About every 18months I get the urge to upgrade my hifi....I dont know why, and its not as if I have the spare cash to do it most of the time. But I see something I like and then I just cant help myself.

I dont go wasting my money on fancy interconnects or speaker cable, just sources and amps that do change the sound.

At the start of last month my system was:
Roksan Kandy K1 Liii amp
Roksan Kandy K2 CD
Acoustic Energy AE2 speakers and stands
Pro-ject Debut 2 Phono SB record deck with OM5e cart


Spotted a nice record deck to bring it up to the level of the rest of my gear and ended up buying a Mk1 Roksan Radius with upgraded RB250 arm and Ortofon 2M black cart.



Then someone came along selling monobloc Roksan Caspian power amps, secondhand at a bargain price so I put a deposit on a pair to be held until the end of Feb when I next get paid...



And the last bit was an Audio Note M2 Phono Signature Preamp which has recently had a service, I am sure if you know what one of those is then thats all I need say




OK so all the 'new' stuff is actually secondhand. But there's no way I could afford any of it any other way. I havent even got it all connected together yet, but it will be interesting to see what the difference is over my current system....

I know I really have better things to spend my money on....but there we go

Anyone else suffer the hifi bug?

me, apparently there is no cure.

quote:

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Originally posted by HowardB
me, apparently there is no cure.

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Is this what happens when you are satisfied with a car you have just built or when your so pi$$ed of with your car it dont deserve your time and money anymore!!??

On a side note what do you use your stereo for? I used to be an autoelectrician and spent many hours fitting expensive and impressive AV in cars. I understand why you would do this to cars but not really in houses. Unless you have a proper home cinema set up, are making music or live a long way away from your neighbours!!.

Just curious,

Biz

How do you find the acoustic energy speakers?
I unfortunately had to sell my Dali ikon 6 surround sound system when completing my last Mnr and I miss them. They were awesome! Nice set up mate. Have you tried the Cyrus stuff? I think they are hard to beat without spending mega money

Its what happens when I have control of my own money. I am terrible with it, I really am! I should have spent the money on my bike really, so that will suffer delays for only one reason!

There is little point in spending loads on a car stereo as a car is about the worst place (sonically) to listen to music. So I never understood that.

I use it for listening to music, funny enough We have a big enough house for it not to really be an issue. Normally listen at around 90dB, so not too loud.

So many people don't 'get' hifi, but then a lot of people are happy with the quality of MP3, so I guess the point is missed on them from the start. Equally there are some people where it become about the reproduction of the sound that it goes beyond the enjoyment of the music itself. I am somewhere inbetween, I only listen to music that I like, if it happens to be well recorded and produced then thats just a bonus in my book, at which point I normally turn the stereo up really loud and chill out a bit.

quote:

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Originally posted by daniel mason
How do you find the acoustic energy speakers?
I unfortunately had to sell my Dali ikon 6 surround sound system when completing my last Mnr and I miss them. They were awesome! Nice set up mate. Have you tried the Cyrus stuff? I think they are hard to beat without spending mega money

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i happen to be infected with the bug too. last summer i was driving past sevenoaks hifi had an hour or two to kill. ended up going home with a new amp and speakers and 5k less in my bank account. they are used every day so i dont ever regret spending the money.

I have a Valhalla Sondek, Ittock, K9, Naim pre & power amps, Ruark speakers, Rega CD, Linn cable etc etc.....

The difference between you and me is that I stopped spending 12 years ago, stopped looking at Hi-Fi mags, stopped going into shops. I just buy music on LP or CD now


Enjoy your system and listen to the music

Glad I havent got anything to upgrade, haven't even got a radio in the house, and nothing apart from the cars to play CDs

i must admit jeff that i had to give up the hifi mag subscriptions as i couldn't stop changing kit all the time. i just spend the money on cars now though.

Tis true, I made the mistake of joining a couple of hifi forums. Maybe thats where its all gone wrong!

Seriously though, I really should spend my money on the bike and not hi-fi. But then again, hour for hour, I probably spend more time listening to music than riding...

I used to be interested in hi fi, and experimented with various set-ups. I found that if there is one area that makes a really big difference it's speakers, and the moral of the story, I found, was that there ain't NO substitute for cubes. Car engines you can turbo, or supercharge, but a good big speaker box will always sound better than a good small speaker box.

It's all to do with compliance. A speaker cone moves more easily when there is a big volume of air behind it. A lot of the power used in hi fi systems goes towards pumping the speaker cone in a small, restrictive box.

I used to spend a fair amount on hifi stuff (although not quite at the level we're talking about here) but I soon realised I was listening to the equipment more than the music, and worrying if it was all working properly. I now run a small recording studio running a pair of PMCs powered by a simple Crown power amp - sounds fantastic! The conclusion I've come to is high-end domestic 'boutique' hi fi equipment costs twice as much as pro audio, and that spending money on acoustic treatment is probably where the 'truth' is. My wife won't let me put baffles, bass traps and diffusers anywhere near our living room so I now have the crappiest stereo known to man. It's all the room deserves (

Hi

I know these things are subjective - but in my opinion, don't go trialing B&W speakers in your current mindset

Regards Mick

Its true, one of the biggest improvements you can make is set your hifi up properly in the room. Thankfully we have a half decent sized, retangular living room which is ideal. Though speaker siting could be futher from the back walls but it would make the room a little impractical. That said, it sounds alright to me, so I am really quite keen to see what difference the new gear makes once I have it all