Equipment Recommendations - The Home For New System and Upgrade Advice

Mather said:
Speaker question. If my speakers are rated 25-200 rms and I were to use an amp that puts out more per channel than 200 watts, is that an issue?
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Really, there is no such thing as a home amp with too much power.

Power amps are linear; they will provide gain at a fixed dB amount over the input voltage. A really powerful amplifier simply just keeps going up in output as you turn up the volume knob, without clipping.

Running out of power with clipping is much more dangerous to speakers than having an amp with more potential output.
 
Mather said:
Ok perfect, I didn't think so but was curious... Got my local to let me test a few things on L100s at the shop. Gunna check out the SimAudio Moon 641 and 340i, Chord Ultima and McIntosh 8950. Not really because these are necessarily what I'm looking at, but because at least I'll get an idea between differences and what sort of price point I can look at. Realistically most of these units are too expensive unless I got a pretty crazy deal....
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Where in the french toast would you put a 75 lb McIntosh MA8950 ?!
 
Angsty said:
I can’t see the dimensions well, but that Mac is 47.6cm deep. It’s a big boy! I love the idea and look of ‘em, but my back would hate it.
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Yeah the cabinet is 50 cm deep, so it would fit. And it's supported by two layers of wood around the cabinet so it's pretty sturdy. It would be tight but it would work.

Or the entire cabinet falls through my floor into the basement after an hour.
 
ngower said:
This is where I think the 2M Blue can be "serviceable" until they find funds for another cart. Upgrading the turntable and phono stage would open up the 2M Blue quite a bit. I've been using the 2M Bronze with my 20/20 (and Insight before it) and it brought new life to that series.

Some ideas to save money on carts:

Import the AT series from Thakker
Import Nagaoka from CDJapan or ebay
Use the 15% off codes at Music Direct or Deep Discount (they pop up frequently enough)
Use the TurntableLab 10% off code for email signup
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+1 on the 2M Blue comment. The Blue sounded noticeably better on my higher end turntable than on my first one. The Hanas still beat it handily, but the 2M Blue was never a “bad” cart to my ear.

For comparison, my very first cart was a $39 Shure M92E before the 2M Blue. Big difference.
 
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Mather said:
Ok perfect, I didn't think so but was curious... Got my local to let me test a few things on L100s at the shop. Gunna check out the SimAudio Moon 641 and 340i, Chord Ultima and McIntosh 8950. Not really because these are necessarily what I'm looking at, but because at least I'll get an idea between differences and what sort of price point I can look at. Realistically most of these units are too expensive unless I got a pretty crazy deal....
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Welp, going in tomorrow to test the Moon 641, 340i and the Chord Ultima. Told the guy to nix the Mac because it weighs a tonne and to be honest I'm not likely going to go that way anyhow, more form over function with those I think, at least with the solid state.. Think the tube stuff they do is generally better thought of but yeah, not going that route because the way of tubes lies MADNESS...
 
Mather said:
Welp, going in tomorrow to test the Moon 641, 340i and the Chord Ultima. Told the guy to nix the Mac because it weighs a tonne and to be honest I'm not likely going to go that way anyhow, more form over function with those I think, at least with the solid state.. Think the tube stuff they do is generally better thought of but yeah, not going that route because the way of tubes lies MADNESS...
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Speaking of Mac, I have an appt for an "audio tour" of their "House of Sound" in NYC next week. Basically, a decked-out, mod Chelsea townhouse, with each room set up with Macintosh sound systems. Hopefully they're good with non-buying gawkers. I'm doing that solo, but my wife and I also have reservations at the All Blues Musiquarium for small dinner and listening b4 heading to The Stone for Nels Cline/Yuka Honda.

House of Sound here: House of Sound: The Art of Sound Experience.
All Blues here: ALL BLUES It seems a little precious, but I'm good with a precious one-night experience.
 
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Portland Sheriff said:
Speaking of Mac, I have an appt for an "audio tour" of their "House of Sound" in NYC next week. Basically, a decked-out, mod Chelsea townhouse, with each room set up with Macintosh sound systems. Hopefully they're good with non-buying gawkers. I'm doing that solo, but my wife and I also have reservations at the All Blues Musiquarium for small dinner and listening b4 heading to The Stone for Nels Cline/Yuka Honda.

House of Sound here: House of Sound: The Art of Sound Experience.
All Blues here: ALL BLUES It seems a little precious, but I'm good with a precious one-night experience.
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I bet that'll be fun. The whole house Mac thing is cool, I've always wanted a Mac just from a design standpoint, but I think the very warm, raised mids, big big bass sound profile would not work at all with my personal preference for neutrality.
 
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Well out of the Chord Ultima and Moon 340 and 641... the 641 is the big winner. Just accurate and punchy, great stage. The Chord was too bloomy on the low end for me, and the stage for any frequencies above the lower registers was too narrow for me. I ain't shelling out 14 G's for the Moon but I will definitely try to search out the Moon 600 or 700 V2s on the used market to see what they're going for...
 
Mather said:
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Well out of the Chord Ultima and Moon 340 and 641... the 641 is the big winner. Just accurate and punchy, great stage. The Chord was too bloomy on the low end for me, and the stage for any frequencies above the lower registers was too narrow for me. I ain't shelling out 14 G's for the Moon but I will definitely try to search out the Moon 600 or 700 V2s on the used market to see what they're going for...
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I’m not surprised the chord has that profile, it’s very much the historic “British” sound profile.
 
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