I'm done! The coolest 2-channel stereo I've ever owned

Hi-Buy

Sweet ! Thanks for the link, nspindel . It even holds a good amount of weight.

reeltrouble1

excellent, especially without the black box, good decision.

RT1

Marty913

A very nice job, Neil. What's next? Some 2.3's, 1.2's maybe. Replacing the NAD 2200 (a great amp by the way). You can't possibly be DONE man, that's just anti-Polk.

engtaz

Nice setup. Congrats

engtaz

nspindel

Marty913 wrote: »

A very nice job, Neil. What's next? Some 2.3's, 1.2's maybe. Replacing the NAD 2200 (a great amp by the way). You can't possibly be DONE man, that's just anti-Polk.

Next up, headphones! Actually that leads me to an interesting topic, think I'll start another thread....

cubdog

Very nice, but I too think you need to add a TT. It just completes a 2 channel set up.

cubdog

ben62670

Nice work. I used that same inductor. Great upgrade on the cheap!
Congrats
Ben

nspindel

First problem with adding a turntable into the mix is that I'd need a phono pre-amp, and then I'd have to start switching wires around to change between the two.

I think that's part of the magic of the vacuum tubes - they really make my cd's remind me of what listening to vinyl used to be like. I feel somewhat less inclined to head down a vinyl road now that I've got tubes in the mix. CD's just sound so much more "analog" now.

candyliquor35m

nspindel wrote: »

First problem with adding a turntable into the mix is that I'd need a phono pre-amp, and then I'd have to start switching wires around to change between the two.

I think that's part of the magic of the vacuum tubes - they really make my cd's remind me of what listening to vinyl used to be like. I feel somewhat less inclined to head down a vinyl road now that I've got tubes in the mix. CD's just sound so much more "analog" now.

Good point. The more and better tubes I get, the less I'm listening to vinyl. Vinyl still rocks with or without tubes.

rml

Nicely thought-out system that uses some cool technology. Congrats!

eugene65

Really cool set up. I would love to hear how it sounds in the sweet spot.

nspindel

eugene65 wrote: »

Really cool set up. I would love to hear how it sounds in the sweet spot.

It's pretty good :cool:

ben62670

Did you happen to try the big inductor upgrade seperately, or did you do it all in one shot?
Ben

nspindel

All in one shot. Dude, I've done so many mods to this setup that I've given up trying to isolate what's what...

ben62670

nspindel wrote: »

The stock inductor is 3.5ohm. The one I replaced it with is 0.5 ohm. Definitely added some extra slam in the bass.

I can't agree more;)

Face

Looks great!

I plan on doing the 4.1TL upgrade next month, I can't wait.

candyliquor35m

It only gets better from here

nspindel

Let the break-in begin!

I started tonight at 8:00pm EST. I'm going to take hearingimpaired's advice and keep the amp/pre-amp on for 340 hours to keep pushing the speakers. Rounding up, that means I can power the amp down the morning of April 8.

I've seen others advising blankets on top of the speakers to muffle the sound - that seems to help a bit with the WAF.

David from Little Tube wasn't thrilled about leaving the tube pre-amp on for that long. I've been corresponding with him a bit about it, we agreed that I'd keep a fan blowing over the preamp during the break-in period. For those of you that don't own tube gear, it gets HOT! I bought an $11 fan at Target, which is keeping the preamp ice cold. I'll just turn it off when I want to do any real listening during the break-in.

The Squeezebox needs 550 hours, so 23 days of continuous play. I'll be away during the week in April when the 550 hours is up, so by the time I get back it'll actually be over 600.

I have some questions about break in, but think I'll start another thread for those....

dragon1952

Very nice! Congratulations!

nspindel

Thoughts during break-in....

Had some network issues on Monday night, so had to start it again on Tuesday morning. So I'm just about at the 80-hour continuous point (my wife is LOVING me...).

I'm definitely hearing things differently than I did before this started. My reference album is always the MFSL 24K Gold Dark Side of the Moon, which I've had for almost 20 years. Things have definitely tightened up. It seems as if everything has come together more. Better detail, tighter bass, better separation. I'm starting to think that this is getting to the point where my ears won't even notice further improvement because it sounds so darned good now!

It really is fascinating to monitor the effects of the burn-in process. The first mod I made to the system, a few months ago, was the SDA XO's. When I first fired them up (again, DSOTM was the first thing I played) I almost thought there was something wrong with the speakers. I was getting ready to pull the XO's out again and check my solder joints. The intro "heartbeat" at the start of Speak To Me literally sounded like pure static. It didn't even resemble bass. When I listened to it again after about 10 hours of playback, that static was gone and the heartbeat sounded a lot better. Nothing like now, of course, but just noting the point that the improvements are blatantly obvious.

Wow, Great Gig In The Sky just started - sounds SOOOO good!

I love this hobby...

dcmeigs

Nice work! Very sanitary. I especially like the squeeze box.

