Appreciate everything you just said mgreen, and it’s not taken negatively at all. Maybe I am sounding like a newbie...and while I’m certainly no almighty expert...here’s just a little history on me...This is not my first venture in audio. I’ve actually been in the industry for almost 30 years doing high-end car and home A/V installation and fabrication. The restaurant biz was passed down to me via family, and is not my first choice in terms of career, but I’m grateful for the journey nonetheless. Since my first Adcom/Denon/Mirage system at age 17 (about 1989), home audio has always been a serious passion/hobby, but I’ve gotten away from it over the past few years and sold off a majority of my last 2-channel setup. Recently, I was bitten by the bug again after helping a fellow enthusiast build some open baffles for a pair of Altec 420A bi-flex drivers/scan-speak Beryliums, and he talked me into building another system. So...here I am. I’ve sold a few things here on audiogon, and knowing first hand how fast the industry moves, I feel like I’ve lost touch with who’s making good cables at a fair price these days, and was just looking for input on that topic.
1) Was actually heavily leaning towards, and experience tells me that using the same wire for both up and downstairs is obviously the best choice, but was just wondering if anyone had any experience with the mentioned models of wires and/or trying a combination of them/others. I should’ve been more specific, but thank you for the re-enforcing the fact that I should just keep it simple.
2) The vertical bi-amping was a thought that spawned from speaking with other VR-4 owners, and the guys at VS. I’m local, and dropped off the newly acquired pair a couple of weeks ago to have the woofers upgraded by VS, as they still offer this service, and the original woofers were known to be a bit on the slow side. While there, there was a lot talk about using a solid state on the bottom half, and possibly tubes, or a warmer sounding class A or A/B on the top half. As you probably know, the Accuphase are very smooth, warm, and almost tube-ish to my ears, not to mention, switchable between pure class A and A/B....hence the thought about trying this for the top half, and using the input level adjustments to help with level matching. Quite few people have made this type of amp combination suggestion when it comes to running these particular speakers, so I will try it. As many experiences in this industry have shown me over the years, and I’m sure yourself...a lot of the time, you don’t know until you try (yes, some outcomes can be predicted, but not all IME). While I’m aware of the typically bad results vertical bi-amping can produce as I’ve had that experience with my last system who am I to tell those experienced VR-4 users that they don’t know what they are talking about? Trying different things...that’s half the fun IMO, and a crucial part of this hobby/passion.
Not planning on running active at this point, but you never know....I hear you on bridging and understand distortion levels go up, phase issues, etc. Still willing to try nonetheless...won’t kill me to do so...I have options.
3) Honestly...I don’t really have much of anything just lying around aside from some ancient "death grip" Monster Cable 800 ICs that I’d rather not wrestle with if/when I need to switch some things around...seriously.
All my other decent ICs are being used in my dedicated home theater system.
4) The Accuphase amps came without IECs, and a couple of my stock power cords were lost/misplaced during the move into the new house, hence, I bought new ones. The new & used Furutech, and filtering/distribution were a steal at his prices, came from someone well trusted, and I was able to get several different models/termination coatings to try out in different parts of the chain to determine which ones will work best for my set-up. I purchased one Nanoflux 18 which will run from the wall (dedicated circuit) to a f-TP615, 2 of the Piezo Powerflux cords, a pair of the Evolution Power II, a single Absolute Power 15 plus, and a few cheaper 10 AWG power cords made by a local buddy for the Emotivas (just basic OCC, with cryo’d red copper ends). Although it was a decent chunk, I didn’t "blow my wad" purchasing he cables, and I’m confident that I can recoup my money back out of them if needed, and invest it in better matching cables if/when needed. The opportunity was there, and I took it. Not a huge deal to me.
5) I agree that the W4S DAC is a great piece of gear and is tough to beat in its class. It is one of the last few remaining items from the previous system. The new DAC is a Gustard X20pro with dual ES9028s (one for each channel), a huge list of abilities, including DSD DOP decoding, PCM384K DSD256, has a plethora of inputs, including IIS, BNC, is incredibly well built/laid out for an overseas piece, and is burning in as we speak. Trust me when I say to you, the W4S has some very serious competition here. This DAC seems to be VERY capable thus far. With me moving in the direction of a dedicated music PC, this DAC seems to fit the bill a little more nicely. That is...as long as my ears like it more than the W4S of course (which seems to be the case so far). And no, I’m not paying someone to do the mods. I’m very comfortable performing the level-1 mods myself. They are mainly A/C related and, fairly straight forward (fuse/switch bypassing, transformer de-coupling, A/C lead twisting, etc.) and are said to bring it to a far superior level. We will see, as I have about 40 hours of break-in left before reaching the suggested 200 hour mark. It is absolutely outstanding so far.
6) I have MANY years of listening and tuning experience. I’ve tuned many SQ competition mobile systems, ( I understand the mobile environments are very different from a listening room), and home set-ups utilizing active networks, and/or processors. I would say I have a very good ear, know "how to listen", and what, I personally, am listening for/enjoy. I see where you may have thought otherwise, so, no harm, no foul.
