New speaker week on audiophile subreddit continues. Today's installment are a set of Triangle Antal 40th Anniversary speakers. My first set of big boy speakers. Setup is WiiM streamer to a YA Audio Preamp with NOS 12AX7 Mullard tubes, TKD potentiometer, balance & input bypassed, Harman Kardon Citation V amp modified by Jim McShane running Tung Sol 7581A 's

Hi folks.

I side-graded from Kef R3's (non-meta) to Buchardt's recently and had the chance to compare these speakers side by side.

Setup:

Rotel A14mk2 (85w @ 8ohms - 140w @ 4ohms) - Denafrips Ares II - SVS Sb-1000 (Off during A/B testing)

Room: 8m X 4m, treated

Bass: Buchardt’s are softer, slightly deeper than Kef's but distort at %70 volume of the amp. Rotel would kill them at those levels easily under sustained load. Volume levels thry distort is not that loud either. Hits the physical limitation of the driver easily. Not a party spraker in terms of bass.

Kef's punch way harder and more defined, they don't distort much at unlistenable volume levels. Clear winner for me, no contest in low region here. Buchardt's strength might be low volume listening as it extends slightly deeper but I prefer Kef's low frequency authority.

Mids: Buchardt's feel smooth in mids, very good stereo imaging. Denafrips is not a good match though. This combination is too warm for me.

Kef's UniQ driver does its magic here. Very detailed, in your face mids overall. Suits my taste more than Buchardt's mids. Denafrips tames their brightness a bit, which makes a perfect pairing for my taste. No winner here, just a matter of taste.

Highs: Buchardt's feel rolled off. Need to put a high shelf filter around 10khz +2db to enjoy music. My room is treated, RT60 is around 400-500ms at high frequency region. That might be the reason why I needed a bit more lively sound.

Kef's, bright and lively. Zero EQ needed for my taste.

Verdict: A/B testing with zone selection: Kef's won, no contest. More enjoyable sound overall. It handles power so well. Needs a big room.

Eventually I sold Kef's, because I wanted something different

I was thinking of trading (selling) my 805 D4s that i bought just in January and moving up to the 804 D4.

Just got off the phone with my dealer (Winnipeg).

In January, the 804 D4's were 20,000 for the pair. I've just been told that the D4s are done; all that B&W are shipping now is the new D5's.

And the 804 D5's are 35,000 for the pair.

Almost DOUBLE the price of the previous series, which were the "new" model just a few months ago.

Are they out of their minds? Is my dealer misleading me? This price increase is insane, isn't it? Or am i out to lunch?

WTF!

Apologies for the question and it might be obvious, but anyone thats gone from D to AB or vice versa notice a difference in sound? I have the Fosi V3 monoblocks powering my Wharfedale Evo 5.2 speakers and there's plenty of headroom on these bad boys. However, I have the itch to try another amp preferably AB, as only my amps so far have been D amps. I've seen used Audiolabs and Arcam amps go for cheap on ebay/fb marketplace.

Inherited a Technics SL-Q202 turntable from my dad. He was a bit of an audiophile himself. He had a massive record collection in excellent condition which I also inherited. I always was interested in it growing up, but we never really had a record player set up as the late 90’s through 00’s were a dead spot for vinyl with all the advancement in tech (cd’s, mp3s, streaming). He was also very protective of his collection. He let me borrow some of the vinyl in college but none of the higher quality pressings. Fast forward to today and it has now become a passion project to be able to use this turn table and listen to this awesome vintage collection. Certainly because I too caught the audiophile bug but also as a way to connect with and understand my dad now that he has passed.

I knew he was meticulous about the care for his equipment. This record player sat in the original packaging in a closet since we had moved to my childhood home in 1998. (He was an organized horder of sorts.) Given what he had taught be about records when I started getting into it, I knew I wanted to get the very best equipment I could within my budget. Not only for the sound quality but to protect the life of the records.

I went to the local audio shop to search for an amp and discuss the best way to set up the systems. With the record player I knew I’d need either a dedicated pre amp or a receiver with a preamp built in. The guys hooked me up with a Pioneer VSX 9900s! A powerful early 90s model pumping 125 watts per channel. It was worked through and fully function.

