It all started about 10 years ago with a shelf system ......and then I was hooked............the system began!!!!! Each category progressed as follows....(or at least to the best of my memory)
Players / Transports:
Panasonic 5 Disk Player, Philips DVD Player, CEC 5100 Belt Driven Transport, Levinson #37, Esoteric DV-50, Wadia 861 w/ GNSC Statement Mod
Sony Reciever 1010, Carver, Musical Fidelity AC3R, Bel Canto 200.2, 2 Bel Canto 200.2's, Spectron Musician II, Parasound JC-1's (Stock)
Speakers:
Panasonic, KLH, Polk Mini-Moniters, Radioshack Sub, Cerwin Vega Sub, M&K 100B, M&K 200THX, M&K SC-1, Newform Research R-645's, KSU Newform Research 645's, Von VR4GENIII SE
Cabling:
Radio Shack Gold, MIT Terminator 2's, Silver Bullet 4.0's, Nordost SPM, Nordost Valhalla
Power:
Hydra w/ stock cord, Taipan, Hydra with Anaconda VX, Elrod Sig 2, Elrod Sig 3, Elrod Statement, Elrod Statement II, Harmonix X-DC All WattGate
Racks/Isolation:
Standesign 5, Vibrapods, Arcici
Lessons learned:
1.Every component in the chain matters.
2.Different strokes for different folks. What one person likes, another hates.
3.I prefer neutrality in an amp, pre-amp, and cables preceded by great digital up front However, some would think my taste falls toward the cold side of neutral.
4.Don't believe the hype!!!
5. What works well in one system does not necessarily work well in the next.
Stop by and let me know what you think of the current system. Recomendations are always welcome!!!!!
If your interested I would be more then happy to talk to you in person about your amp selection. Just send me an e-mail. As far as the speaker wire goes, becuase I currently live in an apt I am limited in the space I have to set up my equipment. As a result, I require long speaker wire runs. I have not tried other speaker wire in my system due to this constraint so I have no idea if my speaker wire is a limiting factor. Eventually I will probably move to Valhalla speaker wire as I tend to like Nordost's house sound. For the time being, I am saving my nickles and dimes.
Great system, I think it will be some time before I can do my VR4 HSE III ,s the kind of justice that your doing yours. I was wondering, did you try any other speaker wire prior to the V,S ribbon, and, or did you find that his wire made a significant improvement, That is something I could improve on now while Im trying to figure out what amp to go with. I have a tube pre-amp now hooked to a SS amp, and you may be right that I need to go to a tube amp also. Enjoy!
Excellent system! I agree with Stehno that you should move the rack out of the corner where you will definitely find the strongest reinforcement modes. I totally disagree that you should put it between the speakers. Oh God, I've seen too many sytems ruined by such a crazy idea. Would you put a TV between your speakers? Only if you totally wanted to cause discontinuities in your center image. Further more, there is a 3dB summation right smack in the middle and sorry to say if you're rockin' the house, tubes are not the only things in your chain that may go microphonic. Since you can clearly afford it AND it wont take up any more space I would recommend instead setting your rack up beside your listening position with longer speaker wire runs or if you are in a high RF locale setting up your Power Amps on floor stands between the speakers with a longer run of balanced interconnects. If you're as lazy as I am I'm sure you'll also enjoy not having to get up so much to change discs most especially when you add vinyl to your sources. Have fun and again, Awesome system!
Stehno: I would eventually like to take the equipment out of the corner and give my speakers some room to breath. Unfortunetly, I am young (not so unfortunate) and thsu still live in an apartment with limited space. Eventually when I move to a house I will take care of these problems. I have tried using points instead of the viborpods, and always seem to return to the pods. I appreciate the advantages of each, but for some reason I always seem to prefer the pods. Perhaps I will give cones a try again.
Cytocycle: It will be tuff to asses the differences between the placete and the DCC2 (as a pre-amp) as the dac is built in, but I will let you know what I think when it comes in. I will say this, I lvoed the placette when I had it. I sold it as I thought I was going to home theater (what was I thinking?).
Mejames: First, I tried the Wadia through the EMM Labs Swithcman. This is the first pre I have tried that made a substantial improvment to running the Wadia direct to the amp (primarily in the bass region). The Dac6 (havent heard the DCC2 yet) has improved highs, is more transparent, has better resolution, and is far more dynamic. It is hard to critize the Wadia until you hear the EMMlabs gear.....it is impressive.
Great layout of upgrade path for each component! I need to do that with my system. It will be interesting to hear your thoughts on the EMM preamp (I owned a Placette Active also like you did so it would be nice to hear a comparison)
Drhst20, very nice system you have there. You have all the ingredients for what should be some great sonics.
I only see a few areas for possible improvement:
o Move the rack out of the corner and place in between the speakers. As you probably know, the bass is going to wreak havoc on your components sitting in that corner.
o Replace the vibrapods with Audio Points or similar product. The vibrapods actually trap and act as a blocked exit for all of the vibrations captured by the components. Of course not everybody agrees with this coupling methodology, but it certainly is inexpensive enough to give it a try for a week or so.
o If you have not already done so, install dedicated lines/circuits for each of your components.
