Let's Spread a Little Holiday Cheer!

mdaudioguy

In light of some of the wacko threads we've had around here lately, I was thinking tonight of starting something that everyone might find a bit more useful. Btw, it's always those few bad apples that get all the attention - there are always many times more useful threads running here than not!

In appreciation of all the good contributors here at CP, I'm asking for members old and new to submit an example of a tweak/adjustment/upgrade/change :idea: that you made to your audio system that you might not have otherwise made, had you never visited this forum. Just describe the change and whatever difference you thought it made, if any!

Consider all posts and comments to be each individual's unique impression - not transferable statements of fact.

Be honest and be friendly. Anyone found to be engaging in bickering or mean-spiritedness in this thread will be shunned for an undetermined period of time! :twisted:

* As an incentive, I will follow through with an offer I previously made to make a charitable donation - but, I'm going to make you all work for it:exclaim: - $1 per post (only one post per member, please) up to 50 posts. I'm hopeful we can achieve this number by Thursday this week, and I will forward a check written to Mr. Grand's favorite charity, the Githens Center. I know very little about that organization, but since the membership here has supported them for so long, I trust that the money they receive is put to good use.

brgman

I just invested in the dared 2000A tube preamp and i love it.I would have never given it a second thought had it not had so many polkies talking well of it.
Great piece of gear and a sweet upgrade all thanks to this forum.
That sir will cost you one buck!
I will also MATCH that buck up to 50 for Mr Grands charity.

george daniel

My tweak is simple,,sonicap,mills,rdo's,dynamat,spikes,gp's boards and Larry's rings.

gudnoyez

Swaping out my cs10 center channel for the csia4 center to match my Rti5's and 3's didnt no any better when I started my HT thanks guys.

mdaudioguy

Great start guys! Pleased to have you joining me, brgman! That's what I'm talkin' 'bout - gotta love this place!

SDA1C

I also made a host of upgrades lately. However, the single best was with out a doubt the easiest and dare I say cheapest. SPIKES!!! Had F1nut not sent me down that path I would have not included it with the rest. Amazing what a set of tiptoes will do for midrange.

nadams

Well, lets see... came into the forum with a pair of 5jr's with fried tweeters. Bought a pair of Peerless, back when you could still get them from PartsExpress, on the recommendation of a forum member. Then, a 1 post wonder showed up selling a pair of Monitor 10 Series II's in NY. I arranged a sale and drove up and got them (this was before the rules on post count/FM sales). After that, I was convinced to move up to separates, and got a Luxman receiver and a Rolls amp from Russman. Sadly, the Rolls ended up arriving damaged, so I sent it back and bought a Adcom GFA-535 of eBay to fill the void. Ran that setup for a while until I visited George Grand, and he opened up the magic closet and gave me a Hafler DH-110 preamp and a Technics Turntable.

Oh, but how I'm getting ahead of myself.... at my first Polkfest (HQ tour of 2005), I brought my very rough 5jr's down to part out. I forget who I sold the drivers to, but I sold the nearly new Peerless tweeters to Dorokusai... actually a trade for a Denon CDP that I still use as my primary source in my system. Also at this Polkfest, I met Phil, who was a newbie member from York and had joined just for the chance to go to Polkfest. He was a longtime fan, but a new member to the forums. He said he had a pair of SDA 2's that he wanted to sell... So, after PF, I contacted him and we arranged for me to go see them and potentiall buy them. Of course, on the 4 hour drive down, my dad's car (which I was driving because it's a station wagon and would fit the sizeable 2's while laying on their backs) overheated and left me sit. I eventually made it to Phil's house, and bought the 2's, but ultimately broke down 3 hours away from home and had to wait for my dad to drive my truck down with tools to fix his car. We got the car and the speakers home, but the end result was a blown head gasket and a trashed engine (warped block).

So, that takes me back to the separates. With the addition of the Hafler DH-110, I no longer needed the Luxman receiver to pull pre duties, and passed it on to a fellow CP member as a Karma, as Russman had done for me. However, the Adcom GFA-535 was a bit anemic for the SDA's, and it was time to step up the game. Bought a 545 on ebay and sold the 535 here (I think). For a long time, several years even, my system remained stagnant. But just this year I've made several changes that should make a big difference. First and foremost, I finally got the RDO tweeters. Also, I've purchased new gaskets and the Larry's Rings as a further project. My connections here on the forum have also opened up a wonderful selection of used speakers and electronics. Some purchased for myself, some purchased for others, and some purchased for charity.

So the moral of the story is, without CP, I would likely still be grooving to a pair of 5jr's, powered by a JVC receiver. And would've never seen Polk HQ, heard an SRT system, met Matt Polk, upgraded to 10's, then SDA's, been introduced to countless new music and movie titles, laughed, cried, and made JStas throw up in Ohskigod's back yard.

Does that, uh, answer your question? I might've missed the mark on that one.

Merry Christmas all!

punk-roc

Nearly my entire setup (HT and 2-chan) would not have been possible without this forum.

