Remember the good old days of the rack stereo system?

Anyone here using a moving coil phono cartridge? How do they sound compared to a moving magnet cartridge?
 
aquariuscsm said:
The highest of the high end audiophile systems are all vacuum tube. Uber expensive, too!
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Depends on what one is listening to. Most folks playing in that realm have different systems for different genres. Transistor for rock/metal/pop and tube for classical/opera (perhaps Jazz).

On the transistor side you'll see some recognizable names like McIntosh and Bryston in many of these systems. On the tube side, some of it is extremely custom like my buddy's Shindo gear, which is all hand-made.

Billionaire who has recently passed had exclusively McIntosh, right down to the speakers. Money was no object, and that's what they went with.
 
OVERKILL said:
Depends on what one is listening to. Most folks playing in that realm have different systems for different genres. Transistor for rock/metal/pop and tube for classical/opera (perhaps Jazz).

On the transistor side you'll see some recognizable names like McIntosh and Bryston in many of these systems. On the tube side, some of it is extremely custom like my buddy's Shindo gear, which is all hand-made.

Billionaire who has recently passed had exclusively McIntosh, right down to the speakers. Money was no object, and that's what they went with.
Click to expand...
McIntosh systems are insane! My best friend has McIntosh vacuum tube amplifiers on his home system. Got a killer deal on them. Bought them used at Marvin Electronics in Ft Worth. His musical taste is all over the place. Mostly 60s rock.

My dream system would be McIntosh. Would include a Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. Speakers will always have to be horns.
 
aquariuscsm said:
McIntosh systems are insane! My best friend has McIntosh vacuum tube amplifiers on his home system. Got a killer deal on them. Bought them used at Marvin Electronics in Ft Worth. His musical taste is all over the place. Mostly 60s rock.

My dream system would be McIntosh. Would include a Nakamichi Dragon cassette deck. Speakers will always have to be horns.
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Yep, it's great gear, my cousin has a couple of their monoblocks and array speakers. @UncleDave also has McIntosh gear in his system :)
 
aquariuscsm said:
Anyone here using a moving coil phono cartridge? How do they sound compared to a moving magnet cartridge?
Click to expand...
My buddy (with the Shindo) did the MM/MC dance with his custom turntable. Honestly, I couldn't really tell a difference. Most quality Pre's support both (my PS Audio does, as does his Shindo tube pre).
 
OVERKILL said:
My buddy (with the Shindo) did the MM/MC dance with his custom turntable. Honestly, I couldn't really tell a difference. Most quality Pre's support both (my PS Audio does, as does his Shindo tube pre).
Click to expand...
Yeah my receiver has a MM/MC button on it. As expensive as those MC cartridges get, I always wondered if they were actually worth it.
 
aquariuscsm said:
Yeah my receiver has a MM/MC button on it. As expensive as those MC cartridges get, I always wondered if they were actually worth it.
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I think it comes down more to the pre. You can get very expensive MM cartridges too. But, if the pre handling the phono stuff is garbage, well, it's all just going to sound like ass. the pre in my Denon is garbage, even though it's a several thousand dollar receiver. The PS Audio pre I have on the other hand is sublime; sounds absolutely incredible. I was going to buy a Bryston one but I was concerned it wouldn't sound any better. My vintage Maricus (high end German gear) doesn't sound as good.
 
I'm sure there are even more exotics out there. Department store high end was always out of reach for me, those exotics are just beyond insane!
 
aquariuscsm said:
I'm sure there are even more exotics out there. Department store high end was always out of reach for me, those exotics are just beyond insane!
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Yeah, things can get stupid. I have a pair of B&W 802's that were bought new by a dear friend of mine who is now deceased. I inherited them, along with a good selection of his high-end audio gear. My Paradigm monitors on my living room system weren't anywhere near as expensive at a few thousand (the B&W's were the price of a decent car).

My boss has set of high-end B&O's in his living room, which are lovely, but to me, aren't quite of the same calibre as the B&W's, which are an absolutely brutal speaker, giving you every ounce of detail and exposing every flaw in the recording; or exposing every beautiful detail if it is well-done. They are horribly unforgiving (which is why they are in my bedroom) but if you feed them quality material, the resolution is breathtaking.
 
