Downgrading your system

I'm downsizing at present. I live in a very small (1040 sq ft) home and my home office/man cave is 10x9x8...tiny. Occasionally I feel the need to expand to two systems with one taking over the living room. Keep in mind that we already have a full 5.1 system in this little 16x14 living room. My wife indulges me and that is very good of her.

I have selected the pieces that suit my needs best for now and have moved them in to my home office. I will be putting together a couple of ads tomorrow to sell the balance. My floorsdtanding Spendor A6R and Well Tempered decks will be up for sale. I love both of those pieces but I have no room for the floorstanders and the cool factor and convenience of my RP6 is what makes it a keeper. The Well Tempered deck sounds better but I really love that Rega.

I will be looking for a nice set of standmounts to alternate with my KEF LS50's just to give me a different flavor from time to time. Probably the Spendor S3/5R2 or Harbeth P3ESR (which I have owned previously and traded in on the Well Tempered).

 

You guys are harshing my mellow - I am unwatching now. Best of wishes to ya'll!

 

Vinyl and physical media will always be a part of me. You nailed it in your opening question in bold. A high quality, smaller system is what appeals to me.

And you're right, smaller doesn't mean cheap either. People tend to make that assumption. There are many fine Shindo systems out there and they ain't cheap! On the more realistic side, there is nothing cheap about a Leben or Bel Canto amp either. People who aren't audiophiles will still think I'm crazy for spending that kind of cash. A Rega Elex-R is still $1,800 and the Brio hovers under a grand retail. Certainly not breaking the bank, but it's still going to cost a few dollars.

 

I live in NYC. What is the mythical "2nd room" you are talking about where you move things to? I've never heard of it. Are there unicorns and dragons there?

 

You're right. I used downsizing and downgrading interchangeably. They aren't the same. Downsizing is more accurate.

 

A little outside the premise of this thread, but this past summer I set up a more 'affordable' budget system for the basement, because it was too hot to be in a room with tubes upstairs:

• AR-TX turntable (early AR-XA) with Grado ZC+ cart - total investment around $400 including extensive mods & 8MZ stylus upgrade
• '70s Yamaha CR-1020 receiver - $250
• cheap BPC Samsung DVD player/recorder, for playing CDs once in a while (was collecting dust on a shelf since 2005)
• Pioneer Andrew Jones-designed SP-FS51-LR speakers - $137/pair shipped, on close-out (the audio bargain of the decade)

So, for a few hundred bucks I put together a surprisingly satisfying second system, one that gets all of the "basics" right. When I'm hanging out in the basement digging toons, I don't feel like I'm being denied, not at all! The performance capability of this modest system is very good.

 

I've recently downgraded - for several reasons - but mostly because I thought it was silly to have a really expensive stereo that I rarely listened to. My "big rig" was too massive for the upstairs so it was pushed down to the basement. It was sounding pretty good though but I really only had the time to listen to it maybe 3-4 hours in a month, and mostly when my audiophile friend would visit.

On the other hand, my cheap upstairs stereo was getting - and still is - the majority of my listening time - like 3-4 hours a day! So I sold off my tube amps - both of 'em - and my Quicksilver preamplifier. I also - with a heavy heart - sold my VPI Aries 1 and my Cardas cabling. The UREI 813As have been shoved in the corner for now but will be going on the chopping block once I get the gumption up to sell the massive beasts.

Now I've made some changes to the upstairs stereo: McIntosh 2100 amplifier and an Adcom GFP-555 preamplifier replaced the Nakamichi receiver I had. The B&W Matrix 805s and the Dual CS-5000 have stayed in place.

This new system doesn't hold a candle to my old, but it certainly is less touchy with source material. Just about every one of my records sounds really nice.

 

This is a cool thread.

Recently sold my Rogue Sphinx and bought a Marantz PM6005.
It's just infinitely more fun to use and a way better fit for me where I'm at and for how I like to enjoy to my music.
It's kind of an updated version of a classic old school amp ..... with Tone Controls and a Loudness switch.
Amazing how an average sounding recording can be greatly improved with just a little turn of my tone controls ...... what will they think of next !
Though it does have a Source Direct function for those times when I want to pretend I'm one of those audiophile types I keep reading about.

 

I get slightly amused by the logic of downsizing, to be quite honest. I do a but of piano restoration in my off hours (I'm a violinist the rest of the time) and I hear people telling me all the time how they are going to sell their big old upright piano (which sounds excellent) to replace it with a spinet or some other little thing. When I point out to them that both take up the exact same floor space I usually get a blank look. Huh? Really?

So, how much less space does this down-sized system really occupy than the full-zoot one already in use? Is the difference all that much or is it more psychological than real? What are you losing in the exchange? I do understand the urge to simplify. I also know that sometimes "high end" systems can be incompatible with some source material as well and that everything from media through to speakers has to function together in harmony, just not sure that downsizing is necessarily the route to joy. YMMV.

 

I think of it more as simplifying vs. downsizing or downgrading. Semantics really. For me, what I was getting at in my first post in this thread was that I preferred to not have a complicated system. In the old days, I was good with a stereo receiver, turntable, cassette deck and monitor speakers (I've never owned floorstanders even though they rarely take up any more real estate). Today, while I still have one receiver as the heart of my AV system, I've come to prefer an integrated amp and using an iPad to replace the tuner section. The cassette deck has been replaced with CDP's although the main system still has a cassette deck too.

