Audiophiles, help me build a decent stereo

[singlecross]

I feel you can get more bang for your buck with vintage gear. I can recommend older Klipsch speakers (Heresy/Forte/Chorus), Marantz receivers (2230/2270), and Polk speakers (Monitor 7 or 10).
The internet is your friend for researching vintage gear.
Find a wealthy neighborhood and check out yard sales. Seriously. Most people “upgrade” to newer, smaller gear that isn’t as good. Thanks Bose! Most stuff you can buy cheap and flip if you need to… at least that was the case 15 years ago when I put my gear together.

For Bluetooth, I just use a Auris BluMe HD plugged into my Marantz. Mostly for convenience.

[nickwm21]

I have not heard that particular item, but, class D amp, I know they've come a long way in the past 10 years. But still. And, they cram a lot of stuff into a little box at an attractive price. There's got to be some pretty serious compromises along the way. Will it sound better than the black plastic crap? Most likely. Will it have the livelness and impact and dynamics of a higher end used set of separates? Probably not. But I haven't heard one.

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That’s my setup.

Somewhat nice Polk bookshelfs
Little class D amp
Cheaper audiotechnica record player
Chromecast audio

Sounds pretty fucking good for under like $700 total…



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[liv2ski]

The used b & k stuff strikes me as very high value. Hafler stuff is usually quite good as well.
One watch out if you are looking at vintage gear, is worn/pitted potentiometers and switches. If possible test carefully at low listening levels.

I do like to have more power from my amp available than the speakers may ever need. I want any movement of my speaker drivers to come effortlessly.
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I have a really great vintage audio repair place about 15 minutes from me, so you may want to look around for the service if needed to service any equipment with sticky dials or re-cone a less than new woofer bought sight unseen (like I did) off the internet.
And for sure, get the most powerful amp you can for the speakers, as power at low volumes will give you a full sound even if not loud.

[ntblanks]

I went through a similar process 7 or 8 years ago and have some thoughts to share:

1. Floorstanding vs. bookshelf:
Your speaker of (initial) choice is bookshelf, so I assume you've made up your mind on form factor. You can get amazing sound from a smaller box. The tradeoff is bass and ability to fill a large room (displacement). If you go this route and classic rock is what you'll be playing you'll want a subwoofer. My suggestion there: get one with its own gain/volume (common) and, more importantly, a crossover control (less common). Any subwoofer of equivalent quality will work fine with bookshelf speakers, but not at factory crossover settings (the frequency where the smaller woofer hands off to the big boy woofer). If not set correctly it won't sound good. With that knob you can set the frequency manually as you listen or have someone else turn the knob slowly as you listen from a proper distance/location.

If you go this bookshelf+SW route you do not need a bookshelf speaker that markets "deep bass" (which is pretty near impossible to achieve and definitely not worth paying for). You can stick with traditional designs that won't carry that marketing premium/BS.

As I posted above, NHT (East Bay-ish in CA), makes amazing bookshelf speakers, specifically the C1 and C3. There are lots of good options, however. My suggestion would be to listen before buying....and buy used. Speakers are a bit like skis and then suddenly they are like boots. Once you find what works in your environment you can stop looking. So, if you get a pair of vintage KEFs that have great reviews and sounded good in that dude's garage but sound flat in your living room you can flip them easily and turn that cash around for a new pair of fill-in-the-blank.

FWIW, I love my NHT Classic 2s but would go back to floorstanding Audio Physic if I had the space. The day I sold my Tempos was a sad day.

2. Listening
Depending on where you are (in SLC?) there may be a decent market in used, higher-end audio equipment. Get on craigslist and whatever forums folks mentioned above and get over to sellers who are willing to demo for you. And not on the tailgate of a truck, mind you--in vivo. You'll learn a lot and there's always a chance you meet someone who just loves to share knowledge (again, kinda like skis).

