In addition to the rubber and cork blocks, two other cheap alternatives to try are Parts Express brass cones ($25 for 4) mounted to, e.g., a cheap wood cutting board (try IKEA or whatever -- any kind of wood will provide significant vibration absorbtion) or, for a different flavor, Vibrapods...

Intellectual property is taxed -- sellers pay income tax on licenses or sales of intellectual property and purchasers pay sales or use taxes. There are also taxing jurisdictions that have "intangibles" taxes that are comparable to property taxes. Remember what Ronald Reagan said about...

I have the re-issued WE 300B's and have found them to be very high quality, long lasting tubes. I have also used KR 300B's with good results. Both of these tubes will deliver better and mor consistent results than your source materials (including vinyl). Regards, James

At this price level you should also consider computer audio and an USB DAC, such as the Benchmark DAC 1 USB. You copy your CD's onto an external hard disk using iTunes and play them back through the Benchmark (or a Wavelength Audio DAC). You will have a more future-flexible (not future proof)...

I use subwoofers in two different audio systems in addition to my home theater. I find that with a little work, the contribution they make to the music is huge. But they do take some work to implement correctly. One secret is to cross the sub over as low as you can. Even at 50hz, the sub will...

If you can swing it, I highly recommend the ARC LS-17. The new ARC preamps are outrageously good and the LS-17 gives you most of the performance of its more expensive siblings at a far lower (though still high) cost. I resisted the expensive active preamps for many years but ever since I...

Top quality tuners can be great sources IF you have good FM stations nearby. Unfortunately, good FM stations are more and more rare. If you want to go this route definitely go for a vintage tuner but probably not a tube tuner (not really for amateurs unless you have a good tube tuner tech you...

Well, one thing we should all agree on is that low resistance, capacitance and inductance are good, as are high quality shielding, robust physical connections and strong construction (allowing hundreds of connections and disconnections without signal degradation). All of which are why I use Blue...

Don't forget that if you have a noisy environment (e.g., lots of computers or other devices using switching mode power supplies) balanced can really help lower your noise floor. Regards, James

See if you can stretch for a Benchmark USB DAC -- go used if you need to. It is a far more sophisticated DAC, a very good headphone amp and the company provides strong user support. It is built for pro use, so it will last a very long time and will hold its value while others fade into oblivion...

Quote: Originally Posted by audioengr The best available currently are the Synergistic and the Locus Design Axis. These are spendy, so I would recommend the Belkin Gold for around $20 for 5m. This is what I generally use. Steve N. Empirical Audio Gordon Rankin recommended...

Realistically, the High End is about retrieving as much information as possible from the source. I continue to be astonished by the amount of information (ambience, performance details, tone) that can be retrieved from ordinary CD's after they are ripped onto a hard drive and played back on a...

I love SET's too, but they are only one flavor of sound, notwithstanding those who claim them to be the one true faith. With the right recording and associated equipment they can create magic. But I am also happy (overall happier) with the digital room correction provided by my Copland DRC-205...

I own two Premiers, one of which unfortunately just went on the blink after a few months of operation. It is at PS Audio being repaired -- I will be interested to see what they say origin of the problem was. It started putting out 90 volts instead of 120 at over 12% distortion (by its own meter...

Wavelength Audio Cosecant V2, soon to be upgraded to asynch by Wavelength

Most music other than folk, classical or jazz is so compressed and distorted it is even worse -- and it is recorded in the "best" studios in the US. Some of those old "garage" recordings (Louie, Louie) sound pretty good by comparison. At least you can hear the cymbals instead of a distorted...

Any restoration of tube gear needs to be undertaken very carefully if you don't have prior experience. In power amplifiers especially, voltages are present that can knock you out of your chair or worse. There is a reason some old timers would only test live equipment with their left hand in...

I have several expensive hobbies and in each one of them have seen individuals sell their honor for surprisingly cheap prices. I sincerely hope that doesn't happen here. If you can't trust a man with money you can't trust him on anything. Ever. The harder it is to pay a debt, the more...

I have a Nottingham Analogue Hyper Space with 12" arm and Grado "The Reference" cartridge driving an Aesthetix preamp. This is a high end audio front end -- lower middle high end these days, but still high end. But I am so lazy that all I listen to after work is a MacBook with 250GB Firewire...

One other thing -- if you use a computer fan on top of a tube cage or ventilating holes, you always want the fan to suck, not blow. This is critical for any component that has an internal fan -- if you blow air into the component you can actually cause it to overheat and damage itself...

You don't say anything about your installation. Is the amp freestanding or in a cabinet? Are the tubes covered by a grill or open? While I agree generally with the posts above, a tube amp in a cabinet with a grill covering the tubes can get hot enough to shorten tube life (and the heat can...

I haven't read every post in this thread, but as a long time owner of many tube amps (and purchaser of a Singlepower PPX3 Slam Extreme), I would like to add my $0.02. 1. The Singlepower products are, by industry standards, low volume, hand made products. There are plusses and minuses to this...

Elias, here is where I got the info on the VLC volume control setting (VLC -- Preferences -- Audio). The post with the information is the fourth one down, by the Moderator, DJ. The VideoLAN Forums • View topic - VLC vs. Winamp or MPC (sound quality issue) Regards, James

Per Elias's suggestion, I downloaded VLC. Bottom line, if you want to play your albums off a hard drive (which is all I ever do), it works. On one of my systems I use a Mac PowerBook Pismo (500MHz, 512MB). It won't run Leopard, so Gordon Rankin's upgrade suggestion doesn't help (I will try...

I went ahead and bought a DAC1 USB and have been running it for about eight hours now as a USB DAC (not a headphone amp). I need quite a bit of time with a component before I can assess its true nature, so all I can do at this point is give my first impressions. In short, this is an unusually...