[OK Boomer] Show your HIFI setup.

[WarMachine]

Absolutely. I had a CD that was skipping wicked bad when i was jamming with it. Needless to say its not good for stereos and speakers to get fists ran thru them

 

[Andii]

 

[Alex79]

A couple of years ago I bought this simple, straightforward Denon CD Receiver and two Q Acoustic bookshelf speakers. Nothing special. A very clear and defined tone with a small footprint; I'm very happy. I'd be happier if the most played music wasn't the Disney collection. ;-)

 

[sakeido]

View attachment 97441 View attachment 97442

I have been thinking about a pair of those exact headphones.. or maybe another planar option. What do you think of them? I've only ever had "traditional" headphones, Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pros right now.

 

[Andii]

I have been thinking about a pair of those exact headphones.. or maybe another planar option. What do you think of them? I've only ever had "traditional" headphones, Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pros right now.

They're just incredible. I listen to music as my primary hobby and I have 17 years of experience in recording, audio engineering etc. I have the 2021 revision has a new magnet array and driver design. Keep that in mind.

The only bad thing about them is that they are heavy. 620 grams. (Before the 2021 revision they were 680grams) Look up how much your headphones weigh and compare. If you do office work or programming and have to sit upright and expect to wear these all day comfortably, forget that. Any listening I do, I definitely lean up against something and recline. For audio work I sit upright in a chair and I can get through some long sessions. At about 4-6 hours is where I don't really want them on my head any more that day. 6 hours plus, there is probably going to be some soreness afterwards for me.

They absolutely need to be ran with way more juice than than the sensitivity rating lets on. They can run loud on just about anything, but that is extremely deceiving, they have no dynamic push to them and have poor performance on low powered sources. They need a separate amplifier of at least 250mw to hit their potential. So you would need to factor that into the cost if you don't already own a headphone amplifier component.

The sound of them is extremely detailed, it's insane. When for example a saxophone is playing you can hear every single distinct component of the sound. The player's breath moving through the instrument, their breathing, the sound of the brass, the sound of the reed, the buttons clicking and the sound of the reverberation in the room to the point where you might start imagining what the materials the room is made of. For example on old recordings that used concrete echo chambers, I hear it and recognize that the sound is bouncing off of concrete.

It's like a holographic image of the sound is being injected directly into your brain with extreme neutrality and a shocking amount of timbre accuracy, especially for a headphone. When being ran by good components the soundstage is a continuous image that runs from the middle of one shoulder to the middle of the other shoulder with no gaps in between. When something pans across you hear it's precise position from one side to the other. Not only do I like this for listening, it's very advantageous to have this level of stereo imaging while engineering audio.

The weight and accuracy of the low frequencies is wild even though they're neutral, the sheer quality of the bass when properly amplified is great and it's a really satisfying quantity for me, in fact it's just right. Everything across the spectrum is really just *chefs kiss*. The bass quantity without eq is just perfect.

I have nothing but good things to say about the sound. Mixing, mastering and audio engineering on them is a breeze, you can hear all the way into everything enough to use all the most advanced techniques and hear what you're doing with any really small adjustment. I can eq anything very quickly and not second guess any decision whatsoever. I can even evaluate different eq's for example linear eq vs analog modeling etc. You can hear the textures of different types of saturation in recordings and for engineering you can evaluate the textures of whatever saturation that you might want to work with. It's like a microscope. A jewelers loupe. They have a genuine high amount of resolution without any fake treble peaks there to try to give the illusion of resolution. They sound natural and smooth rather than sounding analytical and sterile in spite of the fact that they provide such a high level of detail.

For listening, they are extremely enjoyable. You can sit back and forget about audio equipment and just hear the music with nothing in the way or taking you out of the experience. Since they're neutral they are really good at any genre you would want to listen to. They're a really desert island piece of kit for me. I could not own any other speakers or headphones and just have these and be completely cool with it.

You can crank them up loud and nothing gets unpleasant, you have to be careful not to get carried away with it. Cranking the volume is just *music intensifies* with no other ill effects which is pretty huge contrast against a lot of headphones and audio equipment, it's rather strange in a way that is hard to describe with words.

I have had them since march of this year and the honeymoon/new thing phase is long gone and I am still absolutely over the moon about putting these on my head and hearing things every single day. I'm 100% satisfied with them. I was extremely skeptical about them before I owned them because of the price and now that I own them, I think they're a really good deal for what they are. If you put together the speaker equivalent in a treated room that could hang with these it would cost A WHOLE LOT.