When you are able to land an in-person demo I strongly recommend the following:
- bring higher-fidelity digital copies of three things: "Hello Little Schoolgirl" off of Muddy Waters' Folk Singer (you'll immediately understand why once you put it on), "Rosanna" by Toto (I know...it's for the opening of the song, which will tell you a lot about the speakers), and one or three tracks of whatever you plan to listen to.
- onsite set the expectation with the seller that you need to take your time and won't be rushed. Aural memory is stronger in some people than in others. Mine sucks so I need to listen a few times to really take an impression of how a track sounds on certain setups. Focus in on that aspect of the song you targeted to measure that aspect of the speaker's performance: e.g. you brought "The Ocean" to hear how they reproduce John Bonham's fucking brilliance.
- read up on what to listen for without falling too deep in that particular rabbit hole and then go do it.
- look at the equipment driving the speakers. If it's garbage or if it's reference, each will impact the sound you are hearing. In fact, every piece of equipment between the digits on the source media and the oscillating drivers will have an impact, so just be aware of the operating environment. Anecdote: Due to restrictions on the Spotify crossfade feature, I was listening to Spotify on my system the other day, switching back and forth from an audio Chromecast > optical cable > Topping D30 DAC > preamp to 8-yr old $12 bluetooth receiver > preamp and the difference in audio quality was vast.

Finally, know the (local) market for that specific model and do not over pay. If you decide to flip them you don't want to lose $ or find they are hard to sell.

---

This is already pretty long so I'll stop there. I have thoughts about buying vintage amps & preamps that partly echo what basinbeater wrote (among his pile of good advice) but I'll leave that for later.

[basinbeater]

Another thought as if the collective hasn't put forth a million already, if you are thinking bookshelf speakers, but plan on using stands, the form factor may be similar in size to some towers. My signet bookshelf speakers with stands occupy more space the JBL towers. So again, more powerful amplifier gives you options.
If you are planning on putting the bookshelf speakers on a bookshelf, then well, yeah.


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[liv2ski]

Basinbeater, are stands just for looks or do they add something. I have always had large floor standing speakers. Had some Cerwin Vega's back in the day with a 15" woofer mounted to fire down about 4" from the floor. Those got us evicted for noise complaints in an apartment. So ya, I am deaf and love big speakers.

[EWG]

I like the looks of the integrated system, plus less wires.

OP have you considered a vintage Yorx?

Attachment 395551

Have you considered the benefits of a fractional ownership of a vintage Yorx system?

[exsparky]

I have this discontinued 3.2 star beauty stabbed into my 1989 Kenwood rack system in my garage.



The speakers are gone, the "5 cd carousel" is gone, the cabinet is gone but the tape deck, eq and tuner live on!

[AdironRider]

I had kinda settled on bookshelf speakers as I figured I could get higher quality units for the same money. Basically I'd rather get smaller but as high quality as my budget would allow. Seems to me that used floor speakers might be the way to go now.

Notably with a 1 year old roaming around hell bent on destruction. I should know better than to entertain bookshelf speakers on stands but they do look cool IMO.

[basinbeater]

For these signets, they need the stands to put the speakers at the right height and allow for positioning in the room.
I also have a pair of Canton Karat bookshelf speakers, and they are much happier on stands than an actual shelf.
The towers, with the larger cabinet volume and four way driver configuration have stronger tighter bass, cleaner natural mids and highs. They also require more power.
Simple answer is, yes, stands are very necessary for my use of bookshelf speakers in the living room.


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[basinbeater]

If you were in salt lake, these look tempting for $500. Kind of surprised they haven't sold actually...
Mirage. Omd -15 https://classifieds.ksl.com/listing/65740177

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[EWG]

I think the advice here has been excellent. To add to it / tweak it, I'd say when spending the money on your amp and speakers, you don't have to go for big names. I one room I have that 80s Phillips tube amp mentioned below hooked to a pair of energy 2.1e speakers. Lots of audiophiles don't even know what those two things are. But the Phillips amp sounds fantastic for a 40w integrated amp. It was part of the Phillips Lab project and was only around for 3-4 years, but it's very nice stuff. Similarly, the original Canadian Energy brand made speakers in the 90s that I loved at a great pricepoint, and since they kinda went out of business / got bought by Klipsch no one really pays them any attention. So you could buy these two pieces for probably $500-600 and it would be as good as most $1,500 new amp/pre/speaker gear (if you like the sound, which I do - warm and resonant.)

So point is, the used advice is good, but listening for yourself and doing some research - and not just limiting yourself to the stuff everyone lusts after - can have a big impact.

But mostly, find some really kick ass speakers, as everyone here has said.

[EWG]

I have this discontinued 3.2 star beauty stabbed into my 1989 Kenwood rack system in my garage.



The speakers are gone, the "5 cd carousel" is gone, the cabinet is gone but the tape deck, eq and tuner live on!

