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.
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.
