Happy To Have Found This Forum

[Enatai252]

Greetings and Thank You for providing a great place to share thoughts related to a shared passion of trying to recreate the live listening experience through recorded media and the equipment we use to get us there. I also enjoy cars, watches (my favorite I own is PAM 317 but original seadweller is right up there) golf and boating.

I have been involved for about 24 years starting from my first purchase at Lyric (Bryston 3B, B&W DM640, Sony CD555ES and Carver preamp). Still have the first 2 pieces.

currently i have 4 systems that get regular use

in my cabin I have:
ARC REF 40
ARC Ref 150
Wilson Duette on dedicated stand
ARC Ref DAC
Naim HDX-SSD with QNAP 559V2
transparent cabling
Russound distributed sound system with Rotel amps and B&W inwall speakers (6 zones)

main system(hybrid 2CH/HT)
Ayre KX-R
Linn LP12SE/EkosSE/Akiva/radikal
ARC Ref Phono 2SE
Vivaldi DAC/Clock/Upsampler(arrives 3/5)
Ref 250s
Ayre MX-R
Wilson Sasha (Alexia arrives in 2 weeks)
Naim HDX-SSD for media server with QNAP 559V2

Classe CT-SSP
Ayre DX-5
Runco Vistage 63HD with DHD4 Controller
Runco VX-11d projecor with DHD4 controller
Stewart motorized drop down screen
Wilson Center3 and suround2 speakers
2 JBL F212 subs
ARC DS450M-center
ARC DS225-Surround
transparent and vahalla cabling

HT goes through Ayre preamp in passthrough mode and typically uses the MX-Rs....for dedicated 2 Channel i switch to ARC 250s and only the Sashas are active. Ref Phono and DAC go directly into Ayre preamp

one other cool thing is that both Naim HDXs use Qnap-559v2 NAS with 4 1TB drives. the Qnap has remote replication feature so i setup the 2 NASs (located in main home and cabin) to talk to each other. When i rip or dowload a new CD/file at home....the music is automtically updated in the cabin....so all my music is avilable regardless of which house i am at. i am a big fan of Naim with respect to digital media server....and I am one of their beta testers. Some other cool features on the way soon...

Study
SME 20/3 TT/SME V arm/Titan i
ASR basis exclusive (new version)
Naim CD555/PS555DR
Naim NDS/PS555DR
Moon 850P preamp
Woo WES/Stax 009 (also have Omega V1 and V2 but 009s are much better, just very revealing of bad sources)

Family Room
Classe SSP-800,CDP-502, CA-2200, CA-3200
Thiel Powerpoints and SS2 sub
Runco 50" plasma

on the beach right now is the ARC Ref 5SE DAC8 and VS115 - tears

i look forward to learning from this group and sharing where i can. while i have a few new pieces of gear coming...i have been focused on building software collection both vinyl and digital.

 

[Jazzhead]

Holy Cow !!! that's a lot of gear ..... Welcome on board , it gets lively around here at times, so don't forget to duck for cover ...

 

[Mike]

Welcome, Enatai252!

 

[garylkoh]

Welcome, Enatai252. There are quite a few of us around your neck of the woods.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Welcome Sir!

Your ride ain't to shabby either!

 

[amirm]

Nice to welcome someone else from our neck of the woods . I think you have broken some record in how much nice gear you have .

 

[microstrip]

I am very pleased to welcome someone with so much excellent tube equipment in WBF!

 

[vinylphilemag]

Welcome, and my, what a drool-worthy collection of gear you have!

 

[DaveyF]

Welcome. I see you have a Linn LP12 with Radikal. Could you tell us your impressions of the Radikal upgrade. Quite a few Linnies here...not too many with the Radikal.

 

[Enatai252]

Welcome. I see you have a Linn LP12 with Radikal. Could you tell us your impressions of the Radikal upgrade. Quite a few Linnies here...not too many with the Radikal.

I may not be best qualified for a with/ without comparison as I purchased the Radikal at the same time I bought the LP12. I had a late 80's cirkus lp12 w/vahalla as my first TT that I bought from David at Accent on Music in NYC....he upgraded it to a Lingo ( this was back in the mid 90's). I loved the pace and rhythm that TT provided and enjoyed it for over 9 years. It 2002 I replaced it with an SME 20/2... Which brought much more detail and resolution to the party, perhaps losing some PRAT...but I never found it sterile. 2 years ago my local dealer here helped me sell the 20/2 and replaced it with a 20/3, A great table. I however wanted to also listen to vinyl in the main room after I upgraded it...and selected the LP12 SE (keel, trampolin, Ekos SE) and New Radikal. If I compare to my old lingo'd LP-12. All of the pace and rhythm are there but there is also depth of soundstage and resolution of micro details that were not there with my old LP-12. I think the SME still provides a more stable image and slightly more resolution at the bottom especially...but the LP-12 is probably listened to more because I just really enjoy listening to it...in fact...It may be more accurate to say I forget to listen and just enjoy.

 

[Peter Breuninger]

Welcome Enatai252 This is the best audio forum on the Internet. The members here are very experienced. The moderators keep the noise low and the founders are cool.

 

[DaveyF]

I may not be best qualified for a with/ without comparison as I purchased the Radikal at the same time I bought the LP12. I had a late 80's cirkus lp12 w/vahalla as my first TT that I bought from David at Accent on Music in NYC....he upgraded it to a Lingo ( this was back in the mid 90's). I loved the pace and rhythm that TT provided and enjoyed it for over 9 years. It 2002 I replaced it with an SME 20/2... Which brought much more detail and resolution to the party, perhaps losing some PRAT...but I never found it sterile. 2 years ago my local dealer here helped me sell the 20/2 and replaced it with a 20/3, A great table. I however wanted to also listen to vinyl in the main room after I upgraded it...and selected the LP12 SE (keel, trampolin, Ekos SE) and New Radikal. If I compare to my old lingo'd LP-12. All of the pace and rhythm are there but there is also depth of soundstage and resolution of micro details that were not there with my old LP-12. I think the SME still provides a more stable image and slightly more resolution at the bottom especially...but the LP-12 is probably listened to more because I just really enjoy listening to it...in fact...It may be more accurate to say I forget to listen and just enjoy.

Thank you Enatai252. That's an interesting comparison between your Linn Radikal LP12 and your SME. How much would you think the difference in arms would account for what you hear?

 

[NorthStar]

-- Enatai, is there an audio forum on the Internet where you are mostly active?
...And with a fair amount of posts with pictures.

Best regards,
Bob

 

[Enatai252]

-- Enatai, is there an audio forum on the Internet where you are mostly active?
...And with a fair amount of posts with pictures.

Best regards,
Bob

I have not been that active in the past but the advent of tablets has provided more opportunity. I have spent some time on Audio Aficionado but no pictures active...the links to my galleries have gone stale. When the Vivaldi stack gets set up( arrives today) I will post some of my main system and study...and maybe some more when Alexia arrives.

A little worried you may not like my room color....just kidding

 

[garylkoh]

Do you know about the Pacific Northwest Audio Society? www.audiosociety.org

We are a bunch of music lovers who also love gear and we gather 2nd Thur of every month on Mercer Island. If you live in Enatai, that's just 10 mins away. Visitors are always welcome.

 

[Enatai252]

Thanks for the info Gary...sounds both fun and informative. March is out unfortunately....but I will try to get out soon. Really appreciate it.

 

[treitz3]

Hello, Enatai252 and welcome to the What's Best Forum. Glad to see that you have found us. Looks like you have some nice gear and some very well respected speakers on the way. Do you have a rig slated for the Alexia's?

Tom