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Post by pwiles1968 on Dec 24, 2014 18:25:41 GMT
My audio journey started like many people about 40 years ago with a Dansette style Record player, I am not a Vinyl fanatic but I cringe when I think about the stacked records dropping on each other while still spinning LOL. I ad my first CD player in the late 80s and loved listening to music, but still had not caught the HiFi bug that for me came moderately late, I realised around 5 years ago what I had been missing with respect to a properly laid out and set up stereo system, initially it was a surround system more for convenience than anything, wife and kids could not cope with separate stereo and AV, the AV amps got better and I even added power amplification, music was always played in stereo source direct where the amp had the facility. More recently I separated the Stereo out and I must say it was worth it, as good as I thought the AV amp sounded this is so much better. Current system is Marantz AV Amp 7.1 speaker setup, the surrounds are old Centralia Solid Speakers by B&W, Centre is a HTM2. The front is hooked up from pre-out to my stereo system: My Stereo has a couple of sources - for occasional use I have a Project Genie TT my main source is an Apple TV (old white one) it has ATVFlash installed and a 1TB HDD hooked up, al my music is purchased on CD but immediately ripped in to ALAC. The sources feed in to a Audiolab 82000CDQ, This is my DAC and preamp, this in turn feeds a Bel Canto EvoII which power my B&W 805s  I have little Dennon's etc around the house so that I can airplay music all round the house even in the garden where I want to. Most of my music listening is on the main system but when I am traveling or at work I have a iPod Classic 160GB and a Choi Moi Altoids amp built by Askew Labs with some special mods for me Headphones are Alessandro MS1, AGK 551, Shure E2 & Klipsch 11i.     |
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Post by MartinT on Dec 24, 2014 19:14:43 GMT
That's a good lesson, splitting the AV system from the hi-fi system. I also started with my parents' Dansette |
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Post by pwiles1968 on Dec 24, 2014 20:45:25 GMT
That's a good lesson, splitting the AV system from the hi-fi system. I found the trick is getting a stereo Amp or Pre-Amp that has a fixed gain input channel. I use this for the AV input when set it does not change, that way setup is easy otherwise you have to remember to set the stereo at a fixed level every time. |
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Post by John on Dec 24, 2014 22:20:02 GMT
Thanks for sharing your set up history. Nice and tidy system
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Post by pwiles1968 on Dec 25, 2014 10:40:49 GMT
Its not HiFi but look what I gor for Christmas  |
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Post by ChrisB on Dec 25, 2014 11:41:03 GMT
Is that some kind of fancy skeletal hair-shirt design hard drive?
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Post by pwiles1968 on Dec 25, 2014 14:29:10 GMT
Is that some kind of fancy skeletal hair-shirt design hard drive? Nope, it is a Pizza Cutter |
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Post by MikeMusic on Dec 25, 2014 17:19:28 GMT
Its not HiFi but look what I gor for Christmas Who cares ? Superb ! |
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Post by MartinT on Dec 25, 2014 21:05:06 GMT
Cool pizza cutter.
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Post by pwiles1968 on Jan 3, 2015 22:30:59 GMT
Ok all packed and ready, I am off to a little electronics show in Nevada tomorrow,  If I have time to get round the HiFi I may post some photos. |
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Post by MartinT on Jan 4, 2015 11:33:51 GMT
Yes please! What show is it?
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Post by pwiles1968 on Jan 5, 2015 7:13:39 GMT
Yes please! What show is it? CES I have a mad schedule but do want to get to the Venetian some time thats where most of the high end stuff is. |
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Post by MartinT on Jan 5, 2015 7:18:42 GMT
Hah! Good luck with that one, the only comparable show I've attended is CeBIT in Hannover and after 19 halls of it I was on my knees!
