[Meewoo]

I do believe that crappy RCA cables hinder the audio. But I don't believe $500 cables are worth their asking price. If you listen to vinyl, the cables make more difference especially from TT to phono.

 

[treal512]

 
Quote:

Here is the link for the recap thread, if you find my post on the last page it lists the BOM plus the super tweeter cap missing from the BOM.
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=120454&page=11
 
For stands I use the cardboard-cloth covered baskets from Target (7.99 each), they don't raise the speakers all that much but get them off the ground. But they look really clean and do the job for now.

Many thanks. I will have to check that AK thread out later.


Quote:

Cinder blocks. Cinder blocks not only act like a sponge for absorption, but so dense that standing waves is not able to penetrate and pass through. if your afraid of them not looking pretty,you can always paint them if you want. they're cheap and effective. before even stands existed lot of studios and audiophiles a like used cinder blocks as stands and 100hz bass traps.

 
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I'm using these for one of the setups in my house.   7.5" x7.5" cinder blocks from Lowes or Home Depot.   I painted them a soft sky blue and stack them they look great, stack well and are cheap.   Everyone loves the painted look too.
 

 
 

Great advice, guys. This coupled with Skylab's input.. I think I may go way of the cinder block! I didn't realize they were so effective and well received. But yes, my initial drawback is because of their looks. WarriorAnt, do you have any pictures of your setup? I'd love to see it.

 
Quote:

If you have real milk crates, still square and unwarped, with "PROPERTY OF DAIRY" stamped on the sides, it will probably be rigid enough. Crate-like plastic bins sold at department stores are not going to be sturdy enough. Basically, if it's not a purpose-built speaker stand and you wouldn't dare jump up and down on it, it won't be sturdy enough.
 
This is one of those things that sounds too much like fetishistic audio foolery, but rigid speaker stands are easy to accomplish at any price and ensuring the speakers will be just as stable as they would be on the floor is not just a matter of improving the sound but of ensuring your investments don't get knocked over so easily. I think we overemphasize the sound quality aspect sometimes (which is a weird thing to say), but on the other hand, once you're spending enough on a pair of speakers to have to obsess over the price it seems silly to not try to maximize the investment in sound with a comparatively cheap yet appropriate stand.
 
(Edit: As noted before, my office system has a pair of bookshelf speakers sitting on red bricks wrapped in butcher paper. Practicing what I preach.)

Interesting, I was speaking with my dad today and he said the same thing. He said to skip the consumer-grade crates and look for commercial-grade crates like the ones you're referencing. I'll probably give this a shot as a temporary lift before the cinder block route if my local grocery store has any decent ones out back.

 

[AuralRelations]

Quote:

question for you vets.
is it possible for a rca interconnect to sound better than another rca interconnect?
 
i was using a little tiny small CHEAP (2$) interconnect to run from my woo to my yamaha.
i was using my better cables to run from DLIII to the woo.
 
my buddy gave me a monster interconnect.  not a ridiculously expensive cable, but its thickness is 6-7 times that of the cheap one i was using.
 
im sceptical that the rca interconnects can sound better (perhaps short of  gold).
 
but after replacing the interconnect with the monster i swear the sound has slightly more dynamics and is just smoother.
 
is this a placebo?  probably.
is there any chance at all that i could "hear" those two cables?

I definitely hear a difference between different types of cables. The most obvious is switching to silver cables if you're used to copper. Differences are subtle but they are there.
 

 

[WarriorAnt]

 
Quote:

 

 
Great advice, guys. This coupled with Skylab's input.. I think I may go way of the cinder block! I didn't realize they were so effective and well received. But yes, my initial drawback is because of their looks. WarriorAnt, do you have any pictures of your setup? I'd love to see it

 
I'm painting the the room right now and putting baseboards in so everything is out of the room.   But I use those blocks with the openings facing me stacked on top of each other. The monitors I have on them happen to have a base that is the same dimension so they fit perfectly.    Get some cool colored latex paint and paint them. I use blu tack under each speaker to keep them in place.   
 

 

[RexAeterna]

It's a deal for me. This unit is really that good. Even I haven't get it yet, I have R-8 at home without class A model, and it sounds beautiful. I must confess it sounds better than my CA-2010, I should have my Ca-2010 recapped in the future. Rex will (already did) say good words for this machine soon.