The only contender to these in the price range(and really in general as something that can be precisely engineered on without running dsp for eq curve corrections) is the Focal Clear or Focal Clear MG which weighs 450 grams and uses dynamic drivers. That is option if the weight is an issue. Dynamic drivers have a punchier sound to them, but I am a huge planar fan for all the the advantages they have that I find essential. The X also has more headroom should you decide to eq in more bass while the Focals are at capacity when running them flat and a boost will clip them.

 

[vibrantgermancities]

I’m running an AT LP3 and a Cambridge CXC through a NAD D3020 v2 into a pair of Kef R100s. Headphones alternate between Philips X2HRs and Shure SRH1540s. Nothing fancy, but it all does the job for the time being!

 

[gclef]

Still running my Sony receiver from 1994. The 5 cd changer and dual cassette decks are long gone. Replaced by a DVD player we never use due to streaming.

A pair of bose 10.2 series 2 speakers complete the system.

 

[sakeido]

They're just incredible. I listen to music as my primary hobby and I have 17 years of experience in recording, audio engineering etc. I have the 2021 revision has a new magnet array and driver design. Keep that in mind.

The only bad thing about them is that they are heavy. 620 grams. (Before the 2021 revision they were 680grams) Look up how much your headphones weigh and compare. If you do office work or programming and have to sit upright and expect to wear these all day comfortably, forget that. Any listening I do, I definitely lean up against something and recline. For audio work I sit upright in a chair and I can get through some long sessions. At about 4-6 hours is where I don't really want them on my head any more that day. 6 hours plus, there is probably going to be some soreness afterwards for me.

They absolutely need to be ran with way more juice than than the sensitivity rating lets on. They can run loud on just about anything, but that is extremely deceiving, they have no dynamic push to them and have poor performance on low powered sources. They need a separate amplifier of at least 250mw to hit their potential. So you would need to factor that into the cost if you don't already own a headphone amplifier component.

The sound of them is extremely detailed, it's insane. When for example a saxophone is playing you can hear every single distinct component of the sound. The player's breath moving through the instrument, their breathing, the sound of the brass, the sound of the reed, the buttons clicking and the sound of the reverberation in the room to the point where you might start imagining what the materials the room is made of. For example on old recordings that used concrete echo chambers, I hear it and recognize that the sound is bouncing off of concrete.

It's like a holographic image of the sound is being injected directly into your brain with extreme neutrality and a shocking amount of timbre accuracy, especially for a headphone. When being ran by good components the soundstage is a continuous image that runs from the middle of one shoulder to the middle of the other shoulder with no gaps in between. When something pans across you hear it's precise position from one side to the other. Not only do I like this for listening, it's very advantageous to have this level of stereo imaging while engineering audio.

The weight and accuracy of the low frequencies is wild even though they're neutral, the sheer quality of the bass when properly amplified is great and it's a really satisfying quantity for me, in fact it's just right. Everything across the spectrum is really just *chefs kiss*. The bass quantity without eq is just perfect.

I have nothing but good things to say about the sound. Mixing, mastering and audio engineering on them is a breeze, you can hear all the way into everything enough to use all the most advanced techniques and hear what you're doing with any really small adjustment. I can eq anything very quickly and not second guess any decision whatsoever. I can even evaluate different eq's for example linear eq vs analog modeling etc. You can hear the textures of different types of saturation in recordings and for engineering you can evaluate the textures of whatever saturation that you might want to work with. It's like a microscope. A jewelers loupe. They have a genuine high amount of resolution without any fake treble peaks there to try to give the illusion of resolution. They sound natural and smooth rather than sounding analytical and sterile in spite of the fact that they provide such a high level of detail.

For listening, they are extremely enjoyable. You can sit back and forget about audio equipment and just hear the music with nothing in the way or taking you out of the experience. Since they're neutral they are really good at any genre you would want to listen to. They're a really desert island piece of kit for me. I could not own any other speakers or headphones and just have these and be completely cool with it.

You can crank them up loud and nothing gets unpleasant, you have to be careful not to get carried away with it. Cranking the volume is just *music intensifies* with no other ill effects which is pretty huge contrast against a lot of headphones and audio equipment, it's rather strange in a way that is hard to describe with words.

I have had them since march of this year and the honeymoon/new thing phase is long gone and I am still absolutely over the moon about putting these on my head and hearing things every single day. I'm 100% satisfied with them. I was extremely skeptical about them before I owned them because of the price and now that I own them, I think they're a really good deal for what they are. If you put together the speaker equivalent in a treated room that could hang with these it would cost A WHOLE LOT.

