MVP of your system - make it known here!

heiney9

MVP of my system:

1987 Polk Audio SDA 1C - original retail $1600 in oak

mods including RD0's, Sonic Caps, Mills, Larry rings, Spikes about $400 worth of mods.

http://www.polksda.com/sda1creview.shtml

Pass Labs Aleph 30 amplifiers gets a very close runner up - original retail $2,000.00

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/magazine/equipment/0701/volksamp.htm

MIT Shotgun cabling is a very, very close 3rd.

I must reiterate EVERYTHING MATTERS, and the sum of the parts is what makes a winning system, not just a single component.

H9

P.s. I suppose you could look at from this perspective, which component would be the very last thing you would change? For me it would be the SDA's, hence my MVP.

pitdogg2

F1nut wrote: »

Hello Kitty Stereo AM/FM/CD boom box. $43.48.

did you forget the PS Audio power cord you spliced in?

dromunds

Montgomery Wards 8-track with Otis Redding/Jimi Hendrix Experience at Monterey 8-track bootleg

SCompRacer

Joey_V wrote: »

Thought long and hard, here is where I stand in terms of my MVP.

1. MVP - room treatments - .....

This. To paraphrase The Dude, it really ties the room together. Gear, quality of recorded music don't mean squat until you do your best to eliminate them frequency spikes and nulls. It is hard to attain a perfectly flat frequency response in rooms, but you can get closer than living with what you got. You get what you accept. Sweep to see, results might surprise you. Fix it, then you become MVP with room treatments and everything else below you.

tonyb

My MVP is....

ME !!

Do I get a trophy now ?

SCompRacer

tonyb wrote: »

My MVP is....

ME !!

You Ichyban! A #1! lol

MVP - Dayton Audio's OmniMic V2 ($300)

tonyb

LMAO....

Going to play devils advocate here for a second. I get that most you guys favor one piece or another, most of us do regardless, but I dunno man.

Seems to me, when asked what matters most in your system, the majority here have said speakers matter most. Shouldn't that then be your MVP ?

pitdogg2

dromunds wrote: »

Montgomery Wards 8-track with Otis Redding/Jimi Hendrix Experience at Monterey 8-track bootleg

Dude rock it like you stole it

SCompRacer

Speakers matter, as long as you are getting good frequency response with their placement in the room.

My MVP was Dayton Audio's OmniMic V2, cause it showed differences with speaker placement and treatments. When I first plopped my Salks in the room where my other speakers performed best, I was disappointed due to a 15dB dropout in the mids. Rather than saying these speakers suck and tossing them to the curb, I started moving them and improved midrange response.

KrazyMofo24

Joey it's interesting that you said room treatment made the biggest impact. It's something I have been wondering about but going to look into it more. I think I'm good with my speakers, preamp, and dac for now. I was thinking upgrading my B&K amp would be the next move and then cables. Now I'm thinking room treatment should be next.

Are they any brands / models that you or anyone else recommend? My current setup is in the bedroom which I don't see changing anytime soon.

halo

KrazyMofo24 wrote: »

Joey it's interesting that you said room treatment made the biggest impact. It's something I have been wondering about but going to look into it more. I think I'm good with my speakers, preamp, and dac for now. I was thinking upgrading my B&K amp would be the next move and then cables. Now I'm thinking room treatment should be next.

Are they any brands / models that you or anyone else recommend? My current setup is in the bedroom which I don't see changing anytime soon.