I used an ebayed Escient for a while but it's interface is pretty slow and dated so now I'm trying a Linksys WMB54G http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US/Layout&cid=1137451822026&pagename=Linksys/Common/VisitorWrapper to stream digital signals wirelesly from the Laptop to the receiver. It's got a digital optical output so I can let the receivers A/D section decode the signal. The squeezebox looks like a whole new level. I gotta check that out.

nspindel

They're making a new one now called the duet. It has no display, you can stick the thing in the back of a cabinet and never touch or see it again. It's paired with the new controller that I posted the link to - the combination is $400. I might get it just because the controller alone is $300, so for the extra $100, why not have another player! But I don't think there have been any announcements yet from Red Wine or Bolder about any mods. The stock units sound really good, but the mods push it to a whole different place...

treitz3

Absolutely gorgeous rig. Rock on.

Ricardo

Very nice and clean setup. I'm sure it sounds great also. Congrats!!!

(I'm Done??? he he he).

nspindel

treitz3 wrote: »

Absolutely gorgeous rig. Rock on.

Why, thank you!

dcmeigs

nspindel wrote: »

They're making a new one now called the duet. It has no display, you can stick the thing in the back of a cabinet and never touch or see it again. It's paired with the new controller that I posted the link to - the combination is $400. I might get it just because the controller alone is $300, so for the extra $100, why not have another player! But I don't think there have been any announcements yet from Red Wine or Bolder about any mods. The stock units sound really good, but the mods push it to a whole different place...

First, I think your display is way cool. I think the squeeze box is a better product than the lynksys because of that and I like the idea of the independent streaming rhapsody angle.

I read about the boulder mods, but I don't think I understand the need. I'm sure they are everything they say they are, but why not just use a digital optical cable to either an D/A converter or a preamp with an optical input and let it do the deed .

I do realize that is not your plan- with no switching preamp- but for the rest of us with big stacks of already paid for boxes and wives who are by now resigned to living with gobs of wires, WTF? It seems to me that the problems they are solving are all in the analog section and somebody has already invented the wheel here with quality D/A converters for much less money. Am I missing something here?

Obtuse Dave

nspindel

dcmeigs wrote: »

First, I think your display is way cool. I think the squeeze box is a better product than the lynksys because of that and I like the idea of the independent streaming rhapsody angle.

I read about the boulder mods, but I don't think I understand the need. I'm sure they are everything they say they are, but why not just use a digital optical cable to either an D/A converter or a preamp with an optical input and let it do the deed .

I do realize that is not your plan- with no switching preamp- but for the rest of us with big stacks of already paid for boxes and wives who are by now resigned to living with gobs of wires, WTF? It seems to me that the problems they are solving are all in the analog section and somebody has already invented the wheel here with quality D/A converters for much less money. Am I missing something here?

Obtuse Dave

That thought definitely crossed my mind. I went back and forth between using a separate dac vs. the analog mods (by the way, they do mods to the digital side as well - I don't get it but some swear by the improvement. I'm not trying to sell anyone on doing this, I'm a pretty firm believer that ones are ones and zeros are zeros and that's it, but here are the digital mods). But I don't really think you'd be looking at a separate dac that'd sound better than the modded SB3 for far less than the $525 I spent for the mods. Just an extra pair of interconnects and another power cord, assuming I'd use good cable for the dac, would have cost me over $100. But I certainly see your point, many people use the SB3 just to feed a dac.

I could have gone with something like a Benchmark DAC-1 which has a volume control and used that as my preamp. But then I wouldn't have had these beautiful tubes!

dcmeigs

Your rig is sweet. I wouldn't suggest otherwise.

My thoughts were about adding the squeezebox to my setup. It's all about me, damnit.

I too am sceptical about the mods to the digital section. One of the things they do is change the optical connector to accomodate the high end optical cables they are peddling, but I'm not buying into that crap. I buy my optical cables at Frys for $10 and, like you say, ones and zeros and that's it; I think quality is not an issue until the music stops.

I'm using a modern Yamaha XM Radio receiver with a good selection of optical inputs and a good D/A converter as a preamp, and I just bought a Rotel 200 watt 2 ch power amp to satisfy my hungry SDA2Bs. This allows me to process unadulterated digital signals using optical cables (which are only about $10 at frys) and still have adequate power. The cool thing is that any gadget with optical outputs is fair game for experimentation. without concern for the quality of the analog section.

It's a brave new world! Rhapsody, Jango, media player, itunes all wirelessly streaming from PC's; what's next?

dcmeigs

Is the NAD 2200 a common ground amp? Or have you worked around that issue?

nspindel

dcmeigs wrote: »

It's a brave new world! Rhapsody, Jango, media
player, itunes all wirelessly streaming from PC's; what's next?

What's next is the fact that besides all the great things about the Squeezebox, their software also allows you to encode to mp3 on the fly and stream over the net. So my collection is in flac, but I can connect to my server from my cellphone and stream mp3 format over wireless broadband and listen through headphones while walking down the street :cool: