Audio stuff. I have a few different systems depending on what I am listening to. I have tried many speakers over the years and have ended up with what some would consider to be conflicting ideas.
My main system that is in the family room, goes back and forth between a set of 2-way speakers I built using a SEAS 7" reed-cone mid-bass with a ScanSpeak 1" silk dome tweeter in a bookshelf size Madisound enclosure that has been braced and dampened with a fairly simple crossover. It is based on the old Zaphaudio SR-71 design, with crossover mods to work with the ScanSpeak tweeter that replaced the original SEAS tweeter. These speakers do a really good job in full range duty at reasonable volumes, beyond that, I send everything below 45hz to an old Klipsh powered 12" sub, at which point the complete system will play very cleanly at ear damaging levels. They really sound great for the ~$1K I spent. I occasionally swap those out for a set of SEAS 7" Coax (LOKI) speakers that are great only because of the sound stage you can create with the single point source accuracy. Any moderate level of bass will cause the high frequencies to warble, so they get used with a sub for a while, then put back on the shelf as a novelty, they would be great as a midrange and treble combo combined with a low frequency driver. They are driven by an old (I see a pattern here) Onkyo TX-SR805 HT receiver. It weighs about 45 pounds, which has to be worth something. This system, overall, measures very accurately given the space with which I have to work - with the exception of the bass that comes from the sub, which is why I try to minimize it unless we are watching a movie.
I am very demanding both in sound quality and power. While I like flat response in the living room, in my man cave, I want power and impact and arm hair standing on end. In this room, I like my equipment response to resemble the old 'Loudness EQ' curve, but with a boost in the midrange. My equipment may not sound great to everyone, but it does what I want, and I am frequently impressed by it. In this man cave, my primary sources are my PC (optical to an external DAC), an old Technics turntable, a couple old Akai reel-to-reel machines and (gasp) an FM tuner. I also have a modern DJ turntable and mixing board, but I assume that won't get much love here.
The center of the system is an old Pioneer SX-1250 receiver and an old Adcom GFA 555 mkII amplifier. Both are more brute force than nuance. I rebuilt both from the ground up and both perform very well in practice and in measurement. I have a bunch of jumpers on a board that allows me to switch two sets of speakers between the internal Pioneer amp and the Adcom. 95% of the time I listen using the internal amp, but when I want to dim the lights in the whole house, I use the Adcom. The Pioneer amp sounds great for what it is (a 40 year old, 160 Watts RMS per channel into 8 ohms from 20-20KHz with no more than 0.1 THD amp - unfortunately its 4 ohm performance is only about 200wpc and it quickly goes into protect when you hit 201). When I want more detail, I use a Pass Labs Class A amp, but it heats up the room and I rarely appreciate it.
The speakers I use are old Infinity RS IIIa's that were also rebuilt using NOS parts a number of years ago, along with upgraded crossover components. They are my favorite speakers, even if they are not particularly flat. They are imposing both in sound and in physical presence. They excel below 50hz and above 12khz, assuming your amplifier can supply a fair amount of current. The stuff in the middle is decent as well, but I like the whole package, and I realize that I could have much smaller speakers that sound better. In fact, my living room speakers sound better, but I prefer the overall package of these old speakers in my man cave.
My second set of speakers that I use in the same room, but realistically only a few times a year, are older Infinity QLS-5's. They have great punchy bass that extends down to 18hz with authority, really good midrange and decent high-frequency response. Their biggest flaw in my eyes is that there is a big hole between the response of the Dual Drive Watkins Woofer and the little dome midrange. They sound really good with dance music as well as super dynamic classical music (and classic rock), but if you listen critically, you will notice the hole. The dual voicecoil woofers also drop to about 1.3 ohms (I measured) at low frequencies combined with high volumes, which will kill much equipment, not only with sheer current, but with back-emf and phase angle issues. They also look like they were built in a garage. These had NOS midranges put in about 10 years ago - these are currently pretty much unobtainable now. They have an earlier version of the same EMIT ribbons that Infinity used in everything from mid 70's to mid 80's. You either love them or hate them - I like them a lot, but I don't want to smoke my gear and I don't want to break the woofers. They are so punch for a 12" driver in a sealed box, it is insane.
In car terms, I have a couple of muscle cars, which look great and are loud and obnoxious, but are thrilling to drive (as long as you don't have to stop or turn), and I have some modern, efficient, do everything better, but without the soul speakers. I love them all.
I also have a number of powered Studio Monitors - old blue Mackies and old Behringers. They sound really good at low levels, but fall apart and get shrieky if you turn them up. I use them for front speakers at my PC when I don't want to warm up the place.
If you are still reading, In the other living room, I have a Pioneer SX-1010, also rebuilt from the ground up, with another set of old infinity speakers. Old RS-6001's. They are cool, but they don't have the sonic, or visual impact of the older ones.
In the bedroom I have a set of Infinity Beta 50's that I can't really say anything good about. The grills rattle, the bass is weak, the treble is kind of harsh.
I don't have a brand bias for old infinity stuff, I've tried everything, and they just sound the way I like. I've bought and sold various Focal systems, B&W, DLS Sweden, but never saw the halo surrounding them for the price when it seemed I could build something that was 90% as good for a fraction of the price. I believe the ScanSpeak and Seas drivers are top notch, and if you can get the enclosure and crossover correct, you will have something that is better than your room will allow. With the exception of my man cave, which is all sound absorbing, lacking only in bass traps.
In my car, I have all (old German) Class A/B amps with T0-3 outputs. My front ScanSpeak tweeters have 50x2 available to them, my front door midbasses (SEAS Excel) have 200x2. My rear fill speakers, DLS Iridiums, have 100x2 and my single sealed 12" JL 12w6v3 has an amp that can supply ~ 700 watts of full range A/B goodness. Most of the time, I use less than 10% of this, but it is nice to be able to tune out the whole world.
So, yes, I lead a very contradictory life, audio wise.
