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Best HOME system you've ever heard

Hopefully its your own. For some of us were still taking steps to get there. One thing I have realized is that its not all about money. 2 examples.

The best system my Uncle has ever heard was from a friend in Calgary who used a CAL audio cd player, Ayre K1-X preamp, Halo speakers (???) and a budget NAD power amp. My Uncle and the owner of the "Audio Room" had both said it was by far the best home system they had ever heard. To the extent that the Hifi Shop owner was purposly trying to build a room which sounded better using much more exotic electronics, but simply could not.

Second example is when I heard a system that got me into this whole mess back in the 90's. It was simply a Nak cd player, SimAudio Celeste pre/amp and Mirage M-3 speakers. The sound that came from that system was just jaw dropping. Soundstage and dynamics have not been matched since then to these ears. Perhaps I have warm and fuzzy memories of inferior systems of past but that system destroyed a system the same owner put together 8 years later including Totem Mani 2's, copland pre, Moon power, Nak cd. It wasn't even close.

I was curious of the BEST HOME setups you've heard. I hope to hear of stories of how people have come up with crazy and sometimes weird combo's and pulled off reference musical system from them. The $7k Ayre preamp with the $800 NAD power amp had everybody scratching their heads and made quite a few people "angry and puzzled" that story always made me chuckle, who would have thought.
lush
kurt_tank
1,189 posts
 
Glad to see that the Ayre K-1x was the cornerstone of that system. (I use that preamp in my system.)

That being said, the best I have ever heard was my friend's, who has the following system in his dedicated sound room. (By the way, it is the best period! Including: home, or store or even stereo convention.)

His system includes:
VPI HRX TT, with Koetsu Urushi cartridge; ARC Ref. 2 preamp; Aesthetix Rhea phono preamp, Lamm M2.2 monoblock amplifiers, and Avalon Eidolon speakers.
I am not sure about the interconnects or the cabling, but I do know that he is currently using Audience Au24 speaker cables, which are about to be replaced with Nordost Valhallas.

This is an incredible system. It just got a whole lot better with the introduction of the Lamm amplifiers. (It was very good before, (the best I had ever heard) but now it is unbelievably good.) The amount of detail is astonishing. The soundstaging and imaging is spot on. The frequency response is awesome. He used to use VTL 450s, which sounded great, but were a little weak in the bass response. Now, the bass response is very deep and very quick. The Lamms seem to impart a sense of life to the music. Some call it soul and some have referred to it as an organic sound. Whatever it is, they really make the music come to life.

Care to guess what amplifiers I want to get now?!
programmergeek
322 posts
 
I think 80% of the formula is matching the speakers to the room. I had some vandersteen 2ce sigs awesome sound stage, I also had a set of canton horbal in my apartment but when I moved to my house grate soundstage. I have since gone to vandersteen 5a I have lost a little of the openness Far more refined speaker and I wouldn't go back my cantons with a onkio receiver would give it a run for it's money in some facets. Your right it's not the level of equipment so much as the blending. But I find the hard thing to get is the soundstage and full frequency response nice and even.
newbee
4,767 posts
 
I don't know about "Best" home system but I can relate the challenges I've overcome which enabled me to get excellent sound in a difficult room. I have a 13x19x9 room with wood floors frame construction. It has a 6x7 opening at the rear into another room and a 6x7 opening into a hallway on the side next to the right speaker. On the side of the left speaker is a large window, all of which makes a room that leaks mid-low bass (big suck out in 40 - 50hz) has a glass first reflection point on one speaker and none on the other. I love finely focus sound WITH a big sound stage - don't like diffused sound at all. What to do, what to do.

I pulled my speakers (dynamic type) out about 5 feet from the rear (short wall) placed them within 18 inches of the side walls (not usually recommended) so that from tweeter to tweeter they are about 10 ft apart. My listening position is triangulated and about 10'6" from each tweeter. Then I toed in the speaker so that the axis of each speaker crossed well in front of me (the angle corresponded to the angle I would have used in larger room without my problems, had the speaker been pointed straight ahead). With this set up I avoided the problem of the 1st reflection points. This gave me tight image focus and, when the recording contained the into, a huge and deep sound field which apparently exceeds the boundries of the room behind the place of the speakers. Not bad for a small and far from ideal room, IMHO!
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