Went down a rabbit hole.

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falconkidding

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Falcon Kidding
Well there I was browsing the internet on my phone at 330 am when I saw that Breaking Benjamin one of my favorite bands from highschool just released a new acoustic greatest hits with guest singers album. Excitedly go to youtube check out a few of the songs and i'm digging it. For some reason I decided to buy the Vinyl record. Don't have a record player or anything just thought it would be cool to have for the artwork etc.

Welp the magic of amazon kicks in and this thing shows up after lunch today. I'm good for a few hours surfing the internet killing time when I realize. "bet this thing would be cool to play". So off I go to best buy to get a record player, while there figured I would get a receiver too cause I can connect it to my phone via bluetooth also picked up some polk speakers on sale for 60 bucks. So a grand total of 405 dollars i'm on my way back home. After a couple youtube vids on how to hook things up. (Up till today I never even knew what a receiver or amp did or that you had to actually cut wires to connect to speakers) I eventually get this stuff hooked up put the record on... and it sounds awesome... I'm tickled I got all this hooked up and it actually works.

Currently looking at more equipment, a dolby atmos receiver, klipsch speakers, and browsing zillow for a house with a basement that I can put a bunch of soundproofing and AV equipment in......
 
falconkidding said:
...After a couple youtube vids on how to hook things up. (Up till today I never even knew what a receiver or amp did or that you had to actually cut wires to connect to speakers) I eventually get this stuff hooked up put the record on... and it sounds awesome... I'm tickled I got all this hooked up and it actually works.

Currently looking at more equipment, a dolby atmos receiver, klipsch speakers, and browsing zillow for a house with a basement that I can put a bunch of soundproofing and AV equipment in......
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Sounds (no pun intended) like we are back to the 70s. Back then all of us still-mortgage-free teenagers spent our money on audio gear. The rec room in the basement of my parents home housed all this stuff that my brothers and I owned, along with our snooker table. I have a bit of a museum of that stuff in my basement - Scientific Audio Electronics amps, several different direct-drive and belt-drive turntables, Acoustic Research and Advent speakers, a Technics R2R, and gawd knows how many 33 1/3 LPs.
 
I have polk signature series speakers in my home theater, I really like them and they sound great!
 
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Most don’t need separate amps anymore as the AVR will power big box store speakers to THX-reference level volumes (read: uncomfortably loud). I run a Denon X4400h AVR which can power a 9.2 channel system on its own, but has the processing unit for 11.2 with an external amp. I only use it for a Klipsch Reference Premier 7.1 setup though.

Yamaha makes some good AVR equipment as well. Denon builds Marantz and the internals are almost entirely identical, but of course the Marantz has a premium price for those minor differences.

I used to be a pioneer fan, but after two of my fathers Pioneer Elite AVR’s blew up from a nearby lightning strike (they were surge protected, but the strike fried the HDMI board in both) I decided I’d go a different route.

As far as vintage stuff, my first stereo was a Marantz 2230 Receiver/1060 Pre-amp/amp powering some Technics cabinet speakers that my father had bought in the late 70’s. We still have it out in the shop today. Heavy equipment but everything still works. I’m sure the caps/tubes could stand to be replaced.
 
Just don’t get suckered into the “oxygen free” and other stupidity with speaker wires and power cords.
 
I still have the Marantz 2216 and Kenwood 200 speakers I bought when I was in college. The caps and pots definitely need to be replaced, maybe one of these days I'll get around to it. Also have a nice Denon turntable that I got some years later but it needs a needle.
 
GRG55 said:
Sounds (no pun intended) like we are back to the 70s. Back then all of us still-mortgage-free teenagers spent our money on audio gear.
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Still have my JBL 4312's and the NAD integrated amp from back in the day. They are now my garage tunes, and damned good ones at that.
 
I had a Marantz hi-fi system in the mid-1970s. It was shockingly better than my battery powered transistor radio. I earned the money to buy it by fixing motorcycles. I kept it for twenty years.
 
Craig said:
Just don’t get suckered into the “oxygen free” and other stupidity with speaker wires and power cords.
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Lol, agreed. Power conditioners, component connections, and basically anything from Monster Power are also mostly marketing fluff. Make sure HDMI cables are v2.0 certified so they support ARC and the higher 4K/8K data transfer speeds (something like 18Gbps vs 10Gbps for prior versions). Monoprice actually makes some great speaker wire/component cables that match or beat the really expensive stuff (independent testing confirmed) and are some of the least-expensive cables you can buy.
 
Are you comfortable assembling crossovers and cabinets from kits? If so, enjoy a related rabbit hole:

https://www.diysoundgroup.com

And

https://shop.gsgad.com


I have an unassembled 18" soofwooer cabinet from GSG, sub, and amp waiting to be added to my basement media room. And I still need to order and build my celling ATMOS speakers from DIYSG.
 
Ravioli said:
If you're going to be a true audiophile, you need this: https://www.parts-express.com/wattg...r5nJqEOZp0ZlOEaUMo1FB3MLurvkSRywaAopFEALw_wcB
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Oh man! Wow. The level of, um, cluelessness that preys upon is staggering.

I’m old enough to have been a Stereo Review subscriber when they published the results of an extensive, double blind study comparing Monster Cable speaker wires, 14 gauge copper speaker wires and off the shelf 18 gauge speaker wires. Their conclusion was almost nobody in their subject groups (audio aficionados if not audiophiles) could hear any difference between 14 gauge and Monster Cable. 18 gauge was different story.

The letters to the editor column was a fire storm for months!

john
 
I will admit to having bought monster cables in the past. BUT it was the only option at the store I was in and I didn't want to add Radio Shack to my itinerary after buying my first CD player. (1984)
 
Ravioli said:
I will admit to having bought monster cables in the past. BUT it was the only option at the store I was in and I didn't want to add Radio Shack to my itinerary after buying my first CD player. (1984)
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Acceptable. It’s not that they’re bad speaker cables, just that they’re gross overkill and over priced.
 
OH NO!!! Now you have something to compete with 100LL!!!
 
I was oh so glad when CDs came out and I didn't have to buy vinyl any longer, now the music comes over the internet. Will never go back.
 
PaulS said:
I was oh so glad when CDs came out and I didn't have to buy vinyl any longer, now the music comes over the internet. Will never go back.
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Depends on the source. Many audio streams are of CD quality or less. Gotta watch that bitrate!
 
PaulS said:
I was oh so glad when CDs came out and I didn't have to buy vinyl any longer, now the music comes over the internet. Will never go back.
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I have streaming with google music but its kind of nice listening to music on vinyl. Having to listen to the whole album keeps me from just hitting my favorite tracks and I appreciate some of my lesser listened to songs.
 
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and I get called a nerd.... :rolleyes: :D
 
Audio gear is a whole different obsession than airplanes.

I have 70s and 80s “vintage” gear all over the house except for the master bedroom that has 90s vintage JVC pushing Infinity speakers and subwoofer. Everywhere else is Kenwood 70s vintage speakers that thankfully don’t need rebuilding yet driven by big amps.

Then all of them are on all the time and are hardwired to the Echo dots. Alexa is loud and understandable everywhere and my favorite use is...

“Alexa, shuffle my awesome playlist, everywhere.” :)

“Awesome” has about 1000 songs in it.
 
Speaking of Rabbit Holes. That's some nice bourbon. I'm particularly fond of their sherry cask variety.
 
I drink a lot of Bulleit Rye, but the Rabbit Hole is the nicest of the "obtainable" bourbons in my opinion. I drink a lot of Woodford and Knob Creek as well.
 
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