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the best sounding amplifiers are pure class A solid state amplifiers or pure class A tube amplifiers. they are insanely heavy, they are hot as hell and they consume a lot of current. but nothing sound as good. the most powerful high end amplifiers are usually class A/B solid state amplifiers. when you want to drive extremely large speakers like focal utopia. my favorite amplifiers are from japanese company accuphase laboratory and american company passlabs.

https://www.passlabs.com/products/xs300/

here is the passlabs xs300 pure class A monoblocks. they weight 396 pounds with power supply each.

https://www.accuphase.com/model/a-250.html

accuphase pure class A monoblock.

as for myself i prefer high end headphones. uber high end headphones. while expensive, it is way less expensive to reach summit fi with a headphone setup than a full sound system with speakers. my favorite are planar magnetic headphones.

they are hard to drive and require powerful amplifiers, but they have incredible sound. but i can no longer enjoy any form of high end audio. i am extremely sensitive to high frequencies because i was not careful with my sennheiser hd 800 and i kinda ruined my hearing by listening too loud. i had a fully customized beta 22 amplifier and an hegel hd 2500 dac. i modified my headphones to gain more clarity and i have small but permanent hearing damage. my cousin is an audiologist and he checked my hearing, and i have extreme sensitivity to treble.

the world of high end audio is a fascinating world. but if you use high end cans, be smart. listen at low to moderate levels.
 
stormgol said:
the best sounding amplifiers are pure class A solid state amplifiers or pure class A tube amplifiers. they are insanely heavy, they are hot as hell and they consume a lot of current. but nothing sound as good. the most powerful high end amplifiers are usually class A/B solid state amplifiers. when you want to drive extremely large speakers like focal utopia. my favorite amplifiers are from japanese company accuphase laboratory and american company passlabs.

https://www.passlabs.com/products/xs300/

here is the passlabs xs300 pure class A monoblocks. they weight 396 pounds with power supply each.

https://www.accuphase.com/model/a-250.html

accuphase pure class A monoblock.

as for myself i prefer high end headphones. uber high end headphones. while expensive, it is way less expensive to reach summit fi with a headphone setup than a full sound system with speakers. my favorite are planar magnetic headphones.

they are hard to drive and require powerful amplifiers, but they have incredible sound. but i can no longer enjoy any form of high end audio. i am extremely sensitive to high frequencies because i was not careful with my sennheiser hd 800 and i kinda ruined my hearing by listening too loud. i had a fully customized beta 22 amplifier and an hegel hd 2500 dac. i modified my headphones to gain more clarity and i have small but permanent hearing damage. my cousin is an audiologist and he checked my hearing, and i have extreme sensitivity to treble.

the world of high end audio is a fascinating world. but if you use high end cans, be smart. listen at low to moderate levels.
Click to expand...
I'm partial to Bryston (Canadian, and local) but yes, both Accuphase and Passlabs make excellent gear.

The 28B3 is 93lbs and will drive 1,000W of absolute clarity at 8ohms. These are class A/B.
https://bryston.com/amplifiers/28b3/

Bryston said:
Quad-Complementary topology improves linearity to a new standard of accuracy while virtually eliminating aggressive higher harmonic distortion byproducts. Quad Complementary eliminates crossover distortion by improving transistor matching and reduces capacitance in the output stage by a factor of four which improves transient response and bandwidth. The overall harmonic distribution of Bryston’s Quad-Complementary output mimics the characteristics of a class-A design but with dramatically lower distortion. Each amplifier channel includes its own fully independent power supply with separate transformer—a feature uncommon even in amplifiers far more expensive.
Click to expand...
 
stormgol said:
the best sounding amplifiers are pure class A solid state amplifiers or pure class A tube amplifiers. they are insanely heavy, they are hot as hell and they consume a lot of current. but nothing sound as good. the most powerful high end amplifiers are usually class A/B solid state amplifiers. when you want to drive extremely large speakers like focal utopia. my favorite amplifiers are from japanese company accuphase laboratory and american company passlabs.

https://www.passlabs.com/products/xs300/

here is the passlabs xs300 pure class A monoblocks. they weight 396 pounds with power supply each.

https://www.accuphase.com/model/a-250.html

accuphase pure class A monoblock.

as for myself i prefer high end headphones. uber high end headphones. while expensive, it is way less expensive to reach summit fi with a headphone setup than a full sound system with speakers. my favorite are planar magnetic headphones.

they are hard to drive and require powerful amplifiers, but they have incredible sound. but i can no longer enjoy any form of high end audio. i am extremely sensitive to high frequencies because i was not careful with my sennheiser hd 800 and i kinda ruined my hearing by listening too loud. i had a fully customized beta 22 amplifier and an hegel hd 2500 dac. i modified my headphones to gain more clarity and i have small but permanent hearing damage. my cousin is an audiologist and he checked my hearing, and i have extreme sensitivity to treble.

the world of high end audio is a fascinating world. but if you use high end cans, be smart. listen at low to moderate levels.
Click to expand...
Man that's insane! A 400lb amp! Being mono blocks, I assume you run two (separate amp for the left and a separate amp for the right)?
 
aquariuscsm said:
Nice! (y)
Click to expand...
Yeah, we back-to-backed the 802's to the custom speakers on the same system. I lent my buddy the 802's for a few weeks because he wanted to do some more comparative listening. He came to the same conclusion as I did, that with quality source material, they are incredible, but very unforgiving when the source is sub-par. They've got no issue with anything from Mozart to Metallica, just as long as the source is quality.
 
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