 

I haven't got it yet, just got tracking number earlier. I might have it on Monday or Saturday, I just don't know how USPS handle it. I am happy that you didn't join bidding with me, I wanted to solicit "no bidding" here but decided let the luck run it. This one has remote too, if you want, I can code a Comcast remote for you later. I checked your input both here and AK, you man really a prompter for this model! Hope I can join you in the future after I enjoy it!

 

i never used a remote or got one with mine and never really needed too since my amps are always on the floor under my table and not very far from me where i roll with my chair and turn the dial lol(yeeeeaaaa,rolly chairs are awesome). i wasn't expecting too much to be honest when i first was offered up a R-9 for trade when i put my serviced top condition Sansui AU-D7 on craigslist looking for either a vintage yamaha amp or speakers. always been a big sansui and kenwood fan,but moment i got the R-9 it won me over. lot of people even like it over lot of big time Adcom and Krell,so you might end up liking it a lot. i didn't know you can code a comcast remote for it. that's very interesting. sure,i appreciate it if you let me know how. be interesting to try out.

only issue with the R-9 that was common issue which is pretty small, it uses a battery for the tuner section memory so it won't really save stations well if that's an issue for you. the tuner section is very nice sounding and sensitive though,but i still prefer my older sansui 5000x tuner section the most of all the amps i used and heard. some reason there is something magical on my 5000x on how it picks up stations. other then that,great amp and definite keeper.

 

[RexAeterna]

Well it is thee diamond units that go for more



x2, nice deal but im not sure if i would call it a "deal." Im too lazy to research the unit, but i get worried if im the only bidder especially if i dont truly know its resale value. You can but a unit for $99, but can you sell it to a potential buyer for $99?

99 bucks is a steal for how well it performs i think. one of the few receivers that will not melt or blow-up driving 2ohm nominal loads. for comprehension,most high-end monster pioneers or marantz of that era would probably light on fire and blow whole bunch of outputs if presented a 2ohm nominal load. that's just it's power ability though. sound is subjective and debatable though. i find the R-9 though a very natural sounding,clean and very fast amp with extremely low distortion. they use to sell over 900 new but knowing yamaha wasn't as popular as pioneer and marantz at the time and everyone most likely already owned yamaha M-XX line of power amps and pre-amp combos at that time never bothered buying one cause separates was big thing and still is. the R-9 was actually yamaha's last best effort in the stereo receiver war before going digital and hitting the surround-sound market. the R-9 actually was an all in one M-XX and C-XX combo. the class A power amp section is identical to the M-80 but i do not know about the pre-amp section and tuner. i just know of the power amp when a tech of mine told me that cause he use to own and worked on m-80 power amp and commented on the ridiculous amount of current the thing draws in class A operation.

 

[RexAeterna]

 


I'm painting the the room right now and putting baseboards in so everything is out of the room.   But I use those blocks with the openings facing me stacked on top of each other. The monitors I have on them happen to have a base that is the same dimension so they fit perfectly.    Get some cool colored latex paint and paint them. I use blu tack under each speaker to keep them in place.   


 

nice. another good idea people like doing to add more density and absorption is add in sand or tar or can even pack in fiberglass as well if you wanted. problem though it will be much heavier and probably have hard time moving it around the room if had to.

 

[Skylab]

 
Quote:

 
EDIT: Man, I really want to get on that Audio Karma, but it's got a darn joining queue, so I gotta wait for my account to be approved before I can even search the site. I guess I'll just twiddle my thumbs until I get accepted.

 
I love AudioKarma, but their search function isn't very good.  While you wait, just search with google and look for the AudioKarma threads.

 

[BmWr75]

Quote:

 
Google really don't have anything. Specs, but specs really don't mean anything.
 
I'm sure someone is bound to have used one at some point, and hoping someone can chime in a little info. Even something as vague as saying if Marantz amps from this period are worth using or not.

Thought I'd seen pictures of every Marantz piece made, but that SM-500 DC is a new one on me.  Looks like it might be a European model from the kinks that came up in a Google search.
 