The only contender to these in the price range(and really in general as something that can be precisely engineered on without running dsp for eq curve corrections) is the Focal Clear or Focal Clear MG which weighs 450 grams and uses dynamic drivers. That is option if the weight is an issue. Dynamic drivers have a punchier sound to them, but I am a huge planar fan for all the the advantages they have that I find essential. The X also has more headroom should you decide to eq in more bass while the Focals are at capacity when running them flat and a boost will clip them.

Wow, awesome breakdown!

I love my ML electrostats... so something like that, except a headphone with that crazy sound quality through the whole range is very appealing. I've got a fairly beefy headphone amp so I think I'd be good to go... pricy though. I wonder how much of a quality difference there'd be between those and something like a Dan Clark Aeon.

 

[Andii]

Wow, awesome breakdown!

I love my ML electrostats... so something like that, except a headphone with that crazy sound quality through the whole range is very appealing. I've got a fairly beefy headphone amp so I think I'd be good to go... pricy though. I wonder how much of a quality difference there'd be between those and something like a Dan Clark Aeon.

The X will compliment a nice speaker setup like the MLs. I have a 2.1 magnepan system and I enjoy them both a lot because they're both awesome and different. Speakers have that tactile feel in your whole body and the sound coming from in front of you gives more uncanny positional information, but my LCD-X has enough unique advantages and in some aspects, accuracy that I like them possibly more. I do like listening to the Magnepans when I'm in the mood for ridiculous timbre accuracy, or to get the feeling like something is there with me. But the LCD-X is so good that it just depends on what mood I'm in whether I want speakers or headphones even when I'm sitting right there where the speakers are.

The portability(and I use that word loosely, like from one house to another not PORTABLE portable) and flexibility of headphones has won me over pretty hard. I can work on and listen to audio without compromise anywhere I pack up and take my equipment to without any consideration for room treatment or space and having to transport large pieces of gear.

Dan Clark's frequency response seems to try to follow the harman target curve as closely as possible, which is a consumer preference curve that boosts bass and puts a bump in the upper mids. I really like their design language and aesthetics, but I have never considered them as an option for musicians or audio engineers. I personally do not like that frequency response curve at all. Some audiophiles who aren't musicians or engineers EQ their LCD-X the harman target FR curve because they love listening that way. Either that or headphone nerds just worship the guy that came up with that curve because he's at the very top of the headphone nerd hierarchy. I don't know, but I hate that frequency response. Dan Clark's closed backs are supposedly among some of the very best closed backs and I think they're a cool company, they're just more for listeners than engineers and musicians for sure.

They are reportedly less dynamic than the Audeze headphones too, but the Audeze's ridiculous heavy magnet arrays are weighty. Dan Clark aeon 2 Noire weighs 320 grams, like a normal and reasonable pair of headphones.

It's hard to imagine that there's any chance that you wouldn't love the LCD-X's sound. Just make sure you have a strong neck or a nice place to kick back and lean your head against something for long listening sessions. That's one thing I am really liking about headphones right now. I totally put my headphone amplifier in the bed with me and just melt. I can't sit up and sit in just the right spot to enjoy my magnepans when I'm tired after intense physical labor or something. They were there for me when i was getting my ass kicked by work earlier this year.

 

[Andromalia]

...

Thanks for the very detailed breakdown ! Although the point of going with a vintage system was to not use headphones any longer. Long live WFH !

 

[will_shred]

My whole system is thrifted and restored, and cost me a grand total of $100. Onkyo TX-4500 with a pair of 12 inch, three way Onkyo Fusion S-40's. My good buddy says "these Onkyo's make me question dropping $2k on my vandersteens". Not to say that they're *better* but for the money, its pretty crazy what some people literally give away.