I like the chromecast audios. Also discontinued, right? I'm running three of them I think.

[Timberridge]

Have you considered the benefits of a fractional ownership of a vintage Yorx system?

That may be another downside of going integrated vs separates. You can't loan out or do fractional ownership of just the preamp portion because it's all sorta contained in one box.

[jorion]

Funny this thread popped up, I just picked up a pair of Cornwall Is from CL a few weeks ago and have been going down the internet audio nerd wormhole. (These are my first pair of quality speakers).

They sound quite nice but now I’m tempted to upgrade my amp situation. (I’ve got an outlaw audio rr2160, also from CL, which I got since it is reputed to have a solid DAC and phono stage built in). It’s been a great all-in-one solution but I’m curious to find out what tinkering with different preamps/amps/DACs/phono stages would sound like. Plus there’s the cult of tubes with these klipsch heritage speakers.

I also don’t know shit about shit when it comes to audio, audio nerd internet is insane and I don’t really have a way of listening to different stuff without committing money to it.

I’m planning on keeping an eye on Craigslist and maybe picking up interesting pieces that seem like a good deal.

Honestly all this stuff is overwhelming and there’s so much bullshit that it’s hard to know what advice is good.

[Timberridge]

Honestly all this stuff is overwhelming and there’s so much bullshit that it’s hard to know what advice is good.

Well either good news or bad news depending on your situation, but high end audio really is a load of shit...mostly. Outside of wine collecting, it may have the steepest slope on the law of diminishing returns graph.

[jorion]

That’s what I’ve gathered even without hearing much. I’ve been aware of how much some people spend on audio gear for a long time but it’s still pretty shocking to me.

[Timberridge]

I knew a sound engineer at the Hit Factory in NYC. One day I was in the recording studio and figured I'd ask him his opinion on some higher end audio equipment which I was looking to buy at the time. He pointed at some smallish studio monitors above the board and said, "Just buy these, I don't mix the sound for really expensive speakers."

[skialpy]

Unless you go with truly huge floor speakers I believe a sub always adds a ton to the sound quality. For music centric system check out sealed offerings from Rythmik, SVS, REL. 10” for medium space 12” for living room. Weight seems to be a decent indicator of quality.

[doubleeject]

If you don't already have a vinyl collection you might consider holding off on the turntable for now and putting the money towards other components in your setup. I enjoy my vinyl setup quite a bit, I've spent a decent bit of $ on it and I think I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between my vinyl and digital sources in a blind comparison. If you don't have a vinyl collection on hand, most of your time will be spent listening to your digital source and spending more on speakers will result in more smiles than the turntable would.

[4matic]

I have a wireless JBL sub. I ran it wired at first thinking it would sound better that way. It’s doesn’t. Wireless sound is better for this particular piece of equipment and gives more flexibility. Just something to keep in mind if you use smaller R/L bookshelves. Don’t worry about wiring a sub.

[4matic]

Most music since the mid 80’s was digitally mastered so whether vinyl copies of a digital master sound better has to be subjective. Build your system to best accommodate your collection whether digital or analogue. While I like “hifi” a lot convenience and access is far more important than aural quality for me.

Also, consider whether your going to use video with the system . Stereo is a terrible substitute for digital surround.

Think about your factory car audio system. Mine sounds far better in Dolby surround than in stereo but that’s unique to a car

[AdironRider]

Interesting. How does the signal transmit to the sub?

This setup won’t be utilized for video. I pretty much rarely watch stuff other than Top Gear streaming on a motortrend so I have some Dolby soundbar for that and it’s good enough for my use there.

[AdironRider]

If you don't already have a vinyl collection you might consider holding off on the turntable for now and putting the money towards other components in your setup. I enjoy my vinyl setup quite a bit, I've spent a decent bit of $ on it and I think I'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between my vinyl and digital sources in a blind comparison. If you don't have a vinyl collection on hand, most of your time will be spent listening to your digital source and spending more on speakers will result in more smiles than the turntable would.

I think you’re probably right but I’m kinda looking for the whole tactile thing of the record experience as well. The sleeve, liner notes, pressing play, etc. I’ve built up quite a book collection that I just moved across the country to everyone that helped me’s chagrin for similar reasons. That whole smell and feel of turning an actual page is so relaxing for me.

[4matic]

Sub comes with a small transmitter box that plugs into the sub out port. Sub has built in receiver.