53 replies to this topic

[rancho_gordo]

I still have my original reciever from high school (with a fuse that blows now and again) and the same glorious beat up but fab Philips speakers from the same era. The speakers in particular are great.

[cristina]

I still have my original reciever from high school (with a fuse that blows now and again) and the same glorious beat up but fab Philips speakers from the same era. The speakers in particular are great.

Yeah, you lucky bum...just think how very young you are. That receiver can't be more than two or three years old.

[GrantK]

I still have my high school gear too, Sansui QRX-9001.

I still have my original reciever from high school (with a fuse that blows now and again) and the same glorious beat up but fab Philips speakers from the same era. The speakers in particular are great.

[StephanieL]

Except for the CD player, all my stereo gear is the original set I got right after college. (And like Rancho, I was quite surprised that I couldn't buy a single-disc CD player anymore.) The receiver even has a port to hook up a laserdisc player (the old-fashioned kind that played discs the size of an LP).

[StephanieL]

Duplicate post.

[mcj]

The receiver even has a port to hook up a laserdisc player (the old-fashioned kind that played discs the size of an LP).

Whaddaya mean "old-fashioned"??? It was state-of-the-art in 1979! (One of my college papers was on laser-disks vs. capacitive-disks.)

[Stone]

Are there receivers with 3 or 4 separate outputs? I'd like to have one reciever that I can use to control speakers in 3 or 4 different rooms. Even better if I could have different music playing in each at the same time. Would I need a sub-woofer in each room?

[Maurice Naughton]

But what can you hear?

Long ago, when I had some money, I had a really top drawer 33-1/3 rpm turntable, with an excellent gimbaled tone arm carrying a first-rate stereo cartridge. The cartridge fed its signal into a pair of extraordinary vacuum-tube pre-amps and amplifiers, which in turn sent their signals into a pair of truly superior 4 ohm bass-reflex speakers. The graph of the sound spectrum was as close to flat as could be got in them days.

Then I had a hearing exam, which showed conclusively that I could only hear the middle bit of the sound that my speakers pumped out, not very much of the treble and the bass at all.

About then, the world of music reproduction changed. Vinyl started going obsolete and I stopped having extra disposable income. My pursuit of excellent sound stopped dead. I couldn't hear it anyway. So it ceased to matter. I only dredge this memory up because of what Orik said earlier.

Have your hearing checked. Maybe you too will be able to stop chasing sounds you can't hear, and be content with cheap, inferior music generation.

[mcj]

Have your hearing checked. Maybe you too will be able to stop chasing sounds you can't hear, and be content with cheap, inferior music generation.

A valid point.

Are there receivers with 3 or 4 separate outputs? I'd like to have one receiver that I can use to control speakers in 3 or 4 different rooms.

Most likely. However, if your receiver has just one tuner then it's probably being fed to all outputs simultaneously. Your receiver would be the main volume control for all rooms and each room could have it's own speaker volume control, but all playing the same music.
This scenario is also the least expensive.

Even better if I could have different music playing in each at the same time.

Not from one receiver. If you want different stations or a mix of radio, CD's, etc., from one master receiver, then you're probably better-off having everything fed to a PC that's set up as an audio control station, taking separate inputs from independent components and streaming them via a home network to your inexpensive satellite PC's individually. It'd certainly be more complex than a radio station that streams one signal to thousands of listeners simultaneously... you'd be channelling several signals at once and I don't know what software would do that. It must be out there, I just don't know about it.

As if this system wouldn't be expensive enough, there's something being installed in luxury homes in which a plasma monitor and sound system is installed in several rooms with a touch-sensitive control panel, conveniently located of course, that resembles a PDA (or a control panel from Star Trek) whereby DVD's, music, whatever are stored in a server and sent to various locations throughout the home. Everyone can watch a different channel or movie and pause it to resume watching in another room. Even the control panels have playback capability. (I think that they were starting at about $50,000. )

Would I need a sub-woofer in each room?

If you're only installing remote speakers, then no.

[mongo_jones]

unless you've figured out a way to be in more than one room at a time, or want the thrill of sitting in one room and controlling the music playing in others, i can't help but think the easiest and cheapest way to do this would be to buy separate cheaper setups for each room. a receiver that can handle multiple sets of speakers with separate outputs will cost a lot. the new home theaters in a box, on the other hand, don't cost so much.

also re subwoofer: i'm not sure i understand the question. the subwoofer will only provide bass in the setup it is in, in the room it is in. you're not going to be able to run separate 5.1 setups to multiple rooms from the same receiver. not without spending gigantic amounts of money anyway.

[Rebecca]

What about the new wireless stuff from Sonos?

[Steve R.]

I loved my Dynaco pre-amp and my Dynaco 120 amp (60 watts rms/channel... big time sound in '70). And my Rabco linear arm turntable. And my AR tuner. And my original Advent speakers.

Then I traded up to the MacIntosh and Crown pre-amp and amp, with new first generation Bose 901 speakers (which I still have and use.... 34 years old... equilizer long gone).

Now, my basic system is the Bose "even an idiot can use it" all inclusive no controls except volume 5.1 theater system. Eh.

Bring back the old stuff. It sounded better.

Or maybe I just listened better? Jeez, I'm getting old.

[Rebecca]

Bring back the old stuff. It sounded better.
Or maybe I just listened better? Jeez, I'm getting old.

I am so confused about this. Nothing sounds better to me than my old vinyl record albums. And the huge speakers of the 1960's "hi fi" sound systems and juke boxes were fabulous. The "depth" on the latest digitals simply can't compare to my ears. It's like trying to tell the young kids that most of 'em can't sing on key. They just get insulted.

[Melonious Thunk]

Once there were very good amplifiers, made with matched pairs of transistors, crazy good amplifiers made with tubes, and crap amplifiers/tuners/whatever made with hybrid chips. Then everything got sort of digital and muddled, everyone was offering amplifier/tuner units that could make your DVDs sound like "Jazz/Rock/Concert/Grandma on the cell phone" and play your video with 5712+1, but made no promises as to what THD is going to be, which sort of took the point out of the game and reduced the number of competitors from 50 to 2.

Traditionally Denon, Pioneer and Yamaha were best, but unless they let you look inside it's hard to say anything these days.

Ah well, there was also
Audio Research, and there still is
who will retube and update my SP10 preamp for $800
and Magnaplanar, who rewired my Tympani 1Ds for 800 plus freight,
and Oracle, who made a turntable, belt driven that played 33 1/34 and 45 rpm
and Mr. Sugano, an old Japanese man who went from making violins and kotos to making moving
coil cartridges called Koetsu. Black, Onxz and Gold, that reproduced the unheard farts of unborn babies in perfect pitch for the price of a Honda Civic,
And Mark Levinson, and Bryston, and Audio Research and Threshold of Nelson Pass, who made amps with enough power to drive your house across state lines,
and cable makers whose wire cost more than your components because they were wound according to an ancient feng shue pattern out of the chest hairs of nerwly born white gorillas from the Himalyas,

and

and

there is no end to it....

I stopped in 1975 except for retubing.

[Rose]

What did you do read J's diary?

How about Electrocompaniet?