The best example of this is george daniel, who personally help broker a deal for my Dodd ELP. For some reason I was having trouble contacting the seller and without George's intervention and help I wouldn't have this great piece of equipment at all.

George and two other members also sent me spare tubes (for free!) they had to try out in my Dodd...

Not sure how many forums exist where this type of situation is the rule, rather than the exception. But it definitely is commonplace here.

Jason

rebuy

I bought a CDP instead of relying on a BRP to play CD's.

falconcry72

brgman wrote: »

I will also MATCH that buck up to 50 for Mr Grands charity.

Count me in on the match.

WHO ELSE WILL MATCH US!!!???:razz:


Thanks to CP, I've explored the following (abbreviated list):

- Vintage Monitors
- RTA's
- SDA's
- Separates
- Tubes
- Signal Cable
- MIT
- Magnepan
- Audio GD
- Acoustic Panels


Good Stuff!:cheesygrin:

nadams

Also, I will attempt to match the $1/post up to 50... but I haven't finished my Christmas shopping yet. (okay, okay... I haven't started it yet.)

mdaudioguy

10 so far, and we're only a couple or few hours into this... 20% baby! Some really great stories to read, too. Throw in the pledges of matching donations, and this has already exceeded my expectations! :biggrin:

I want to read more!

inspiredsports

I've probably implemented 3 dozen tweaks in 3 years that I wouldn't have contemplated before joining CP.

The biggest? Room treatments by a wide margin. The placement of instruments within the depth of the soundstage, which was very good prior, increased by a huge factor.

Inductors / Tubes / Cables & IC's / Crossovers follow nearly tied, but in that order.

Fongolio

-Purchase of fully modded SDA-1C's
-Performed a recap and op-amp upgrade on my Carver C-1 pre-amp with guidance from people here
-Installed new (used) Mission 774 tonearm on my Thorens TD-160
-Total re-capping and new resistors plus a bunch of performance mods on my Eico ST-70 tube integrated
-From 0 to over 2000 vinyl records since joining

I've had a huge amount of help and encouragment from forum members in all the above endeavours and many others .

dudeinaroom

Oh man....the biggest one for me was just joining this forum. Next would have been The GFA 555 That I bought off of ht...er..Ricardo. Ran that for a while with a technics receiver that was connected through the headphone jack of the receiver because it did not have pre-outs. From there Snow sent me a gfp-555 and now I was ready to roll. A couple of members here also let me demo some cables which slightly helped treble detail, and had an even bigger effect on imaging and placement in a very nice way. Had to sell Adcom combo because of ruff times. Then I won a B&K pro 10 mc off of a Karma Ricardo had, and Snow said he would send me an amp when it got back from being repaired. Time went on and I had an itch for an amp as Snow was still waiting for the amp to return to him. I saw a Parasound HCA 1000 show up in the fleamarket and I asked if it could be held until I had the cash in hand which was a couple weeks off. Snow ended up buying the amp for me before I had a chance to. I think the best upgrade was getting to the B&K/Parasound combo. The biggest down grade was lossing my cd/dvd/sacd player to a gooey layer of smoke underneath the laser lens that I could not clean. jflail said he would send me an oppo970, as my replacement player died just after the warranty was up. Another nice upgrade was the cs350 much better than the panasonics i was using as a center and a better match to my SDAs. I currently have to replace the cabinet for that, get new tweets for my 7s and repair one of my turntables and acquire another AVR or pre/pro so I can set up the HT again all in time..all in time. Seriously though the BEST upgrade was just joining this forum, with out you guys I'd still have a lot more recovery to do. I tried to send thank you PMs to those of you who had helped me after the fire earlier this year. If you did not get one I am sorry and don't know how I missed you, and if that is the case I thank you for the help that you gave to our family. You helped to put clothes on our backs, and made it easier to get a roof back over our head. You also help put some food in our bellies before we got in the new place as we only had a microwave in the motel that we were staying at. Again I thank you all for your extreme generosity and wish there was something I could do for all of you.

byfthalone

never had heard of SACD but ended up buying a player from Zingo and am lovin' it....in please

codyc1ark

Wow, well, um...

I came from a all sony setup, the fronts we're floorstanders and the rest of the speakers we're HTIB. I bought a pair of SDA CRS's, and that brought me here. Now a true amp'd 5.1, with a big boy for a sub. My wallet hates me now, and the ol' lady fusses about the hobby. Thanks CP.

Happy Holidays!

Joe08867

Bought a set of SDA2's and came hear a few years later to see what tweaks were out there for them.

Using ideas I read about hear, I did the crossover mod to make them TL's upgraded to RD-0198 tweeters along with dynamat for the baskets and cabinet interior. The change was so drastic that I thought I did something wrong but the wrong was so much better than I could ever had hoped for. Now I sing the praises of Polk SDA's to all who will listen.

