Categories
audio

My stereo

I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath waiting to hear what I’ll be doing next with my audio gear… Well, you’ll be able to rest easy now, now more sleepless nights worrying!

I’m still enjoying the heck out of my Squeezebox Touch. It is the digital front end I have always wanted in a system. Instant access to all of my music, and really good sound quality to boot. It is capable of playing back up to 24 bit recordings, so if I ever get any of those, I can go to the realm of hi-rez playback…

The problem is that my system is “too big.” My room is small, too small for my amplifiers and CD player. Now that I’ve replaced my CD player (and with something that outperforms it…finally), the speakers and amps were the issues. I had originally thought of getting some active speakers. having the amps and speakers in the same enclosure would really improve the space problem. There are also some potential technical advantages to them as well. I was coveting some speakers that were a little over 2 grand. I had rationalized that the price wasn’t too bad considering that I would be getting a good quality set of speakers, a good DAC (Digital to Analog convertor), and a good preamp. That was all true, but it was still 2 grand…

So I started thinking about some single driver speakers and a really cheap amp. That combo would give me some sound that was decent, would be small, and would satisfy an audiophile itch. That was going to run about $400. Better, but it would be a pretty limited system. The speakers wouldn’t have any real bass, and single driver speakers have a rather unique sound. I was worried about them only being good for certain types of music.

Going back to the active speaker sites, I found some active monitors that were in the $300-$400 range. These would not have any of the limitations of the other speakers, but they would still have the limitations of being cheap speakers. Considering that my speakers were in the $1500 range when I bought them, I didn’t really want to take such a big step down.

And then it occurred to me. I had discounted using my speakers because they were too big. True, they are on the large side as far as monitors go, but they would be on stands. Here’s the thing, once you put speakers on stands, they all take up the same amount of space.

So, I am going to use my old speakers, but with a new, smaller and cooler amp. It is what as known as a gainclone amp. Yet another piece of equipment that I have wanted to hear. I hope to have a good sounding system up within a week! I’ll let you know how it goes.

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