Best Hardware Acquisition of 2019

Purchased on my birthday a Luxman PD-171A Turntable.

 

My old Auralic Aries started having problems that weren't practical to fix, so I traded it in for an Aries G1 stream receiver (renderer). I felt a little foolish buying an expensive (to me) device that translates Ethernet to AES3 -- but then I remembered what people pay for cartridges, and I felt better. Auralic allowed more than half the original price of the Aries toward the G1, which helped.

This is built a lot stronger than the original, so I expect it will last a long time. I find the imaging and soundstage better than from the original Aries. But my favorite feature is that it displays its IP and MAC addresses on the screen when it starts up. How much trouble does that save!

 

Good stuff indeed! I have two sets, one for the Polk LSiM 707's and one set for the Polk LSiM 703's.

 

I just sold some equipment and purchased this SACD Player, which I have been reading up on and watching for probably two years. Just pulled the trigger and the player arrived today. I have heard many SACD/ CD players, and I just never heard a player like this, it's in a different league, and I say that with no reservations, a different league. I thought I had locked up SACD with my previous equipment, but this player really sets new standards, I was truly surprised just how good it is!
The construction is second to none, whisper quiet, the smoothest CD drawer I have ever seen. The headphone amplifier is every bit as good as my Sennheiser HDVD 800.

 

I recently bought a Klipsch Groove Bluetooth speaker and I couldn't be happier! Sounds great and on sale at Amazon for $74.00!!!

 

The stars have become properly aligned (translation: a couple of long-term investments matured; although officially retired I did a couple of well-paid freelance jobs for an old colleague), and so big audio changes are, after mucho messing around, afoot.

Over in Boulder, Colorado a pair of Avalon Ideas are being put together for me.

While in Denmark a Vitus Audio RI-101 is being constructed.

These will soon be delivered by the nice man who sold them to me.

Had a week and a half with a dem pair of Ideas and an RI-101 and they were - many expletives deleted - brilliant! I thought Baby Krell sounded unburstable, but that Vitus...Oh, man I love unnecessary power, to the point it rapidly becomes necessary (see also car engines).

 

Well after realizing at age 59 I was not going to live forever in this body I decided to up my music listening game by spending my kids inheritance. Back in March I picked up a Music Hall ph25.2 hybrid headphone amp to use with the AudioQuest NightOwl Carbon I bought in January. In June I replaced my SVS SB12-NDS that my friend/not friend put his foot through with an SVS PB2000. Now in the past month I have picked up a Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum III and just last Friday I had delivered a pair of Wharfedale Linton Heritage speakers. I would like to think I am done for the year but I have been thinking of replacing my Paradigm Monitor 9 v4's in my theater setup with some B&W 702 S2's or something similar is price and playback capabilities. I have a t-shirt that lists the days of the week on the back with the last line being, "See there is no someday".

 

Did you do your trade-in directly through Auralic or did they do this through a dealer?

 

Directly through Auralic.

 

Interesting. How did you initiate that? I've never heard of them doing trade-ins but I'd be interested in upgrading to the G1 at some point.

 

The top two have to be my Accuphase C-2410 line stage and Accuphase C-27 phono preamp........... there are other nice purchases (Parasound JC3+, Klipsch RC-64 ii, more) but the Accuphase I attribute to taking me "one more rung of the ladder up" in my quest for better sound!

 

At some point, they published a trade-in value list. I didn't know whether it was still in effect, but I asked for it, and I got it.

 

Please no abuse, I don’t even own a stereo any more.

A dear friend offered to replace my beloved iPhone 6 with an iPhone 8. What’s guy? I didn’t want to give up on my budget cheap a$$ headphones so I invested in a Taotronics Bluetooth adapter with the Apple AAC codec on board. It’s a brilliant little adapter for $25. Apple lossless and AAC files sound delightful.

 

A Rega Alpheta 2 is finally mounted on my 2018 RP8 purchase.

New amp will have to wait until 2020

 

You're really going to enjoy It! You'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner.

 

This li'l guy...

I was about 90% a vinyl guy until I bought a DAC and set it up with an old iMac and an external drive. It clearly sounds better than the Rotel RCD-1072 CD player I was using... so I sold the Rotel (for more than I paid for the Schiit). Now I listen to digital about 60-70% of the time, and love the convenience and flexibility.

Don't worry, the iMac has a disc drive, and I also have an external disc drive, but I don't listen to CDs anymore; I've been ripping 'em to the drive.

 

Got a reconditioned (I have the papers) McIntosh 4100 receiver. Looks and sounds almost brand new. I always wanted one so I'll keep this until I'm ashes.

 

How do you like them? I’ve had mine for a few months. Good upgrade.

 

It took some adjusting back and forth, but by now I'm used to them like they were always there. I guess that means I like them.

 

Naim DAC V-1

 

Bose car audio system with Apple CarPlay that came with my new Porsche Cayman S.

 

Made a few fairly significant purchases (for me) this year, mainly transforming the home theatre system in the lounge with a beautiful new Panasonic TV, a new Denon AVR and replacing the Raspberry Pi 3B+media centre with a Le Potato SBC (both running Libreelec) to get the full chain capable of 4K 60fps 10bit HDR, but whilst it's super fun watching movies, Youtube & Netflix in 4K HDR and Denon Audyssey's dynamic loudness is cool at handling low volume dynamics it's not really comparable to when I added a Rega Planar 6 to my other, 2-channel Hi-Fi system this year.
The Rega P6 has really lifted my vinyl playback experience from the Pro-ject I had, blows me away every time. For what it cost against how it sounds it really is a bargain.

So yeah Rega P6 for me.

 

Oh right, the JBL system that came with my new car, I forgot that

 

First significant purchase in a while. Gold Note PH10 and power supply

 

A Luxman EQ-500 phono stage


Three inputs, so I'm covered for both the stereo and mono turntables. It's so 'alive' it's scary. Probably the best phono stage I've ever heard.

There was one issue in that the background noise was somewhat more intrusive than my previous Rogue phono stage with it's power supply connected via a long umbilical cord. I was considering selling the unit over that noise level, but then I put in new tubes. I purchased a floor/demo unit with a good amount of time on it, so perhaps they were wearing. In any case, the new tubes did the trick. Jet black quiet background and that same enchanting musical dance-ability thing going. So musical with all the hi-fi aural tricks we love. Just a lovely piece.