What’s your Hi-Fi set up? spec and pictures please

[ben5575]

robbiekhan said:

That neon sign is mega! Does it make any noise? I have very sensitive hearing and can hear the electrical whine of power adapters and LED bulbs when they are set to a low brightness. I would get one of those neons but any electrical whine would get to my noggin!

I'm the same, no there's no whine. The led strip is decently chunky. I got it from www.dazeneon.com/. It was c.£450 all in from memory.

[Spleen]

LP12 with various upgrades.
Naim NDX2.
Supernait 3.
Naim Fraim.
Hi-Line x 1, Power-Lines x 2.
NAC A5 feeding Focal Kanta 2s.
Focal Elears.
2 x Mu-so Qb and 2 x Naim Mu-so throughout the house.

Absolutely no desire to spend anymore money!

[hyphen]

Spleen said:

...
Absolutely no desire to spend anymore money!

should never have entered that Naim shop.

[Spleen]

hyphen said:

Spleen said:

...
Absolutely no desire to spend anymore money!

should never have entered that Naim shop.

So very true. I went to a Statement demo the other night and whilst that monster is way way out of my league I did have a go with some Focal Stellias. How much are these I meekly enquired? About a fiver short of £3k. Groan.

(I didn't by the way but not going to lie was sorely tempted).

[hyphen]

I'm sure yours sounds amazing as it is.

I have a one box naim and old pmc floorstanders, and avoid listening to anything new and certainly not a/b test as would be a slippery slope!!

[Spleen]

Thanks, I'm pretty happy with it. I was overseas for some time and when I came back I decided to treat myself and go for an upgrade and 'future-proof' (yeah, right) my system. Took me a little while to get there but can't help but feel I'm on the cusp of marginal gains if I tried to upgrade any further. The Statement was seriously impressive but £155k more impressive? Wasn't convinced really. Jason from Naim had hooked around £50k+ worth of power, streamers and cables to it as well. Jesus.

[stevoknevo]

hyphen said:

I'm sure yours sounds amazing as it is.

I have a one box naim and old pmc floorstanders, and avoid listening to anything new and certainly not a/b test as would be a slippery slope!!

Which PMC's do you have, hyphen? I bought a pair of GB1 last year and have been powering them from an Anthem AV receiver but looking to get something made exclusively for music as I've fallen out of love with AV - been looking at older Naim integrateds/unitis, small class D monoblocks from the likes of Temple Audio, power amps and use the Anthem as a Pre to retain room correction...

[hyphen]

Next one up from yours, the FB1+. I got them years ago off a guy who upgraded to the OB1s.

Would like an upgrade to a 3-way but I live in a terraced house and room is average size. So unless I know for sure the neighbors on each side are out, I don't crank them up high (or if I must do, not for long ) so an upgrade seems unnecessary.

Edited by hyphen on Wednesday 30th June 14:58

[Itsallicanafford]

LP12 with various upgrades.
Naim NDX2.
Supernait 3.
Naim Fraim.
Hi-Line x 1, Power-Lines x 2.
NAC A5 feeding Focal Kanta 2s.
Focal Elears.
2 x Mu-so Qb and 2 x Naim Mu-so throughout the house.

Absolutely no desire to spend anymore money!
[/quote]

That's a fantastic set-up. Look after that lot and it should outlast you!

The Naim upgrade path, (although perfectly fine for those who have the cash) very quickly falls into the realms of gilding the Lilly, IMO.

[Spleen]

Thanks! I did ask the Naim rep what the next step might be and he suggested a Hi-Cap but I honestly just don’t see the need, I’m quite happy with where it’s at. If anything I’d like a bit more out of the LP12 but you can spend big money for marginal gains and I don’t use it that much really.

[crmcatee]

The Hi-Cap will open it up.

[Tony1963]

A HiCap, or one of the equivalents from alternative companies, does make a big difference. Buy used, try it. If you don’t want to keep it, sell for little to no loss.

