Tír Na HiFi

Thought I start a thread where people can tell their hifi stories from the year. What stuff came in, what went out, has your opinion on hifi changed etc? ........

For myself, and it has been documented elsewhere on the forum at length (rolleyes), this has easily been the most frustrating year I've had with hifi so far. Glad to say that its all behind me now.

Start of the year:
I had the Kharmas, Airtight ATM2, Wadia861i, Clearaudio TT, Project Tube SE2 phonostage.

Out went the Wadia and in came an Opus 21 CDP.
Out went the Opus 21 and in came a Meridian G06 CDP
Out went the Meridian and back came the same Opus player.
In came the Clearaudio Phonostage and battery power supply. Out it went 3 weeks later.
Out went the Airtight ATM2 and in came a Leben CS300
Out went the Leben and in came a Kharma preamp and Kharma monos.
Out went the Kharmas and in came a pair of Sonus Faber Cremonas.
Out went both of those Kharmas amps and in came the Classe 350 monos and a Classe CDP-800 preamp-processor.
Out went the Classe 800 pre and back came the Kharma pre. (temporary replacement)
In the coming weeks, out will go the Kharma pre and in its place a Classe pre.

The biggest difference any of the above made, and the one I should have made at the start was to change the Kharmas but hindsight is a great thing. Every step above seemed to be the logical step at the time. Looking back on it now, its looks like a right joke altogether.

My stance on hifi is all the time leaning more to the objectivist side but I remain open-minded somewhat.

I had a thankfully quiet year in hifi. Only two things changed.

I went from Music Strada speaker cable to Tellurium Q cable and following some nervous months of "burn-in" and occasional harshness they settled into sonic bliss.

The second thing didn't even involve putting my hand in my pocket. I simply took the rack apart and carefully put the equipment and the various isolation back properly and the improvements were as if serious money had been spent.

I added the second Graaf to the system (it needed revalving this time last year), added some of Dariusz's cables, and apart from that I listened to more music. Hurray!!

In 2013 I'm expecting:
- to add a power regenerator;
- to start sniffing around the idea of adding a preamp to the system; and
- to start sniffing around computer audio.

Diapason wrote:I added the second Graaf to the system (it needed revalving this time last year), added some of Dariusz's cables, and apart from that I listened to more music. Hurray!!

In 2013 I'm expecting:
- to add a power regenerator;
- to start sniffing around the idea of adding a preamp to the system; and
- to start sniffing around computer audio.

dropped the idea of power cables already? :-)

DaveF wrote:Thought I start a thread where people can tell their hifi stories from the year. What stuff came in, what went out, has your opinion on hifi changed etc? ........

For myself, and it has been documented elsewhere on the forum at length (rolleyes), this has easily been the most frustrating year I've had with hifi so far. Glad to say that its all behind me now.

Start of the year:
I had the Kharmas, Airtight ATM2, Wadia861i, Clearaudio TT, Project Tube SE2 phonostage.

Out went the Wadia and in came an Opus 21 CDP.
Out went the Opus 21 and in came a Meridian G06 CDP
Out went the Meridian and back came the same Opus player.
In came the Clearaudio Phonostage and battery power supply. Out it went 3 weeks later.
Out went the Airtight ATM2 and in came a Leben CS300
Out went the Leben and in came a Kharma preamp and Kharma monos.
Out went the Kharmas and in came a pair of Sonus Faber Cremonas.
Out went both of those Kharmas amps and in came the Classe 350 monos and a Classe CDP-800 preamp-processor.
Out went the Classe 800 pre and back came the Kharma pre. (temporary replacement)
In the coming weeks, out will go the Kharma pre and in its place a Classe pre.

The biggest difference any of the above made, and the one I should have made at the start was to change the Kharmas but hindsight is a great thing. Every step above seemed to be the logical step at the time. Looking back on it now, its looks like a right joke altogether.

My stance on hifi is all the time leaning more to the objectivist side but I remain open-minded somewhat.

Jaysus!!!

Jaysus!!![/quote]

Really Dave should have posted when this thread is exhausted as nobody will be able to compete with that.

Transfer In- Jadis DA50S, Quad ESL57,B&W PV1,Audiosmile Supertweeters and last but not least JKDAC32 probably the best value item of all.
Transfer Listed(tentatively) Cyrus 8XP/PSX-R and Spendor A6's

Wish List Regenerator/Black PV1 sub

I would hope going forward not to be appearing on this thread.

For me the only changes in the traditional equipment area were;
All cables replaced with Nordost Heimdall (all secondhand )
Homemade Van den Hul powercord (just for you Dave)

In the PC area;
Intel 520 SSD
PPAStudio SATA cable
Elijah Isolate USB cable
Adnaco S3B Fibre Optic Expansion
Windows 8
Jplay versions
4, 4.1, 4.2 , 4.3, 4.3A and now V5 Beta 1, 3, 15 continuously getting better.

KM

Diapason wrote:I added the second Graaf to the system (it needed revalving this time last year), added some of Dariusz's cables, and apart from that I listened to more music. Hurray!!

In 2013 I'm expecting:
- to add a power regenerator;
- to start sniffing around the idea of adding a preamp to the system; and
- to start sniffing around computer audio.

Are we taking a dig at the "Quad-Squad" and suggesting that ESL 57's aren't hifi...?

jaybee wrote:

Diapason wrote:I added the second Graaf to the system (it needed revalving this time last year), added some of Dariusz's cables, and apart from that I listened to more music. Hurray!!

In 2013 I'm expecting:
- to add a power regenerator;
- to start sniffing around the idea of adding a preamp to the system; and
- to start sniffing around computer audio.

Are we taking a dig at the "Quad-Squad" and suggesting that ESL 57's aren't hifi...?

I think it's more that the Quad Squad are a forgetful bunch.

my own year in hi-fi was most clearly defined by the Lazarene return of hi-fi in and of itself....

the past while I have been limited to a Zeppelin and a Fatman iTube driving some tiny Monitor Audio's

The whole lot was dusted down, and brought down from the attic, and lasted moments....!!

Most (all) of the changing was done on a shoestring, as this year also entailed buying a new house...

There was some culling of boxes (my four box cd source was cut to one)

The B&W 603's were booted out in favour of some SystemAudio 1550's

Speaker Cable upgraded from QED XT to Transparent Audio MusicWave Ultra

Interconnect (oh the temporary joy of using the singular!) has been changed from TransparentAudio MusicWave to a FranIndustries Model

Next up (in the very not too distant future!) is a new DAC... Arcam rDac, will be my last leap in the digital pond...

Its function is to make my CD playback current and provide a decent level of computer audio playback....

2013 is all about vinyl..... (and valves..... and sonus faber..... all going ridiculously well....!!)

Oh and I bought an amazing HDMI cable...... to go with my new NAD avr and sony BDP..... *ducks*


JB