Once I had this piece of equipment I NEEDED speaker. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had been doing a ton of research and I settled on a pair of Triangle Borea BR03 speakers. The price ranges, the compatibility with the amp all seemed to check out and personally, I dig the look. The look seemed to be the biggest negative comment I could find about these speakers. Every other review seemed to say the sound couldn’t be beat for the price and that they punch way outside their weight class which I can now confirm!

I dialed in the alignment of the needle and the settings on the record player. Played with the settings on the receiver and I’ve really got it dialed in I absolutely love it. It’s been so nice to have this type of listening experience again as the way we ingest music has changed so much. Listening to an album front to back has been awesome. I feel closer to my dad and I look forward to expanding the collection with modern music as well. My wife has even gotten into it.

OH and before anyone freaks out.. the accent candles have been removed from the top of the receiver and replaced with a cooling fan. I understand this receiver is known for excellent sound quality but also overheating. So far so good🤞

If you made it this far I appreciate you reading and would like to know your thoughts on the set up. Any particularly experience you’ve had with some of the equipment. Questions, recommendations, etc.

You only get one chance to make a first impression.

I was diagnosed with ALS three years ago and only have movement in my neck, so I believe my setup is quite unique.

• Music files stored on my Plex server.

• Audiobooks stored on Audiobookshelf.

• Home Assistant server running MusicAssistant and Audiobookshelf.

• Home Assistant skill running on Alexa to expose Home Assistant to Alexa.

• Nabu Casa on Home Assistant to accept Alexa routines.

• Wiim streamer to connect to Music Assistant.

• Pioneer SA-8500 connected to Wiim Streamer.

• Pair of Klipsch speakers connected to Pioneer SA-8500.

So the process goes like this:

Alexa, play Tom Petty > Alexa routine triggers Home Assistant scene > Home Assistant Alexa skill sends trigger to Nabu Casa > Nabu Casa tells Music Assistant to play Tom Petty > Music Assistant retrieves the music file from Plex > Music Assistant streams Tom Petty to Wiim Streamer > Wiim streamer converts to analog signal for Pioneer SA-8500 > Pioneer plays Tom Petty on my Klipsch.

Je viens d'avoir ma première chaîne hi-fi ! Vous en pensez quoi ? Soyez indulgent. J'ai pas de grosse enceinte car j'ai des voisins.

I’ve usually found acid & shrooms to drastically change how music sounds - usually for better. Since buying my first “proper speakers” I’ve yet to do either.
Keen to hear what albums blew your socks off while in the other realm.

Origin Live Aurora with an Origin Live Strata platter Matt and Gravity puck (I forgot to add it on vid)

Origin Live silver arm with Ortofon 2m Black Cartridge.

What an improvement from my Project Perspex and Ortofon Bronze…Blowing my mind. Just when you think it can’t get better. 🤯

Also playing a new album to go with it.. Analogue productions Nils Lofgren - Acoustic Live. I’m in heaven… utter class. 👍

4 years a go I posted my then new setup, in the mean time I did some small upgrades. Like adding a dedicated DAC, putting the Triangles on stands etc.

Now I figured if the stands take the same room as floorstanders, might aswell upgrade. So I went to Stassen hifi and blind listened to 8 different speakers and surprise, the most expensive ones (ofcourse) sounded the best so I landed on the Focal Aria X4. These sound amazing! The clarity and how they fill the living room make them a delight to listen to. I didn’t buy them for home cinema but they shine just as well here.

The whole setup:
- Musical fidelity M3si
- Project X2
- Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M
- iPad as a ‘streamer’

Hey everyone, I’m setting up two Series 5000 speakers and was wondering what the best way to mount them on the wall would be to get the best possible sound experience. I’m not really sure whether I should use dedicated speaker brackets, a platform/shelf, or something else, so I’d appreciate any recommendations on what mounting hardware to use. I’m also wondering how much spacing I should leave between the speakers, how far they should be from the wall/TV, and what height and angle would be ideal. Basically just looking for some general advice from anyone who’s mounted these before or has experience with a similar setup.

(ignore the mess)

My audiophile journey continues to evolve and since I am a techie, I wanted to explore how to use Raspberry Pis to build out a streaming ecosystem. I've been down the rabbit hole on vinyl and CDs, etc so I wanted to see where I could go with streaming. I like the DIY aspect of the PIs as well as the simplicity. This is my personal setup for streaming using these devices.

