The BEST system you've ever built !!!!

Carl, I asked a question, you said "No", that should have been end of the discussion. I didn't pursue it and you didn't mess up anything, so let's let it go at that. Logical enough conclusion? Good!

Hey Albertporter, can I be your friend? I'll bring the bourbon. And to the rest of you whinny, sniveling, little "my system sounds better than yours" baby asses, get some new material and get a life! GEEZ!!

Real name is Todd. And I'll be a monkey's uncle if you don't own/ did own/ want to own most of what I said...or you've been masquerading on Audiogon for a long time. Also, you own a pair of Maggies. N'est ce pas? David99 if you were aiming at insulting me, you're the B-O-Z-O. Look it up clown.

This has been a nice thread, with a reasonable questions and answers about equipment. Like it or not, the equipment is necessary for the sound we want, until we can all sing and play like every artist we admire. Lets enjoy reading the listings of all the components everyone has put together. I have heard systems that were very inexpensive (like Issabre), that made you want to sit and enjoy the music all night. I have heard systems at the Consumer Electronic Show that cost more than my house, and I would not enter the room, as I was disgusted from the hallway. This site is and should always be about learning from each other. Anything in my system that works well, I took from somewhere else! Sharing is part of the art of this hobby, lets share ideas, stand firm for what we believe in, explain and educate why you believe it is the truth, and bring ourself and others up in the process. Everyone has important things to offer. How many times has a stranger come and listened (or your own child?) and offered a tidbit that caused you to re evaluate what you have done. The bottom line is, no person has all the answers, the more we know, the better shot we've got at making it better....it will never be perfect, but trying is (or at least should be) fun.

I think we all should not look at this as a competition. Like Albert said, money is not the determining factor. To me, it's the way a person puts a system together, synergy. Some people can do it right the first time, some people even get it wrong the 100th time. Carl_eber, don't ever get down. I read your posts all the time. You provide me with a lot of food for thought. I respect you, your ideas, your equipment, your philosophy. I don't care if you own a Krell or a Sanyo, I KNOW you get it. I always talk about Jolida integrateds. Only because my friends(a lot of musicians) come to me hoping for better sound, and don't have $2500. I tell them to buy one, we upgrade the tubes/power cord, and they can't believe they did this for less than $1000. They always say it sounds just like the sound they got in the studio when they mixed it. Likewise I visited the big high end dealer in this area who has a one page ad in Stereophile each month. And was drawn into the loudness of their main room. There, they had $100K of equipment blaring. Metallic, shrill, unnatural, and terrible. Women are more sensitive to this, and quickly left the room. I went to look at the equipment, to see what it was. The salesman later asked me if that was the best sound I have EVER heard. I didn't want to say, but my fiance' was not as shy. She said it was horrible(and used all the adjectives I just mentioned), and that the system I put together for $4K was the no contest winner. The guy obviously thought she was nuts, but she WAS correct. It's the sum of the parts that counts. Hopefully the whole is greater(that's what makes a good audiophile to me), and not less than the sum of those parts.