I don't like to *play* with gear and fiddle with swapping components, cables, etc. I just want to listen to music. Keeping things simple helps me to do that with little fuss and drama. And most importantly, I don't have to be involved with the cable wars. Monoprice speaker wire and interconnects work great for me.

 

My previous amp was a McIntosh MC-252. That is very different from something like a Rega Brio or a Leben CS-300 and they certainly don't take the same space. If you're asking how much more space the MC-252 occupied, the answer is that it occupied a significant amount more space. For one thing, I can toss something like a Brio, a Bel Canto or a Leben in a credenza. You wouldn't even know it was there. You certainly couldn't do that with the Mc-252, or even whimsically or easily pick up the MC-252 off the floor. And that's another thing. It took up floor space on an amp stand. Small amps don't need this. Not to mention the depth of larger sized amps and the smaller ones I mentioned are leagues apart. Many backs have been blown out picking up Mac amps. No one will be visiting a chiropractor after moving a Rega Brio...lol.

Also, for some of us, it's about minimalism. The 'less is more' mantra and all that. There is a beauty in simplicity and less stuff imo. Less visual noise. I don't want to keep looking at heaps of black and silver boxes. Why? I like integrated amps for this reason and I've heard stellar ones where I don't feel like I'm giving up anything by leaving separates behind. Less cables, less connections, less of everything. The sound quality isn't a compromise to my ears, and even if it was, I can live with it. A Leben CS-300 powering Harbeth P3ESR speakers with a simple Rega RP6 and Exact cart was a great sounding system and it was not "visually disturbing" like some of these hifis comprised of giant boxes, blinking lights, cables that look like garden hoses with turntables that look like a science experiment gone wrong.

There are no right or wrong answers of course, it's all personal preferences.

 

Among the cool integrated amps I would want to hear are the old VAC phi beta, which I assume Kevin could give a once over (probably one of the prettiest pieces of gear in my estimation too) and the Dartzeel integrated, which I have not heard. (Its design makes me smile). Years ago I heard a little ViVa integrated driving a set of JBL K-2s (which are tall but disappear) and at least with the material I heard, it was utterly spellbinding.

 

I did in a way downsize a few years ago. For preparing to retire I believed I had to sell my stereo filled with gear that is wanted by companies that buy stereos. The system I used was worth or cost me about 40 grand over the years to obtain it. So the BandW 802d and Music fidelity system components and Tara wires and so much more (see my info if inclined) was all sold to a guy over a phone who I told what I had. I boxed it all up except speakers boxes and a few peripherals.
I got about 30 grand when all was said and done paid bills and started again with what I thought would be a smaller system. Buying online and buying from my dealer Audio Den on Long Island I spent about 16 -20 grand after 4 years and it definitly sounds better even though some components are not to audiophiles better.
The Def Tech bp 7000 speakers were the biggest point of contention. To most people the BW 802d speakers have to be better. Not in my house. Both systems end up with two subwoofers. The sold system two Rel stadiums now the new system are two Kef r400b psw4000 subs. The amplifiers Musical Fidelitys now Vincent 236mkII with NOS tubes. The synergy of the Vincent and DefTechs was an amazing revealation. I guess it starts with the DefTechs high efficiency. The bw speakers are known for wide ohm swings(first diamonds 2004) and that had caused some problems when volume was raised. My amps were touchy and twice tubes fried in the MF kw500.
The new system has Esoteric sa-50 cd/sacd/Dac feature set. This deck also sounds much better than the kw25 two piece cd player.
I wont go on except to say that I was very surprised that a system that is one third to half of what the previous system cost does subjectively sound better.
I think a lot of what happened was the depression of 2008. Immediatly after I noticed that companies gave the consumer more bang for the buck and I was their with my money to start fresh. Paying some bills and almost 50 years of knoweledge later I went shopping. It was/is an amazing journey, one that I hope can go on till im done.
Ofcourse their is much more to the systems and my info is where youll find it-to much to list here.
Take care, John M.

 

I hate labels but if one must use a term "Rightsize" is good enough. Thats what I did cause I have more now for less and quality did NOT suffer, in fact its better or smarter. John M.

 

When I downsized from a living room appropriate system to one better suited for a smallish bedroom I improved the quality of the components. So while the size of the system is smaller the sources are better and the cables are very much higher quality. I ultimately spent more money as well. My current system is more flexible than the old one.

 

The ViVa integrated amps are something special. I spent an afternoon listening to them a while ago. I posted about it, along with some pics here. http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/fun-times-auditioning-some-high-end-gear-pics.296915/

 

The looks of the amp are an acquired taste...and I have acquired it.

 

Yes, more to simplify than anything else. I'm in the process of thinning things out right now; feels good.

 

I was using of two separate systems in the living room (for 2-channel audio and for movies). After selling my McIntosh MC275 power amp, I ran everything through my Denon multi-channel AV amplifier.

I lasted about 2 months, but I was never really happy with the downgrade in sound quality on two-channel material. At least I tried.

 

In 2009 I embarked upon both downsizing and downgrading in order to raise funds. Went from CJ premier amp and preamp to an integrated amp. Pocketed thousands and was smiling because as it turned out the integrated I went to sounded superior to the CJ stuff I sold off.

 

I have a Sony 5.1 home theater system with SACD, but I prefer the Denon micro system I got recently. Probably gonna sell the Sony.

 

Which integrated did you end up with?

 

What integrated amp did you get?

(Whoops, I see farmingdad beat me to it.)

 

Sold the CJ gear and bought a Rogue Tempest II Magnum. The Rogue had more dynamics and life.