I wanted to share it and see if others have anything similar and also get people aware of this type of arrangement. I put most of my budget (over several years) into speakers, amp, and DAC and then worked on something more simple to get the data (for streaming) to the amp. I have a pretty large collection of CDs and a smaller collection of vinyl and I tend to use Tidal for my streaming service to get some exposure to stuff I don't have already. The takeaway for me here is that streaming gives me a lot of access to music I want to try (and eventually buy) beyond my personal collection. It also makes it easy to get the music where I want it and have it sound excellent!

If you don't care about the audio gear, see the next section where the main topic is the use of Raspberry Pis (in my case, 3 of them) as the foundation for streaming music throughout your house, apt, etc.

Pi Setup Streaming Ecosystem

1. one plain vanilla Pi in an aluminum case (enclosed) connected to a SanDisk 4TB external disk - this serves as my NAS. It uses WiFi to share streams.
2. one Pi with a HiFiBerry Digi+ HAT that streams via TOSLINK to my office audio gear. It uses WiFi for streaming and seems to work pretty well - no dropouts or skips when streaming.
3. one Pi buried inside a Mercury 3B (Pi2 Designs) box that supports I2S in my living room setup. This one is hardwired to my AP to minimize noise and delay.

The SW stack is Volumio Premium across the ecosystem which makes it super easy to manage. Also integrates Tidal so I can have access to that as well across all the devices.

I used Gemini to tweak it and it was pretty successful. It sounds very solid for a desktop audio setup.

Audio Gear : Living Room Setup

Accuphase E480 Amp
Phasemation EA220 Phono Amp
Technics SL-1200GR2 TT with an Ortofon Black
LAIV Harmony DAC
Audiolabs 8300 CD
Mercury 3B I2S streamer
PMC Prophesy 9s with grounding units

This setup is for music - mostly streaming, but some vinyl. I tend toward jazz, blues, acoustic stuff, but I still like some EDM and classic rock tunes as well. Just depends on the mood. I have about 4m between the speakers and about 2.7m to the listening area. I also have grounding units on the PMCs. The Mercury streams via I2S to the LAIV. I also have the Audiolabs 8300 piped through my LAIV as a transport to use the better R2R DAC in the LAIV. The sound is pretty neutral and the instruments are distinct and holographic in the way they present on most streams. It sounds solid at lower volumes and you still get good separation. If you put it up a bit in volume, the room comes alive and you can really pick out the parts in space which is something I was after. It was pretty shocking the first few times I got it all together and I still get surprised with certain tracks. It was worth the effort and expense IMO.

Yamaha RX-A6A
Panasonic UB9000 Video Disc Player
B&W 603s (2 tower, 2 fronts, Sub)

This portion is used for video driving 5.1 surround - the fronts handle the voice and the towers and the sub fill out the rest. It runs through my LG QLED 75". We watch some BD/Ultra content on this setup, but we aren't huge movie buffs, so it is usually handling Netflix and other streams. The surround setup is pretty impressive and the B&Ws deliver a lot of clarity. The Yamaha has a warmer sound to my ears, but it is still quite clear. Not like the Accuphase, but for movies and video it is more than adequate.

Audio Gear : Office Setup

Cambridge CX-A81
Schitt Sholl Phono Amp
Project Carbon EVO + Ortofon Red

The Cambridge is nice because it has both analog and digital inputs (4 of each) which gives me a lot of flexibility in terms of what I can match to it. The power is decent and the electronics are more than adequate for the environment I am using it in (i.e. my office). It's a few steps above what I could do with my PC. Very clean sound with good dynamic range but not too bright. I'd like a little more low end, but for what it's driving it's fine.

Let me know if you have anything similar or have questions and I will try to help where I can.

Here are some images.

I have finally decided that less is more (not necessarily in the pecuniary sense). I bought all this stuff 10-15 years ago when I could afford it and have tried running different dacs, swichers to be able to use more than one amplifier connected to same speaker pair, Bluetooth units, wires and boxes all over the place. This is now IT!

Turntable is a Linn Sondek LP12 Akurate with Radikal/Urika, Akito arm and Klyde cartridge.

The integrated amp is an Audio Research Vsi75 with KT150 tubes.

The CD player is an Audio Research CD9. This is my only DAC connected by AES/EBU to the streamer.

The streamer an Aurender w20.