I also started a dedicated 2ch setup with TT because of this place. Thanks I really didn't want that money in my bank account anyway. Just takes up to much space in the vault.

rromeo923

Top 3 upgrades for me all as a result of this forum.

Tube Amp!!
RDO-194's
Upgraded Crossovers (Thanks Trey)

jwhitakr

Cheers mdaudioguy for the great idea for spreading holiday cheer!

Far and away the biggest improvement I made was room treatments in the way of acoustic panels. Heard about them here at CP, researched and asked a few questions here and am very, very glad I made the investment.

steveinaz

Nice Karma Man!

Don't know if it's a "tweak" but going passive linestage really upped the game in my system, allowing for some serious linearity and transparency.

I'm also a big believer in cable management, and spiking of speakers. I have also found that spiking and weight-loading of disc transports to be very effective.

evhudsons

It's funny, yesterday while cleaning up the office I found my list of things to buy last year and on it was "new speaker". That was before I found Club Polk. All the mods were due to this forum.

Crossovers, tl upgrade, new inductors, tweeters, dynamat, seals, sda cord, speaker wire, spikes, rings, jb weld, new grill cloth, custom stands, norez, separate preamp and dedicated amps, record cleaner, ps30 power conditioner, subwoofer finished in wood to match the room, room alignment, vintage Marantz, a vast increase in vinyl collection, the wife and dog are now audiofilet's, now my friend has some semi-upgraded sda 1c's, my neighbor has the surround bar 6000, another new friend has the Polk garden atrium speakers and is getting some sda soundbars, I fixed and sealed my car subwoofer, upgraded that amp, upgraded the boat speakers, well...I could go on! I'm sure I've forgotten a few things but I'm on the path!

mdaudioguy

C'mon folks! 20 and counting... All great stories!

Tell us all how CP has led you to attempt improvements to your listening experience,
and make me, brgman, falconcry72, and nadams pay!!

Join the fun!
:biggrin::cheesygrin:

mrbiron

Well...I joined the forum due to the HT RtiA setup and i figured i would grill the *minds* of PF for info on how to properly set this up. It was only suppose to be a 10 post count-and-out just to get the basic info but like all things large, gravity brought me back. Since then, i have broken up my HT setup in lieu of a 2 channel setup as this was one of my wants in life. Then all you b@stards started throwing around the word "AMP" which rocked my world. Now i have an Anthem setup with vinyl (was strictly computer based) a DAC (which i didn't even know existed) and i check audiogon every morning and every night for something new. Now i just need new speakers for my 2chan so i can get the HT band back together.

Thanks Guys!!.........$4 post!

Keep up the good work fellas. I'd help out but i've already bought presents for 14 people and funds are tight!

mdaudioguy

Thanks mrbiron.

Now to the rest of you... Don't force me to bump this every hour!! :biggrin:

EndersShadow

Well for me all are related to the first Midwest Audio Meeting @ NooshinJohns place.

At that point I had just purchased a Carver AV-705x amp off CL for 250 suggested by a member on AVSFORUM (who also is a member here Ron Temple) but was unsure as to if changing IC's and speaker wire would make a difference since AVSFORUM has a VASTLY different opinion on this subject.

At that meeting we swapped in different IC's (MIT, Bens Cables, Vulcan, etc) and I did hear a difference in sound. I also got my first taste of Sunfire amps, Maggie MMG's, SDA's, LSi 15's and NAD amps.

As a result I invested in a set of 5 SignalCable Analog 2 interconnects, a set of custom made bi-wire speaker cables using Audioquest FLX 14/4 CL2 speaker wire. I also purchased John's LSi 15's (modded them as a result of forum advice).

I then was given via Karma a Laserdisc player with a Collectors Edition Star Wars set (which I watch all the time), along with a bunch of accoustic treatments.

All of this was due to different forum connections and listening sessions.

If not for this forum I would still be rocking my Monitor 60's, CS2 and Monitor 40 setup.

tommyt21

My entire system and changes are a result of this forum.

Oldfatdogs

I came here to find out how to fix a pair of monitor7bs for my shop.When fixed they sounded so good I wanted redo my house setup from an old fisher setup to new polks.So I bought a set of monitor70s and 40s and cs2 since then for my shop I added another set monitor10s and a second set of 7bs.Now to upgrade all the old monitors crossovers,without this forum I couldn't have done any of it.Thanks everyone.

jon1redleg

Thanks to you guys and CP I put some life back into my vintage RTA15T's that I had sitting in basement doing nothing. I also made new purchase of an Onkyo TX8050 and a Onkyo M-282 2channel power amp. I forgot how great it was to listen to them really was.
So thanks to all and have a MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

mdaudioguy

25... HALFWAY THERE!!

More, more, more!

:biggrin::cheesygrin:

chumlie

Where to start. Started with a pair tsi 400's. Since Club Polk. I now have a set of rti a7's. a set of rti a1's . a Parasound hca1500. Canare speaker wire. And a daughter that thinks i have a audio sickness. Still not done yet. In the Polk spirit i will make a matching donation to the local foodbank.