barrysandy
Responses from barrysandy
| What are your favorite upright 4-5 shelve audio rack recommendations? Steve Blinn, who advertises here, makes really nice ones. If you were on a tight budget you might consider Sanus. | |
| Dirac vs dspeaker room correction Have been using Dspeaker Dual Core Antimode 2.0 since 2012. Very easy to use for basic room correction and it has lots of additional functionality besides. Terrific customer support if you have a software issue like when doing uploads of new ver... | |
| What's been your turntable ownership over the years? Dual 1209Harmon Kardon Rabco ST-8 (tangential arm)Denon DP-3000 direct driveVPI HW-19 MK III (later with Applied Fidelity sapphire & ceramic bearing)TW-Acustic Raven Anniversary w/ BN upgrades (copper platter, 3 motor unit, mat, & feet) | |
| Alternative mat for SME turntable Funny you should ask about this. There’s a TT mat shootout on part-time audiophile that might be of interest. I think it’s generally hard to predict what any mat will sound like for various TTs.https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2017/02/15/five-turnta... | |
| Counterpoint NP-220 died: I've owned and upgraded variants of these for 17 years. NP220s can be very nice sounding amps depending on the level of upgrades so you may be disappointed with something else. Haven't heard the BHK amp, but it's worth checking out if you decided ... | |
| Best Capacitors for Crossovers I like the Duelund Cast caps for speaker crossovers and use them on the tweeter / midrange panels of my Magnepan 3.6s. They sound amazingly clear and natural. They're almost as good as a Pass Labs 3 way active crossover used on the bass panels and... | |
| Top resistors I’m sure everyone would agree that assessing sonic characteristics of parts in a complex audio system is extremely challenging due to component interactions, but here’s my experience. Shinkohs and Riken Ohms are nice, but just too colored, in a ni... | |
| Who do you like for equipment mods? Not sure why I didn't mention it above, but Bill Thalmann at Music Technology in Springfield, VA outside of DC does terrific work. He worked for Conrad Johnson and has been doing repairs and mods for a very long time (and to prove it - he is alway... | |
| Capacitor log Mundorf Silver in Oil slowikpl Anything over 10 uF could take at least 200 hrs on the cable cooker and possibly more given the size of them. You might want to try the Duelund silver foil and wax and oil bypass on a tweeter cap for speakers for that last little bit of... | |
| Audiocap Theta Audyn True Copper Mundorf Supreme I’m rather partial to the Jupiter Copper Foil Paper & Wax caps in electronics (not the ones mentioned above). Very nice. Manageable size. Just used them in a major parts replacement in my Pass Labs XVR-1 3 way XO. Helps to burn them in on a ca... | |
| Rel subs with Magnepan 3.6's Another vote for the Rythmik Audio F15HP. Get 2. Build quality on these is second to none. I’m using one with my 3.6s as well some subwoofer towers. I like the idea of the open baffle/ dipole except for the extra build work involved. Despite the t... | |
| 6sn7 or 6sl7 The absolute best 6SL7 is the Mullard ECC35 CV569 brown base which are rare as hen's teeth. Fortunately, there are the Tung Sol black glass 6SU7 GTYs which sound just as good and can be found if you look. Both are NOS. Both can last 10,000 hours. ... | |
| Dynaco FM-5 Tuner. Is it still worth the money to service and possibly upgrade?? Sony HD hmmm - not really. The best tuners (see website FMtunerinfo.com) with most natural sound are vintage ones and come from the 70’s & 80s. Top of the line models from Kenwood, Sansui, Marantz are highly sought after for a reason. Look at ... | |
| COUNTERPOINT HYBRID PHONO STAGE UPGRADE You might have more luck over at the DIY Audio website. The only person that really did any mods to these was Mike. The cached info for the preamp on his website is here if you don't have it:https://web.archive.org/web/20140623010209/http://www.a... | |
| Marantz I'm using the SA 7S1. Really great sound for SACD/CD if you're not the type that likes an analytical sound. Have had no problems over the years that I've owned it. Built like a tank. Reasonable prices used. Haven't really felt compelled to upgrade. |