 

[Meewoo]

Ok, I got my recent won items from sellers. And give a serious listening at weekend. My first toy is Denon PMA-770 integrated amp from 1981. Based on online info, it puts 100 watt per ch with two channels driven.    
Second toy is Yamaha R-9 receiver from 1983-1984. It features 125 wpc RMS with 30 wpc RMS max in class A.
 
I listened Denon PMA-770, HK PM-665, Yamaha R-8, R-9, CA-2010 and my beloved  Luxman L-85v extensively. My source is Kyocera DA-310cx, same crappy RCA cale, and my cans are AKG K-240. The music is Tori Amos “night of Hunters”, especially 3^rd track “battle of tree”.
 

 

 
I really like PMA-770, it sounds very neutral and has the largest sound stage in all amps in comparison. It’s also very detailed.  It’s like my Yamaha CA-2010, but a little smoother and with punchy bass.  Ca-2010 has more instruments separation and sounds a little full. 
 

 

 

 
I have gotten a R-8 earlier, I thought R-9 would have the same tone as R-8. But I am totally wrong, the R-9 sounds a bit warmer than typical Yamaha equipments I had, and it has narrower sound stage due to the warm sound. When I listened to R-9 through headphones, I just can’t love it though I want to. The sound image is just not good for headphones. It seemed that I was listening to Tori Amos just before her mouth, her voice was drilling my head.  I never heard any amp sounds like that before. Most of them make you feel a little distance from singer’s mouth, a little before microphones. Yamaha R-8 has the largest distance. It seems that I am 3 feet away from singer. 
I was little disappointed by R-9, and really didn’t understand why Rex sang high praise for it. I then tried it with speakers, now I understood why Rex pushed it so hard. It really brings the band to your room, it makes you believe that the whole band is at your room and singer is standing between two speakers. It has really fantastic sound and image. IMHO, it’s a very good speaker amp, but not for headphones.

 

[treal512]

Finally found some acceptable stands for the HPM-100s 

 

 

[Wharfrat]

The discussion of cinderblocks, bricks, and other dense objects serving as speaker stands brings to mind mention by one audio engineer that his preference was to use marble or granite slabs as ADDITIONAL speaker bases for large monitor speakers like the Dunlavys I own now.  Since the dense objects absorb standing waves, the use of stone (including sand and ball bearings) as base material makes sense, even though the Duns have at least two inches thick oak slabs as the speaker base already.  As I have some spare granite lying around, I could probably test that theory out pretty easily but it would cost me almost as much as a new pair of headphones to have a mason cut out and contour the slabs properly.  Besides, there's no need to give myself a hernia lifting the Duns just to put some heavier than thou granite underneath....the Duns are awesome as is....I have been driving them with the Marantz 2275 as a preamp thru an Adcom GFA-555 Mk II and folks visiting have noticed the improvement with the Marantz in the mix. 
 
(Once after a couple of hours, the Marantz went into a hissy fit and had a piercing grating sound coming out....which was quickly remedied by turning the power off and then back on...strange, I daresay.  Anybody got an idea why this could have occurred?)
 

 

[treal512]

I did check out cinder blocks at my local Home Depot first, but nothing looked broad enough to keep my Pioneers from a balancing act. I'm sure the wider ones would have been just fine, but I didn't want to take the chance. Although these metal stands probably won't help standing waves? very much, they definitely keep the speakers in place and let me take advantage of the lifted space in my efficiency.
 
Hope you get your 2275 remedied, Wharfrat!

 

[Meewoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wharfrat /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
I have been driving them with the Marantz 2275 as a preamp thru an Adcom GFA-555 Mk II and folks visiting have noticed the improvement with the Marantz in the mix. 
 
(Once after a couple of hours, the Marantz went into a hissy fit and had a piercing grating sound coming out....which was quickly remedied by turning the power off and then back on...strange, I daresay.  Anybody got an idea why this could have occurred?)
 

Marantz definitely softens the forward of Adcom.
 
I think your Marantz has potential tran-sister or resister failure. I have Pionny SA-9100 which hiss louder and louder following the time. I sent to a local AKer to have it fixed, but I am still waiting it back.

 

[wualta]

Standing waves are caused by reflections. Either break up the surface doing the reflecting, or interpose something solid (and itself reflective) to break up the path of the reflection and voila, no more standing wave. As the frequency goes lower, this becomes more tricky, and that's another topic.