 

[Andii]

This is my Magnepan LRS 2.1 setup. The subwoofer is a dayton audio 18in reference HO running on 1,000w class D in a fully sealed cabinet that me and my dad built. The cabinet has poly batting on all surfaces and is then completely stuffed to capacity with poly fill(and I mean all the way up against the basket. I listened(using LCD-X headphones as a reference for fast bass) and added the damping more and more to tune the speed and tightness of the subwoofer and to try to compensate for the fact that the cabinet is marine grade baltic birch ply rather than MDF and it’s an 18in driver. The plywood tries to ring a little so all of the damping helped eliminate that as well. The suboofer is astoundingly fast and blends with the magnepans seamlessly. No port, it’s sealed internal volume is to spec for the driver and it’s probably “critically damped”. RME babyface pro dac. Amplifiers were scavenged and cobbled together. Yamaha P-5000s class AB amp is running the magnepans at 350w per channel via 10awg OF braided copper wire. A carvin class D is running the subwoofer with 1,000w. There is no sign of a struggle with plenty of headroom. The sound is holographic, visceral, deep and lifelike. Really nice phantom center. Really accurate timbre. Very impressively low distortion in the highs and mids coming from the LRS. Microscopic detail. The Magnepans require a lot of space behind them since they are dipoles and a lot of space away from them for the stereo field and the panels sections to merge and create the image. Placement is undoubtedly an art and one that you get better at after a lot of experimentation. The sweet spot is such that you have to sit at a precise distance within and face straight ahead to fully experience the sound to its complete potential, though it still sounds nice throughout the room in a good room. I like the tactility of the large subwoofer because it has a lot of tactility even at low volumes, you can FEEL the music with your entire body.


Quobuz VIA Roon>ASIO driver>RME Babyface Pro>DIY XLR Mogami quadrupole cable with neutrik connectors>Neve RNHP>LCD-X

 

[Soya]

Killer. I've always wanted a set of Magnapans but never had the space.

 

[Adieu]

View attachment 97192
My Technics found outside the dumpster!!

Ooh I had one of those a few places of residence and 15 years ago... bought used for $70 w/speakers on local classified site, worked great (vs modern solutions = decent vs. truly good oldskool stuff) as an AUX amp for streaming audio and movies

 

[Andromalia]

I'm starting a new one. Just getting the essentials now, the receiver will maybe go if I can find a decent preamp+power amp at a reasonable price, because Sony ES ebay listings are stupid. Then I'll bother with the radio, and probably CD player too. Tape players are way too expensive to justify being had just for collection purposes since I have 0 tape left at this point.
I guess it will give me time to find an appropriate Sony Cabinet, which probably won't be easy even if they're cheap, there are very few left.

TLDR: 150€ was too good to pass up for a GX70ES, so I also bought a matching turntable. That should technically be an upgrade to the pioneer setup, but I'm not really doing that for the audio quality, more to have cool stuff in my living room.

 

[StevenC]

I made my first adult purchase and bought a piece of furniture. I'm getting a new console/cabinet too keep my records and put my Hi-Fi. So expect some updates this week when it arrives!

I got loads of vinyl lately too: Immutable, Parrhesia, Polaris and Sonder by Tesseract. So I have been spinning a lot. An unexpected upside to not being able to drive is that I'm listening to music much more intentionally and enjoying it more, and by extension enjoying the Hi-Fi more.

 

[johnniz]

I have a strange setup, but it works for me. As time goes by I`m less into bass when listening to music or watching movies. For daily "multimedia" on my desktop PC, I have a pair of Wharfedale Diamond 220 and a stereo amp from aliexpress (60-70 usd with EQ).

my 2. setup for more dedicated music listening or movies, I have 2 different speakers. A pair of powered Argon Audio 8" entry lvl hifi speakers. No EQ on these and way 2 much bass response for my small living room. Great sometimes, but not as a daily driver.

My fave current setup for music listening consists of a pair of Kanto YU powered speakers. Again these are more entry level in terms of "hifi" etc but these sound GREAT to my ears. I put these on top of the 8"s so I don`t bother with bookshelf stands.

 

[Andromalia]

*plays "Just got paid" in A*
A customer paid what he owed me from the beginning of the year so I went liberal with the BIN button. Not bothering about coordinating the wood/not wood sides for now, I'll likely buy something when I'm sure everything works and what didn't got fixed.
Ebay seller pics for now, I'll do a family shot when everything is stacked together, probably in a dozen days depending on post since I bought most of the stuff from Germany, where it seems 90% of vintage hifi ended up for some reason...

 

[StevenC]

Furniture arrived and I love it. Very worried about ventilation for the power amp.

 

[Andromalia]

That's a cool one, it's one of the things I regret when I realise living ath the 3rd floor bans me from buying a lot of cheap but cool used furniture.
About ventilation, yeah, that seems tight. As a rule I usually put amplifiers on top, I didn't do it with the Pioneer set because the tuner is only 1/3rd as deep so there's plenty of space. I'd put the amp on the top shelf, and the CD player below. Your furniture likely is 60es or 70es, and intended for a 2U receiver like a Sony STR 160.