socrates63

Really? I uploaded them to my public gallery on google.

It's a Salamander desk with an audio rack integrated. I believe it is out of production. It's a small desk (5 ft wide, about 20 inches deep), and originally I used it at my office. After I picked up a Boltz rack, I brought this home and it works well for me. The best part is that I picked it up cheap on CL ($35 or $50, iirc). Salamander's price is just the media drawer alone is $100 new. Sorry about the photo quality. The stereo system is a Denon Personal Component System D-700. My wife and I bought this from Good Guys (I didn't know better then) soon after we got married, so that would put it at about eleven years ago. We paid $900 so it wasn't cheap. A few years ago, after being in storage, one of the speakers went bad so dumbass me just threw the pair away. Again, I plead I didn't know better at the time. The stereo sat in the house unused without speakers for several years until I finally bought the Paradigm yesterday. I have a Sansui 8080 receiver coming in a week or so. I had thought about building a modest speaker system around it but I decided to revive the Denon system and take the Sansui to work to use with my turntable.

I think they were the B&W 686. While the B&W had better slightly better bass, separation, and overall smoothness (liquidity?) than the Paradigm, the Atom performed very well. In fact, when I asked the salesman to switch the speakers from the B&W to the Paradigm, on more than one occasion, it was hard to notice the change, and I walked up to the speakers to confirm the switch was made. In the end, I chose the Atom because it offered a more upfront sound than the B&W without being harsh, and given the price difference (nearly $600 for the B&W compared to $300 for the Paradigm), I couldn't justify the small difference in performance and build quality. Originally, I was thinking about ordering one of the following from vendors on Audiogon. They were all priced $250-$300. - Psb Image B25 - Monitor Audio Bronze B2 - Epos They all received very good reviews, but given my zero experience with speakers, I thought paying a little more by buying local would be better than buying without hearing them.

I went to a local hi-fi shop after lunch and bought myself a pair of Paradigm Atom v5 monitors. This is my first purchase of real speakers. Up to this point, I've only bought computer speakers. No pics yet as I am in the office and the speakers are still in the box. I also demo-ed a B&W monitors (don't know the model) that cost a little over $500. I loved the sound and finish on the B&W monitors, but the Paradigm offered a great value at $300, IMHO. The Atom will be connected to a Denon system that I bought ten years ago. I'm also going to run an input from my computer to the receiver, so it will pull duty. The speakers will be placed on my desk.

Two purchases today and both from Craigslist Purchase #1 Today, I visited a guy who was selling his Sansui 8080 receiver. It wasn't in the best of shape appearance-wise (some lights out, veneer peeling in a few spots) but functionally perfect. I put down $75 and will pay the remaining $100 next week when he will have installed new lights. I had been hedging about buying it but when I told a guy who runs an electronics repair shop about the receiver, he said the price was fair, and that was good enough for me. This thing is friggin' HUGE! I don't think it'll fit inside any of my racks (Salamander, Boltz). I'll probably have to put it on the top of the rack and then put my turntable on top of the receiver. I want to pick up another vintage receiver and turntable so I can have a vinyl rig at home. I may need to sell some headphone gear to fund the future purchases. I can hear the dark side that is speaker audio calling me. Purchase #2 And before I left for work this morning, I left a message for a guy who was selling a PSP Slim with 1GB Sony stick and Jaxter(?) and a Family Guy UMD for $90. He didn't return my call all day so I thought it was a no deal. But while I was driving home from work tonight, he calls me and says it's available. We met at a shopping mall and made the transaction. The PSP is silver and is 8/10 condition. Pretty good price, no? My cousin is updating the firmware right now.

Happy birthday!

dew eet! and don't forget to post pics for added incentive, I can supply the ibuds for free

Don't expect the recabling to make the $20 KSC75 comparable to $250 headphones as it won't do that -- perhaps comparable to $150 headphones (I don't have any for comparison ) but not $250 (e.g., HD600, DT990). I bought a KSC75 from newegg and had newegg send it directly to Alex for the job. I did it because I wanted the best sounding clip-ons for office use. Clip-on means no headphone hair and open means I can hear someone who knocks on my door. While I haven't done a comparo to my stock KSC75, the APureSound KSC75, needless to say, sound much better than the stock. The overall sound is more crisp and sound separation is better. The APureSound KSC75 sound very good, and I like it better than my bass-challenged Audio Technica EW9 which is probably a better comparison (similar price, both clip-ons). If someone asks about the value proposition of the APureSound KSC75, then you're asking the wrong question. You don't recable a headphone believing that it's a cheaper way of getting better sound. As others and I have implied already, if you want the sound of a $150 headphone, then go buy a $150 headphone. If you want to refine and improve upon the KSC75 sound, then, as commonly said on HC, dew eet.

True, the mids on the new DT990 are a little recessed.

The W5000 and ESW9 (I had a very short listen at a recent meet) are quite different, as smeggy noted. I owned the A900LTD for a while, and the A9xx probably sounds similar to the ESW9. Gary, if you're a fan of the KSC75, then you definitely need to give a listen to the APureSound recabled KSC75. I bought one after I heard Big Poppa's at the November meet. Let me know if you want to borrow mine.

The ER4P/S and HD600 are 'phones I use frequently. I tried the old DT880 on a couple of occasions and hated it, but I really like the new DT990. I use it regularly with the other headphones. Overall, the DT990 is brighter than the HD600. Speaking of fanboys, I decided to pick up the DT990 (250 ohm) based in large part to Skylab's comments. My impressions agree with his experience so the DT990 turned out to be something I was looking for. For the price, you haven't much to lose if you decide to sell later.

