Design my stereo system

[ALBPM]

Go with the Audioquest interconnects for now. And you'll be able to trade up for those 602's in a year or a bit more if your dealer is cool

Paul

[KvHagedorn]

Your estimation of Monster is partially justified, Wombat. Their interconnects are not the best out there for the price, but their speaker wire is alright (not many ways to screw that up, really). The main problem I have with them is everyone assumes they are the best because of the name and marketing power behind it, which is very similar to the false reputation Bose has.

We use Tributaries wire at our shop. It is in the same general price range as Monster (some is more expensive), but if you follow the reviews, they generally get excellent ones. Audioquest is good too, but generally more expensive. Their higher end cables are quite a bit more esoteric in design, and you can find out whether or not they make any sense for you by visiting their website. Since you are budget conscious, I would advise you to simply get decent OFC speaker wire and interconnects with a good quality casing. Tributaries' Delta series is good stuff for the money. If you get the cheapie basic single shielded cables with a clear jacket (these are available from lots of companies such as Tsunami or Phoenix, but are made by the same manufacturer, I believe) they usually corrode within a couple of years, depending on your climate. Get some decent speaker wire, but you really don't have to go nuts with this either. If your dealer sells Tributaries, you might ask if he has any of the 12 gauge/4 conductor custom installation wire. It's not too expensive, you can biwire your B&Ws with it, and it's double jacketed. (Other manufacturers make this wire too, but I like Tributaries' stuff the best. It's high quality, flexible, and the jacket is white instead of some goofy color.) You will need some sort of terminator on the receiver end to get all that wire into the terminal. We use some of the extra big banana plugs for this.

Lots of CD players do not play CD-Rs that you've done on your computer. You need to find one that says specifically that it will play them. If you want to make better CDs, use the special audio CD-R (yeah the expensive ones that send a tribute fee to the recording industry ) and use a CD recorder.

[Dogbert]

Just my two cents, but in TNT Audio you have some nice guidelines to make great yet dirty cheap cables all by yourself.

About CD players, I currently use a Yamaha CDC-685. It plays everything and the sound is really great.
1 bad point though is that my parent's (over 9 years old) Technics CD player (1 bit MASH something?) skips less on scratched CDs and also plays any CD and CD-R I thow at it.
Also, my car CD changer (an old Sony) also plays CD-R (and lately I'v been using rather dirty cheap lousy ones).

Anyway, best thing to do is simply to burn a CD on the worst media you can and use it to check CD/DVD players.

Meanwhile, have fun ,

[Wombat]

Okay, I'm all done for now.

It turns out that the 370 that I demoed during that first visit was failing. They ended up replacing it, and the new demo unit handled my CDs fine. Before I left with one, we took it out of the box and made sure it worked. I just made sure that the warranty exchange is easy should I need it.

So, my living room is now graced with a DRA-685, DCM-370, and a pair of B&W 602.5s3 speakers. It sounds <I>quite</I> nice in there.

[KvHagedorn]

Congrats, Rob! Sounds like a nice system.

[Jammrock]

HAHAHAHA! Another convert to the MURC'ers with B&W speakers club

Jammrock

[Wombat]

Yup, and after taxes I paid almost exactly $1500 for the whole deal. My wallet hurts. But my ears are happy.

[KvHagedorn]

Originally posted by Jammrock
HAHAHAHA! Another convert to the MURC'ers with B&W speakers club

Jammrock

And I didn't make a penny off any of you

B&W owes me big time!

Unfortunately, I live in a virtual desert.. If I could sell B&W in Austin I would be doing alright.

[ALBPM]

I thought you would have moved to Austin by now


So, Wombat what interconnects and speaker cable did you end up getting??? And have you tried bi-wiring yet???


Paul

[Jammrock]

KvH, you need to get out of the desert and into a real city.

Paul, have you completely switched over to Audio Purist cables?

Jammrock

[KvHagedorn]

Unfortunately, the Home Theater Store (a small chain owned by obviously rich Arabs) has the franchise in Austin, and even then there's no money available to set up a store there.

[ALBPM]

Jammrock, I have the Purist speaker cables on my fronts and center speakers. I have to run cable about 40 ft to the rears so I'm just using Home Depot copper for them.

I'm using Purist interconnects from my reciever to the Amp for all 5 channels.

For CD and DVD I'm using optical cable to connect to the reciever.

I still have a cheap JVC CD player so I use the recievers DAC by connecting with the optical.

I may switch back to RCA for the DVD player because the Denon 3300 can't Auto-sense components on Optical cables and it's too difficult to set up the audio and video for my wife when she wants to watch DVDs.

Paul

[Wombat]

I have a meter of Synergistic Research Audio 2000s for my interconnect, and some shielded 16 gauge OFC that I can't remember the brand of for speaker wire. I might replace it, but everything else in the store was $2.50/ft or more, and I got him to throw this in since it was some short-length scrap.

The interconnect seems decent, and I wasn't going to spend a large fraction of the price of my components on it.

Besides, I don't know how much of a difference it could make in the room my stereo is in. If I wanted to improve the sound quality, I'd probably do better putting something with sound dampening on the walls. The room has a bit of reverb.

[cRock]

People that are concerned with cable crack me up. The subtle differences in sound are just caused by the resistance and capacitance of the cable. Spending a lot of money doesn't change the laws of physics, no matter that the "high end" audio rags say (note who spends money advertising with them - cable companies!). Get some caps and resistors, construct some filters, and see for yourself. Of course, you do want to get a good solid connection between components, so I spring for the "deluxe" cables at Radio Shack

P.S. spend some time and money on room treatment. It will provide a real improvement for very little $$$.

[xortam]

I would agree that people would do a lot better paying attention to the room acoustics rather than splitting hairs on the differences between good cabling. I was surprised the difference in my highs and staging just by closing a second set of curtains behind my speakers.