Re: Overkill?

Ok, you guys start talking high end audio.  I wasted my youth and money on
restoring old cars.  Now I have kids, so I have not much disposable
income.  Not crying poverty, but $1000 on audio gear is not going to happen.

I currently have a Kenwood receiver and small Infinity bookshelf
speakers.  I was assuming that I would get better sound by buying better
speakers.

So,

1.  Is this true?
2.  Is buying used speakers off the Internet a bad idea?
3.  Gathering that high end audio is a subjective experience, how can I
find out what speakers I might be interested in?

Thanks for any advice,

--Stephen
Still very happy with his Audiotron.

At 11:35 AM 1/10/2005 +0000, you wrote:
>Hamish Guthrey wrote:
>
>>A clinet of mine has a pair of B&W 802s running off a Plinius SA102 power
>>and Plinius CD-LAD pre (www.PliniusAudio.com).  We added an AT running
>>through a Meridian 566 DA, with stunning results.  It would be interesting
>>to see if a SPDIF mod for the AT is possible, as the TosLink connection is
>>definatly the weakest link in the chain.
>>
>I looked into that a while ago. The output is on the board right beside
>the toslink, just
>needs to be soldered on. The hard part is that a couple of resistors are
>missing but
>if the AT board is simply built of some reference design (which it looks
>like), it should
>be possible to figure out which ones. There I gave up, I'm a software
>guy, for christ sake ;-)
>
>I played with coax/toslink somehow on other things and I must say, the
>difference is not worth
>bothering (at least on my gear which admittingly is not in the class of
>B&Ws and 566DA
>[next step, but I'm torn right now towards Quads]). What made some
>difference was
>an expensive TosLink cable (stranded glass) which for mere 100$ or so
>improved
>what I hear compared to a $5 cheapo-plastic one.
>The digital coax I have on all other gear often causes ground loops and is
>more fidgety (even gold-plated stuff needs to be reseted from time to
>time, I opted
>for pure-silver interconnects which I can _highly_ recommend if one can
>bear the
>price tag. That clearly
>made a very noticable difference, more on the RCA preamp to amp than
>digital
>though. Beside healing the top register touch-of-harshness I had [albeit
>normally
>it is said that silver is bright!] I don't have to reset the connectors
>since silver oxide
>is conducting very well).
>
> From experience, I think that a mod that could improve the AT quality
>significantly would be
>a decent power supply instead of the chinese 5$ piece. Easy mod but
>expensive [given
>the price of AT].
>
>>Another client is using an AirPort Express based music system, running
>>through a Benchmark Media DAC1
>>(http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/digital/dac1/default.asp).  This is a top
>>quality pro DA with a variable level, meaning he can run it straight into
>>his poweramp.  Not the cheapest DA on the market (US$900ish), but even so it
>>is excellent value.
>>
>>....if only I could afford some of these toys in my own house... :)
>>
>Read the audio forums a lot and scour used-gear places. For maybe 20%
>price of things
>like B&W and Meridian you can achieve 90% of the results. From there on
>you hone
>your tastes and wait for your bank account to grow and your wife to
>realize that you spending
>the money on such gear is better than on red-light pleasures ;-)
>
>Actually, once you honed your tastes I found you need a room
>to use the high-end stuff that you don't have ;-) Room modes start to
>play a very large role
>from a certain quality of sound on. Once your ear compares the boomy,
>blooming bass
>of average setup compared to a properly setup/corrected room it is hard
>to go back.
>
>    your mileage may vary
>
>
>    -- tony
>
>>