GIK acoustic panels and treatments. Do a google search.

miner

1) McIntosh MC452 $8000
2) McIntosh C2300 $6500
3) VPI Aries 3x3 w/ Ortofon Cadenza Black $9500
4) Manley Chinook Phono Stage $2400
5) McIntosh MTC450 transport & D150 DAC/digital pre $7000

miner

^ the above system I don't listen to digital much -reason for SACD player falling in at #5

Mike Reeter

miner wrote: »

^ the above system I don't listen to digital much -reason for SACD player falling in at #5

With a Vinyl Rig like that, I can certainly see why

GlennDog

dromunds wrote: »

Montgomery Wards 8-track with Otis Redding/Jimi Hendrix Experience at Monterey 8-track bootleg

Now, THAT'S what I'm talk'n about!

motorstereo

MVP of my system would no doubt be the Polk 1.2tl's. They've held that position since day one when I brought them home some 5 or 6 years ago. The electronics and interconnects have a nice synergy with each other and no component really stands out. I guess this is part of the reason it's called a system

motorhead43026

dromunds wrote: »

Montgomery Wards 8-track with Otis Redding/Jimi Hendrix Experience at Monterey 8-track bootleg

This Wards Airline was @ one time all I had, and yes it played a lot of bootleg.

WTS

@Joey_V, it depends on what your priorities are.

My priority is music.

Other people may have other priorities. For an analogy, let's say that you and I are both into motorcycles. I like to ride them. You like to rebuild them. Which one of us is right? Neither, and both! We both have fun, just in different ways. I've known people who race motorcycles. I've known people who ride motorcycles coast to coast (as I have). I've known people whose fun was owning, washing, and polishing the motorcycle; riding it, other than somewhere to be seen with it, was purely secondary.

There is nothing wrong about this. Different strokes for different folks. However, sometimes I see that people confuse their love for equipment with love for music.

My greatest musical experiences have been when I was on stage, part of the performance. To pick just one work, my favorite live experiences of the Brahms German Requiem, I was on stage performing with the orchestra and chorus. I have heard wonderful performances from the audience POV (NY Phil, Atlanta Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, and many others), but nothing matches being on stage and part of the performance.

Second to performing, the best musical experience for me is hearing a live performance. I have heard everything from an elementary school orchestra concert, to the Berlin Philharmonic; from a local garage band, to Frank Zappa; from high school jazz combos, to Miles Davis; from a local bluegrass combo just today, to Vassar Clements.

The reproduction of recorded music is third place for me. I like listening to recorded music, I value it, and I listen to recorded music on a regular basis. However, the attempts to replicate the sound of live music is just that, an attempt. No recording fully replicates the live music experience, and no recording even comes remotely close to the experience of performing.

The stereo system is the tool.

If all you want to do is hear music, a $5 AM/FM radio will do the trick. At the other end, I once listened to a recording through the six- or seven-figure stereo system of a friend of mine who used to write for Stereophile. It was impressive, but I would still rather hear the music live. (In fact, I *did* subsequently get to hear my friend perform live the very piece that he played on his stereo for me.)

My stereo is between these two extremes. In quality it's much closer to the above mentioned six-figure stereo; in price it's closer to the $5 radio. That's because of the 80/20 rule: you get 80% of the results with 20% of the effort (or, in this case, cost). I can afford to spend more than $5. I can't afford to spend six or seven figures, and I doubt I would even if I could.



If your reaction to this is tl;dr, here's the summary: I like performing best, listening to live music next, listening to recorded music third. For me, the stereo is the music delivery device, nothing more (or less). Other people have different priorities, and that's okay.

Re my "gullibility" comment in another thread: there is an embarrassing amount of snake oil out there, and some people buy into it. The good news is that none of that (to the best of my knowledge) is produced by Polk.

But if you really want me to list devices, the first two I'll mention are my Grado headphones and my Etymotic in-ear phones. In the last few years and until recently, I've probably listened to more high-quality recorded music through them than any other way.

[Deleted User]

I slipped on some snake oil once and slid right into a white van.
I Bose'd my knee and had a monster headache.

halo

I just got on the 201. Waiting to leave Howard.

My meds are ready at Walgreens.

SCompRacer

rednedtugent wrote: »

I slipped on some snake oil once and slid right into a white van.
I Bose'd my knee and had a monster headache.

lol

SCompRacer

Joey paid his dues. IIRC at least four years in school and then 3-7 years residency. If he wants to spend his dough on nice gear, he earned it. But you don't have to spend a fortune to have a great sounding audio system.