[dvshannow]

Tony1963 said:

A HiCap, or one of the equivalents from alternative companies, does make a big difference. Buy used, try it. If you don’t want to keep it, sell for little to no loss.

Would be interesting to do a double blind listening test

Not saying it can’t make a big diff but the standard system I wonder how much they ‘allow’ for a cleaner power supply to help

I have a NAP 300dr and I would hope it’s power supply is already pretty damn good and use a qutest as a source

[Riff Raff]

Tony1963 said:

A HiCap, or one of the equivalents from alternative companies, does make a big difference. Buy used, try it. If you don’t want to keep it, sell for little to no loss.

I use Teddy Pardo power supplies with some of my naim kit. I have a Teddy SuperCap and a Naim SuperCap DR. I can swap them round and can't hear much of a difference between the two.

Build quality (in terms of general fit and finish, not the electrickery which is first rate) isn't on a par with the Naim stuff, but neither is the price.

[Spleen]

dvshannow said:

Would be interesting to do a double blind listening test

Indeed. Saw this yesterday on Faceache yesterday and that was my first thought too:

[Tony1963]

The benefits of better power supplies can be dependent on what else is in the system.

I once tried an XPS on my CDX and quite honestly couldn’t hear any improvement, even after a couple of weeks. I also tried putting my pre amp at the top of the rack, away from the power amp and psu. Again, no difference.

I then bought some better speakers, and after a few months tried the pre amp on top again, BOOM! Big improvement. No doubt at all. Can’t afford an XPS or more racking to put it on

[Sporky]

I have a heretical setup in hifi terms, I fear. This is in my home office, which is a slightly odd shape with the door at the same end as the windows. Everything is from Spotify.

Bluesound Powernode 2i, into two Cornered Audio C5s. I was pretty happy with this but the C5s don't go super-deep, so just added an SVS SB1000 Pro sub to it which has made quite the difference. Initially slightly underwhelmed by the sub until I turned it back off and realised that it blended perfectly with the C5s - it just adds another octave - maybe two - below their bottom limit. I'm actually running everything quieter now as it doesn't need much volume to sound full.

Powernode - the toys are essential to balancing the sound and ensuring there's no jitter from the adjacent network doohickey:


C5s:


Sub - behind my sitting-and-thinking chair:

[hyphen]

First question- Where is the clock from?

A very tidy setup, not heard of those corner speakers, will have to check them out.

[Sporky]

Thank you! The clock is from Cloudnola. Horribly expensive but glorious.

https://cloudnola.com/collections/flip-clocks/prod...

Cornered seem more popular in the commercial sector than as hifi - probably because they're easy to hide in corners. They do sound bigger than they are, but even the C5s benefit from the sub. The entire range sounds awful if you just stand them on a desk though - they are designed to use the bass boost from being in a corner.

I've got a pair of floorstanding B&W 600s (not sure of the exact model but they're from the mid 90s I think - I inherited them) but they weren't at all happy in the office - I think it's just too small a room.

Quite impressed with the sub too - it's app controlled via Bluetooth, so once you've plugged it in and positioned it you can do all the setup from your listening position - might sound gimmicky, but it makes the tweaking a breeze (not that it needed much).

[stevoknevo]

hyphen said:

Next one up from yours, the FB1+. I got them years ago off a guy who upgraded to the OB1s.

Would like an upgrade to a 3-way but I live in a terraced house and room is average size. So unless I know for sure the neighbors on each side are out, I don't crank them up high (or if I must do, not for long ) so an upgrade seems unnecessary.

Edited by hyphen on Wednesday 30th June 14:58

Sorry, missed your reply - aye, I don't envy you having to temper them in a terrace as the GB1 are no slouch in the bass department and the FB's are bigger/go deeper.
Still no further forward with my planned change of amplification, my Anthem AV receiver is faulty on the right front channel but liveable with for now with a 10db offset on the left channel - I was planning on maybe getting a power amp to retain room correction from the AVR but now need to ascertain whether it's an amplification/pre amp/DSP chip issue by dragging my old AVR out and testing the pre-outs on the Anthem, PITA...