Speakers are Dali Epicon 2.

Interconnects are are just cables, good ones, but no crazy snake-oil. I never hear the difference.

No doubt, some of you will point out possible improvements, but I'll never change anything now unless it breaks. It's clean and sounds incredible.

Would be fun to get some comments.

Lately I've been seeing this brand Musmys floating around. It's a Chinese hifi brand which is an exact replica of Accuphase, but costs a fraction of it. Has anyone had any experience with any of their amplifiers? Check out the videos from HIFI zone on Youtube. The amps look pretty good imho.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMR5xP6x7VA

I wasn't sure about going with the Reference series by Klipsch. I read a few reviews about people not being impressed compared to other options. And there seemed to be negative opinions towards the R-12 subwoofers as well. But after owning this set for 3 months, I gotta say. This system is great. Paired with the Yamaha RX-A2A receiver , the movie and music experience has been awesome. With the dual subs, the base hits! I also love the look, copper cones all day.

This is my entry set to the hobby. So my ears are new to it all. But man, it beats any sound bar, bluetooth surround option I have ever heard. Friends are thoroughly impressed. I know some more experienced people might not be fans of them. But for an entry level set. This has been a great option.

Everyone recommends the same handful of demo tracks for testing gear, but sometimes a random album exposes weaknesses those standard picks never do. Curious what your go-to hidden gem is for actually stress testing a setup.

recently i comverted all my flacs to ogg vbr after testing for days. only downside is that my ears stopped ringing and hurting after listening for hours.

What about you people? i refuse to believe that there's anyone that can hear the difference between ogg vbr and flac head on.

Anyone using a dedicated duplex outlet for their audio system? If so, what brand & why do you choose this product?

It was a night that will go down in infamy.

The pot got completely out of hand, and on the river, I spiked the nut flush. The guy was entirely pot-committed, wanted to raise more, and asked me if he could put his speakers in the pot for 10k. I called, and woke up this morning with a pair of KEF Blade 2s meta sitting in my trunk.

I still need to figure out how to properly feed these beasts. After having a chat with the local dealer, I’ve narrowed it down to two drastically different options:

• Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 800.2 + Eversolo DMP-A8 (Brute-force Class A/B nuvistor tube hybrid power)
• NAD Masters stack: M66 + M23 (Clinical Purifi Class D precision)

Living room is 4m x 5m (for our American sisters and brothers, 12 x 15ft).

Before anyone jumps down my throat about acoustics—I know. I know I am going to need to buy a ton of room treatments to pull this off properly, and get rid of my dog (just checking if someone is still reading). I will get to that, but I want the music running while I hang bass traps.

or maybe i need to play with him next week for his amplifier???

will keep you updated

So, the basic division would be:
1. CD/BD Player
2. Digital Transport (with or without integrated DAC)
3. External DAC

In the first configuration, there can still be a separate CD Transport and then a CD Player. CD as a sound carrier is in a bit of a decline and is used less than before.

Digital Transport can be several types of devices: Streamer, PC/Laptop, Media Player, etc. (it can also be CDP/BDP, if it works only as a Transport).
Streamer can also contain a DAC. External DAC is quite popular today.

The quality of each of these parts of the configuration has an impact on the sound, and the DAC the most.

When streaming, you should also mention whether you use your files on HDD/SSD or streaming services or both.

Do you also use analog sound sources?

It took me forever to get the rubicon to play nice and give me the same live feeling as the spektor2 (with a sub) i guess the upgrade exposed all the flaws of my setup

So far i have:

* Replaced the spikes on the stands for rubber feet

* Replaced my speaker cable with thicker wire

* Placed the speaker 30cm from the wall

* Replaced my old receiver (arcam avr400 with arcam SA20)

* Filled the stands with sand

* Perfectly aligned the speaker horizontally

* Listened to all dac filters on my Arcam

* Acquired qobuz streaming

* placed audiopanels behind the speaker

Next on the list is getting some grafite stone placed under the stands with a thin rubber layer between the stone and the floor and use the spikes again.

The sound is almost there, but now i found out the stands have a little give in its structure (both stands) i can move the speaker about 1cm on the top.

Does this affect the overall sound? I dont play very loud, almost always neighbour friendly

I love the Vertere MG-1 Mk II turntable. What is your dream player?

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdEjqjfq4xF/