at pretty low prices. Belkin PureAV Silver Series is made of Ohno Continuous Cast monocrystal copper. This is usually pretty expensive, but he has the 4-ft. interconnects for about $18/pair and 8-foot speaker cable with very nice banana terminations for about $65/pair. I managed to scoop up some 12-foot pairs of these speaker cables from parts-express.com for the ridiculously low $20/pair, down from $130/pair list. Unfortunately they are all gone now, but I have them on my hi-rez 2-channel (primarily analog) rig and they are REALLY good. So there you have it--550 wpc from Musical Fidelity for $2500 and interconnects and speaker cables made of monocrystal copper for under $100. As for Bluejeans cable, I haven't used that brand, but I've used interconects made from Canare star-quad, which is the wire stock they use to make their interconnects. I found them to be smooth and musical, but anybody who thinks they're hi-rez is kidding themselves. Those $18 Belkin PureAV Silver interconnects will eat them for lunch, as will just about any interconnect I have in my systems--AudioQuest Black Mamba and Blue Racer (exclusive from Audio Advisor), JPS SuperConductor, and Kimber Hero. That is the LEAST you should be using with your Ushers. |