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Post by pwiles1968 on Jan 18, 2015 18:19:42 GMT
Just got my new TV, its a 55" Sony Bravia X85 4k TV, prices are pretty good on them at the moment, read quite a few reviews and looked in a few shops at different models where I could compare them with decent sources, luckily some shops will let you put the TV in to normal settings instead of the show modes. In most of the reviews I have seen so far one of the only real criticism was the black levels, I am guessing the reviewers expectations are a little higher than mine as I think the Blacks and range is really good? OK I am coming From a Gen 6 Panasonic Plasma that was 1080i but I am amazed with the picture quality of this TV, Fed from SkyHD or Terrestrial HD broadcast the detail is stunning to me Sky HD has the edge. I have signed up for Amazon Prime as there is an App for it along with BBC, the pictures on these are good but fall nominally short of the Sky, not tried much of the 4K on Amazon yet there is not much but this is really good if not a little too detailed if there can be such a thing, I have noticed this on a few TV programs also It depends on the filming but some broadcasts can almost look too detailed giving a very unrealistic presentation, I have not been able to soften this? I have not watched much Blueray I do not actually own many but I put Avatar on and was initially underwhelmed until I realised that the Player was set to 1080i due to my old TV, Once I changed this to Auto and set the Amp to passthrough it went from OK to stunning, I need to watch a whole disk not had time so far. SD Pictures are Ok broadcast TV is better than a lot of the Sky SD which is quite changeable and can look quite poor on some channels  , DVD is pretty good also upscaling appears to work well but you can tell its a DVD and not HD but it is good quality image, either DVD or a Ripped Movie. I can not comment on the sound as I have optical out in to my AV system with passthrough set on the amp for in and out lip sync appears to be ok to my eye . I have tweaked the settings slightly, but Kept Standard and Neutral on most settings, the sheer number of settings options is baffling but I think I have a good handle on most of them. Only a Day in but so far really impressed. The only Negative I have found so Far was the Power cable, I have wall mounted and Have a 4M Kettle lead, the cable in this is hard wired, and only just reaches the edge of my fire placeand that is using a dodgy route away from the other cables bit disappointed with this. |
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Post by MartinT on Jan 18, 2015 21:04:56 GMT
Nice. I was looking at the LG 4K TVs but will wait for broadcasts to start. I'll make sure to take a look at the Sony too.
You point about taking it out of demo mode is pertinent: I dislike shops putting them into this mode which is highly unrealistic and designed to make them 'look better' than the others around them. Not much good when they all do it. Best to put them in normal or THX mode and ignore the sets around them.
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Post by pwiles1968 on Jan 18, 2015 21:39:36 GMT
Nice. I was looking at the LG 4K TVs but will wait for broadcasts to start. Netflix and Amazon have both started streaming 4K not much at the moment but its there, I was sceptical about getting a 4K when I am not going to have a lot of material but the upscaling capability of these TVs is fantastic |
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Post by Slinger on Jan 18, 2015 22:52:13 GMT
As I mentioned in another post here, although Netflix (and I'm assuming Amazon are the same) boast 4K content it's quite heavily compressed, so what you see will not be real-time 4K quality. Plus, if I can quote a quote from my original post...
I bought a 4K/3D telly purely as a "future-proofing" exercise. I'm not expecting anything wonderful any time soon.
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Post by pwiles1968 on Jan 23, 2015 21:02:47 GMT
As I mentioned in another post here, although Netflix (and I'm assuming Amazon are the same) boast 4K content it's quite heavily compressed, so what you see will not be real-time 4K quality. Plus, if I can quote a quote from my original post... I bought a 4K/3D telly purely as a "future-proofing" exercise. I'm not expecting anything wonderful any time soon. Yes I am not under any illusion that the streamed content is of optimum quality and what little there is of 4k is not really wrth watching yet, but TV makes a really good job to my eyes of the HD content that is available. |
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Post by pwiles1968 on Jan 24, 2015 23:01:06 GMT
I am awaiting and arrival getting quite excited, as well as HiFi i have a bit of a thing for torches, don't buy the really expensive ones but I have quite a few different ones all LED, I have just treated myself to a NiteCore EA41 2015 model, I saw these guys at CES and they are pretty passionate about their torches, I got home to find a colleague had purchased a TM26 Tiny Monster I was a bit Jealous but could not warrant the cost the batteries alone were more than my EA41 but I think I have made the right choice for me the fact that it runs on AA batteries is quite important, will post photos when it arrives for any other torch enthusiasts LoL.
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Post by pwiles1968 on Jan 25, 2015 20:51:31 GMT
some broadcasts can almost look too detailed giving a very unrealistic presentation, I have not been able to soften this? Turned off the Reality Creation completely this has massively improved the way the picture looks, I also found a main menu I completely missed Scene Select, which was on Auto, this meant it was flicking between different colour modes, I would normally pick Standard but for this TV I prefer Cinema and then Warm 1 on a sub menu, I picked this up on a review site which said this setting gave the most accurate Greyscale, Watching Ripper Street Now and it is a fantastic picture |
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