I sincerely appreciate your input/concern nonetheless mrgreen, as I’m sure it wasn’t meant to sound arrogant or condescending. Thanks for taking the time to respond so thoroughly.
So...any suggestions on some pre-mades, or cable and ends to assemble myself?
As stated, was just hoping for some insight on who I should be looking at these days in the above price range.
Thanks again
1) Was actually heavily leaning towards, and experience tells me that using the same wire for both up and downstairs is obviously the best choice, but was just wondering if anyone had any experience with the mentioned models of wires and/or trying a combination of them/others. I should’ve been more specific, but thank you for the re-enforcing the fact that I should just keep it simple.
2) The vertical bi-amping was a thought that spawned from speaking with other VR-4 owners, and the guys at VS. I’m local, and dropped off the newly acquired pair a couple of weeks ago to have the woofers upgraded by VS, as they still offer this service, and the original woofers were known to be a bit on the slow side. While there, there was a lot talk about using a solid state on the bottom half, and possibly tubes, or a warmer sounding class A or A/B on the top half. As you probably know, the Accuphase are very smooth, warm, and almost tube-ish to my ears, not to mention, switchable between pure class A and A/B....hence the thought about trying this for the top half, and using the input level adjustments to help with level matching. Quite few people have made this type of amp combination suggestion when it comes to running these particular speakers, so I will try it. As many experiences in this industry have shown me over the years, and I’m sure yourself...a lot of the time, you don’t know until you try (yes, some outcomes can be predicted, but not all IME). While I’m aware of the typically bad results vertical bi-amping can produce as I’ve had that experience with my last system who am I to tell those experienced VR-4 users that they don’t know what they are talking about? Trying different things...that’s half the fun IMO, and a crucial part of this hobby/passion.
Not planning on running active at this point, but you never know....I hear you on bridging and understand distortion levels go up, phase issues, etc. Still willing to try nonetheless...won’t kill me to do so...I have options.
3) Honestly...I don’t really have much of anything just lying around aside from some ancient "death grip" Monster Cable 800 ICs that I’d rather not wrestle with if/when I need to switch some things around...seriously.
All my other decent ICs are being used in my dedicated home theater system.
4) The Accuphase amps came without IECs, and a couple of my stock power cords were lost/misplaced during the move into the new house, hence, I bought new ones. The new & used Furutech, and filtering/distribution were a steal at his prices, came from someone well trusted, and I was able to get several different models/termination coatings to try out in different parts of the chain to determine which ones will work best for my set-up. I purchased one Nanoflux 18 which will run from the wall (dedicated circuit) to a f-TP615, 2 of the Piezo Powerflux cords, a pair of the Evolution Power II, a single Absolute Power 15 plus, and a few cheaper 10 AWG power cords made by a local buddy for the Emotivas (just basic OCC, with cryo’d red copper ends). Although it was a decent chunk, I didn’t "blow my wad" purchasing he cables, and I’m confident that I can recoup my money back out of them if needed, and invest it in better matching cables if/when needed. The opportunity was there, and I took it. Not a huge deal to me.
5) I agree that the W4S DAC is a great piece of gear and is tough to beat in its class. It is one of the last few remaining items from the previous system. The new DAC is a Gustard X20pro with dual ES9028s (one for each channel), a huge list of abilities, including DSD DOP decoding, PCM384K DSD256, has a plethora of inputs, including IIS, BNC, is incredibly well built/laid out for an overseas piece, and is burning in as we speak. Trust me when I say to you, the W4S has some very serious competition here. This DAC seems to be VERY capable thus far. With me moving in the direction of a dedicated music PC, this DAC seems to fit the bill a little more nicely. That is...as long as my ears like it more than the W4S of course (which seems to be the case so far). And no, I’m not paying someone to do the mods. I’m very comfortable performing the level-1 mods myself. They are mainly A/C related and, fairly straight forward (fuse/switch bypassing, transformer de-coupling, A/C lead twisting, etc.) and are said to bring it to a far superior level. We will see, as I have about 40 hours of break-in left before reaching the suggested 200 hour mark. It is absolutely outstanding so far.
6) I have MANY years of listening and tuning experience. I’ve tuned many SQ competition mobile systems, ( I understand the mobile environments are very different from a listening room), and home set-ups utilizing active networks, and/or processors. I would say I have a very good ear, know "how to listen", and what, I personally, am listening for/enjoy. I see where you may have thought otherwise, so, no harm, no foul.
I sincerely appreciate your input/concern nonetheless mrgreen, as I’m sure it wasn’t meant to sound arrogant or condescending. Thanks for taking the time to respond so thoroughly.
So...any suggestions on some pre-mades, or cable and ends to assemble myself?
As stated, was just hoping for some insight on who I should be looking at these days in the above price range.
Thanks again
