Re the All Blacks, I couldn't give a proverbial personally, but the rest are getting over it.
Its amazing how many lovers of Classical have rubbish systems
I have a heck of a lot of good music on tape and have a lot in "Dolby S" so I still use it quite a bit, it really does perform very well but not so user friendly as CD. In the car it seems to cut through the other noise ok. I have tape and CD in Car but cant enjoy and drive at the same time. hope your retirement is short lived.

Regards A

Well I get the impression that lots of the users, currently posting, are quite young. No-one has a good system in their twenties (without rich parents).
You ought to check out the Steve Hoffman forum - there are many good systems around there...... http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/

The only difference on there is that a lot of the users like rubbish music!

It does seem that not too many people are actively using this forum, despite the number of members. I would have expected more entries on the Hi-Fi thread. Only two full pages in 10 months!

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Yes, perhaps for the reasons that you mention [age] however you can get very good 2nd hand systems for the price of a cheapy, and of course d/l from the net sound pretty poor on a good system

It also seems like physical Hi-Fi is not trendy amongst the younger generation. With all the mobile media and downloading they seem to be passing on the physical option. there is also a cost factor. It's very cheap to get an ipod or equivalent and download individual songs to populate it. Buying decent Hi-Fi can be expensive, although as you say second hand can be very rewarding for a fraction of the price. It's also not portable and that seem sto be an important factor now. personally I do not want music on the move (other than in the car) and prefer silence when I am out. My hobby is climbing mountains and the last thing in the world I would want to do would have extraneous noise when I am out in the wilds.

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I'm lucky enough to have my own separate listening room for my stereo and discs. I use an Adcom pre-amp and amp, attached to Klipsch Forte's. My CD player just died after 17 years, so I replaced it with a Cambridge 640C. I have installed sound treatment throughout the room, including Auralex bass traps and absorption foam.

For the past few months, I have been ripping my CD's to a server in the garage so that I can stream the music to a Slim Devices Transporter (which at the moment is still in the box.) I don't have much time to do this, so it is taking FOREVER to do at about 3-5 discs a week. I just calculated that at the rate I'm converting discs, I'll still be doing it in 2013.

Something that I find kind of cool about the process is that I can tell who my favorite composers are. As if I didn't know. My top ones in terms of number of discs are Mahler, Bach, Bruckner, Beethoven, Sibelius, Brahms, Berg, Mendelssohn, Copland, and Schoenberg in that order.

I just added new speakers to my system. What a difference. The tingle of the triangle in Holst's Jupiter seemed to hang in the air. I heard Rubinstein pedaling and breathing in the Moonlight sonata. Amazing warmth and sound stage. The crispness of Allegri's Miserere could cut into one's soul. The excitement and insanity of Salome's dance of the seven veils pulled me out of my seat. These are some of the best speakers I have ever heard, period.

New system
Amp: AMC 2100 100wpc (built by the same guys who do NAD)
Pre-amp: AMC 1100
Disc player: Sony CDP 261 (will be replaced by NAD later)
Speakers: Onix rocket rs450 from AV123.com

Pics;

Hi Eric Helm.
Just an observation
I notice that your speaker cables appear to be a bit on the thin side, you would notice a difference with good speaker and interconnects, I always thought this was just Snake Oil until I tried some and boy what an improvement.

Right.
Currently 18 gauge, which is minimal at best. Banana terminations.
Will probably end up with 14 gauge. The saving grace id that the cable lengths are only 6 feet
Wanted to test it first before adding more goodies.
As it is, it is so good that it boggles my mind.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Nice to see another audiophile!

EH
These are my hand made speaker cables, they also double as a tow rope
<a href="http://s258.photobucket.com/albums/hh262/michtattersall/?action=view&current=DSCN0812.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh262/michtattersall/DSCN0812.jpg" border="0" alt="speaker cables"></a>

EH
Just tried to upload a pic for you but I can't get it to work

This is much better, I must be getting too old

[IMG][/IMG]

Wow some of you have very nice systems!

Andante,
You said in your first post that your cables and interconnects are hand made. Could you tell me more about how you did it?

As far as my system goes (and please keep in mind that I'm a student with not much revenues hehehe):

Rega P1 turntable:

Amp: Harman Kardon HK-380i
I also really need to upgrade my CD player and speakers because I'm using rather cheap ones right now (which I'm too ashamed to show here ).

Andante;
Wow, those are artwork. Multiple strands braided. Beautiful job. You may inspire me to work voodoo on my wires as well. What base wire did you use?

Erik and Raphael

They are made from computer cable.
Each braid consists of 6 cables, each cable has 4 white and 4 coloured cables, it is important to make sure that all cables in each braid are running the same way [directional cables]
When you have finished platting the cables, strip each inner strand of cable and separate into 24 white and 24 coloured, make sure you get this right.
That is all, solder the ends to finish up with 2 nice fat cables then connect to your Amp and Speakers, if any one wants more details I would have to check my files as the info is not on my PC, Cost in NZ$ was $250 total, for the finished cables measuring approx 9 metres per side, I have a largish room with speakers at one end and the Hi Fi units on the side.

My interconnects were made by a friend and are also directional [one way] they were approx 0.5 metres and cost NZ$40 a pair.

These cables may sound expensive but named brands would cost a lot more just check out the Hi Fi magazines.

http://www.sixmoons.com/audioreviews...moonshine.html

I did something similar with three strands of 18 gauge speaker wire that I first separated, then bound together with shrink tubing and zip-ties, and terminated with bananas.