Take a look at how many rooms are acoustically treated at audio shows these days. What were those high end speakers that had identical speakers in each room? One room treated, one not treated, each with printed graphs of room sweeps to view.

The difference you heard between the treated and untreated rooms wasn't snake oil. The treated room had better bass and a flatter frequency response so the replayed music didn't have certain frequencies that were greatly amplified, nulled out or muted.

SCompRacer

DSkip wrote: »

I think that was the Magnepan rooms, right?

It could have been...GIK has done that as well.

Oh snap, poor memory, it was Sonus Faber Stradivari speakers with Pass mono blocks.

lightman1

rednedtugent wrote: »

I slipped on some snake oil once and slid right into a white van.
I Bose'd my knee and had a monster headache.

But it all got better when you rested under the Maple-shade......

Joey_V

DSkip wrote: »

I think that was the Magnepan rooms, right?

SCompRacer wrote: »

Joey paid his dues. IIRC at least four years in school and then 3-7 years residency. If he wants to spend his dough on nice gear, he earned it. But you don't have to spend a fortune to have a great sounding audio system.

Take a look at how many rooms are acoustically treated at audio shows these days. What were those high end speakers that had identical speakers in each room? One room treated, one not treated, each with printed graphs of room sweeps to view.

The difference you heard between the treated and untreated rooms wasn't snake oil. The treated room had better bass and a flatter frequency response so the replayed music didn't have certain frequencies that were greatly amplified, nulled out or muted.

SCompRacer wrote: »

DSkip wrote: »

I think that was the Magnepan rooms, right?

It could have been...GIK has done that as well.

Oh snap, poor memory, it was Sonus Faber Stradivari speakers with Pass mono blocks.

It was resolution acoustics room with Pass and Sonus Faber Stradivaris.

Not Magnepans.

muncybob

My system is very modest. I recall the biggest piece that gave us the biggest sound improvement was the SDA 2B's. I don't recall original retail but I picked them up for about $400 20+ yrs ago. They then became a repeat MVP when all the mods I read about here were performed to them.
The 2nd MVP was going to a Parasound(again not sure on retail but I paid $200 for it) amp...yes, only entry level with the 1000A but this combined with the 3rd MVP which is my Dynaco tubed preamp(original retail somewhere around $1k?) has us satisfied for the moment.
There have been other additions along the way but these 3 have been more of a wow factor than anything else. Of course it still leaves me wondering what improvements we can get by going up the ladder. I think our next step will be something like the A23 amp but the Mrs will veto that for at least another 6 months

mrbiron

Here ya go. I had a spare minute. In order of greatest return to least.
I am legally deaf on half of my squash (yet no hearing aids in the foreseeable future chosen by me) so the minute, if any, change with cabling was falling on deaf ears *rim tap*...thus, them being placed at the lowest end of the list.

This begs for a cable debate to ensue.
Please don't!

#1 Speakers - Zu Audio Omen MK-1B's - $1,500
#2 Integrated - Peachtree Audio Decco 65 - $1000
#3 Power Cleaner - PS Audio UPC200 - $450
#4 SC Cables - Zu Audio Mission SC - $250
#4 PC Cables - PS Audio AC3 - $80ea
#5 Comm Cable - Wireworld USB - $60

I think my MRSP's are close based on interweb searches.

Changing from RTiA5's to the Zu's was the most eye/ear opening experience i have had to date. Even i could hear the difference. They will be sticking with me for a while. Currently pulling HT duty paired with an Anthem receiver while my kids control the living room...

Joey_V

Interesting correlation I see... Price is loosely correlated to MVP rankings.

WTS

Rick88 wrote: »

Electricity.

In all seriousness, I'm very surprised that more people haven't listed their speakers first...

Good point.

Polk Monitor 7C, now TL'd with upgraded crossovers.

mhardy6647

lightman1 wrote: »

rednedtugent wrote: »

I slipped on some snake oil once and slid right into a white van.
I Bose'd my knee and had a monster headache.

But it all got better when you rested under the Maple-shade......

... or, even better, nightshade.