I bought my Pioneer PL-12D turntable from a vintage stereo collector. He had several Sansui pieces in addition to Sansui speakers. By the looks of them, they were probably from the 60s or 70s. I loved the look and the lights. Nice to see you around these parts, Gary.

Audiokarma, looks like a very interesting place. I'll definitely look around. Even if free, I wouldn't want to get stuff for the sake of getting stuff if it's garbage, considering that I'll be on the hook to digitize a couple of dozen records.

Look what I found on craigslist recently. A few days ago, this system was up for sale and the asking price was $200. And then, yesterday night, I search for "turntable" and find that the listing was changed from $200 to FREE. I immediately sent email saying I'd take it, and a couple of minutes later, I receive a reply asking me to call that night. I talked to a lady for about half an hour. Apparently, the system was bought for her partner's mother around the mid-80s who has since passed away. The system has sat virtually unused for years, and she wants it out of the house. She said that someone else had responded and was willing to rip some vinyl as a trade for the stereo. I offered that I could do the same and explained how the process works. She felt comfortable enough that she agreed to give me the system. According to her, her partner or his mother (I can't remember which one) used to hang out with Janis Joplin and use to smoke weed with her, and he has vinyls from way back. But they don't know how to use a turntable and the two or three boxes of records have been sitting unused. Well, I was supposed to pick up the stereo this afternoon but she called me at 7:30am and told me that she changed her mind about giving it away. She felt bad about giving something away when it really belonged to her partner who's away until next week. She said she decided to sell it instead and asked if I was interested in buying the system for $200. I said thanks but no thanks and that was that. Or so I thought... she sent me email tonight saying that she contacted her partner who said that he was happy to give the system away in exchange for having some vinyls of his choosing ripped. She said she could call me when everything was ready for me to pick up. I took that to mean I can pick up the stuff when her partner gets back in town next Thursday and picks out the albums he wants ripped. I wrote back for her to do that, and so the wait begins. I figure she may change her mind again, but I've got nothing to lose. Anyway, does anyone know if this stuff is any good? Before she changed the ad, she had another photo showing both the speakers. My wife thought it would be pretty cool to get and put in the room. I miss my mid-80s Kenwood speaker system that I gave away when we moved a few years ago. That one had both turntable and CDP.

Nenso, I take it that you haven't received the proper Head-Case greet? Welcome to Head-Case, and sorry about your thin skin.

Great find! I'm definitely ordering. As for the Headphile stand, I recently saw a single headphone stand used with the L3000. The pipe is too fat to fit between the wings and the band with clearance. You can use the stand but I don't think it's an optimal solution for AT cans. One other thing, the Sennheiser headphone hanger works well with AT cans. It is wide enough so you can hang the headphone by the headphone bands.

Happy birthday!

Any comparisons of the 840c's DAC to other outboard DACs like the Lavry DA10 or Benchmark DAC1?

IIRC, Se wrote in a PM that the preamp functionality was not implemented but that it could be done in the future. I've not used the output jack , so I've never verified the behavior of the "mute" switch on the output jack. What you say does make sense as I was wondering one would need to mute headphones.

Ah, the mighty M3, the amp that prompted me to send n_maher a PM. Not having had the acquitance of Nate either online or in person, I was really hesitant but he seemed to be an upright guy and genuinely a nice guy, so I worked up the nerve to ask him, "Please, sir, would you be so kind as to build for me an M3 like the one that SK138 is bragging about?" And while we were discussing the particulars, SK138's M3 came up for sale, and I immediately bought it. AFAIK, SK138's M3 was the last one that thrice built after closing down Rockhopper a year ago(?) before reopening it. It's really cool in that it has two headphone jacks and 4 inputs. From SK138's for sale post: Single Case Design (silver brushed aluminum case) STEPS Power Supply Black Gates (not STD series) Capacitors 4 Inputs 1 Loop Out 2nd Headphone Jack Gain Switch (for High and Low impedance headphones) Mute Switch Optional 627/637 Opamps and Alps Blue Velvet Pot No bass boost; as Stephen recommended against this since it will degrade the signal path with more capacitors

Because the iRiver iHP-1x0 isn't a very good transport? Comparing the digital output of my H140 (ALAC) to the SlimX, the SlimX spinning the same song on CD sounds much better. Hopefully, the iPod will be a better transport.

Reks, did you get the Audio Engines? Are the Swans M200 still the ones to get in the $200ish range?

Cosmo, do you work for Microsoft?

Sorry to hear your night out got spoiled like that, grawk. I had my car broken in to on two occasions. I reported it the first time so I could make an insurance claim. The police took my report and told me to think about simply leaving the car door unlocked, so whoever wants to get in won't break the window or break the lock (which is how they got in). A couple of weeks later, the thieves broke in again. This time, I had left the car doors unlocked, and so they didn't damage the car. Also, there was nothing to take so nothing was lost. On an unrelated note, Vicki, is that your Lector 0.6T up for sale on Audiogon? I thought you mentioned in another thread that you were going to sell it.

x2 I also use Boltz racks and like to keep the CDs in the jewel cases. Craiglist is your friend. I picked up all my 3 Boltz CD racks and Boltz audio rack from local sellers on craigslist.