Post photos of your systems/rooms here! (Part 15)

Sweet! Yea no bass problems here.. I have so much I keep some in the bank nice 320

 

Looking good man!

 

Nice.
So what are the speakers?

 

Cool pic.
Normally just do a Like

 

Thanks.

 

In my younger days, I first powered the A7's with a 13-WPC Pioneer amplifier. I later moved up to a Sansui AU-717, then to a Marantz and then a Crown DC-300.

The small Pioneer sounded nice, but I could only get about 8-WPC without distortion, due to the bass demands. The Sansui did better in this dept., but it sounded somewhat thin and I didn't particularly care for the steeped volume attenuator, as I could not set the volume exactly as I could.

The Crown DC-300, was a laboratory standard amplifier. It had all of the power needed, but I never cared for the "laboratory standard" sound.

All in all, I liked the Marantz 30-Watt amplifier the best, with the Pioneer coming in 2nd place. Though the volume is limited, 8-WPC into a 103-dB efficient speaker, works wonders.

I remember watching music video's back in the 80's and having the audio hooked up to the A7-500W's, It was a lot of fun.

 

Thanks. The speakers are Monitor Audio Gold 100 with ribbon tweeter, and Bubinga wood.

 

Looks like a RAAL ribbon. I was stumped by the woofer.
I've been a long time fan of small monitors after hearing the LS3/5a in the late 70's and owning Harbeth P3ESR speakers for years paired with a sub.
People were always blown away by the SQ & imaging even if they didn't know what imaging was.
Monitor is one of those manufacturers that flies under the radar but they make excellent speakers.

 

Yea, MA is making some really nice high end speakers these days, they have a pretty impressive engineering department and test facility. Mine are from about 2011, and are a step down from their top of the line platinum series (though I'm working on a platinum upgrade right now). The ribbon tweeter is pretty similar to the RAAL tweeters in that it's a pure ribbon design with transformer coupled lightweight strip of thin metal suspended in high flux field, in the MA case it's a ceramic coated aluminum/magnesium alloy they term C-CAM and use on most of their drivers. On their newer platinum models in the last year or two, they have moved away from the pure ribbon to an air motion transformer design, which is a folded diaphragm like the old Heil tweeters, I think because it can handle a lot more power and/or can be crossed over lower, and doesn't need a transformer. That's one of the problems with the pure ribbon tweeters, they have to be crossed over pretty steeply in 2-way designs, but they do sound nice.

 

The ribbon tweeters in them will degrade over time and should be replaced at ten years. The newer tweeters won't have these issues.

 

Well, we all know that newer is always better. Fortunately I still have a few years to decide what to do

 

AMT tweeters have been gaining traction in the last few years.
A friend has Legacy speakers with AMTs. Really nice.
I'm still partial to the beryllium tweeters mounted in a wave guide in my Revels.
I think someone pairing ribbons with a wave guide would really have something although I don't know if there are reasons why this wouldn't work.

I do also have 3 Salk HT-2 speakers with the original LCY ribbons.
They seem to have an unlimited top end but dang they blow unpredictably which supposedly is rare. Lucky me.
I need to contact Jim Salk and see about replacing them with RAALs which they switched to several years ago.
Thing about metal ribbon tweets is blowing them is not catastrophic dollar-wise as you can replace the ribbons and you're good.
Replacing LCY ribbons seems for me to be impossible and I'm not a klutz.
RAAL has a totally different & superior mounting scheme.

 

New photo with latest addition (Naim CD-X2 with Teddy Pardo XPS power supply)...




Cat

 

here is one of my A7-500 in rosewood

 

Altec's and AJA are two of my favorite things. Well played sir, well played.

 

Nice! That looks like a sound room in a stately manor. Cool walls I mean

 

Beautiful.

 

I have the same Bellari Phono pre-amp in my vinyl set up.

 

It's been a while since my last terrible picture!

 

I never got the external power supply for my CD5. It sounds so good, (over 10 years now), I've never felt the need to mess with it. But it does have the ability. ???

 

I'm fairly pleased with it.. have tried a few different tubes with differing results which is fun. You can also see, I'm using it with my home made tone arm too.. Thats a work in progress that I've been playing with lately

 

That IS a terrible picture! Nice system though!!

 

Honestly, from a £10 smartphone to £1000s worth of DSLR camera - the results are the same; crud!

 

Very nice tonearm setup.

 

It's definitely a work in progress. 12" carbon fiber unipivot design of my own making. The base portion of it is temporary, just a place holder while i decide how to make the rest of the plinth and turntable