Thread: Do we have any audiophiles in the house?

I have tried pushing these closer to the wall and the sound was awful in comparison. They currently set about 3.5 feet from the back wall. So you are right about need the floor space, but I have found that when I had box speakers they took up about the same space due to needing to be a couple feet out from the wall plus their cabinet size. It looks like those SMG's are about the same width as the 1.6's, so if your room can handle 3 or 4 feet from the back wall there are some really good deals out there on used 1.6's.

I am almost 50% deaf so all those pretty things are wasted on me....sucks too cause I love music

Yes, mine do sit a good 2-3' from the back wall to give the best sound. My main problem is the height of the speakers relative to the room size. A pair of 1.6s would make my small room seem even smaller. Heck, this isn't even SWMBO talking here.

After 2 dozen years, these speakers must certainly give up the ghost one day soon, then I will certainly upgrade.

I used to work at Circuit City and bought a ton of audio equipment. I have not bought anything in quite a while, but here is my setup:

Monster Cable Voltage Stabilizer
Monster Cable Power Conditioner
Denon AVI-3808
Onkyo M-504
Onkyo M-501
H/K 8 channel amp (forgot the model number and I am out to sea right now)
Polk RT-2000's
2 Infinity CC1 centers
2 sets of Polk rears (7.1 setup)
Velodyne 1210 Sub

Originally Posted by Speedster

After 2 dozen years, these speakers must certainly give up the ghost one day soon, then I will certainly upgrade.

I had my Maggies re-filmed.

Back in the day when speaker cones were paper and then treated paper after about 10 years or so the paper would start to dry out and the sound would slowly deteriorate. Now they use kevlar and other materials and they never wear out. I have a pair of vandersteen 3s which are 25 years old and they sound as good as the day I got them.

Here is my gear to date

Rotel RC-1070 Pre-Amp
Rotel RB-1070 Power Amp (130X2)
Rotel RCD-1072 CD player
Rotel RT-1080 Tuner
Rotel RLC-1040 Power Conditioner

Speakers: Bowers & Wilkins 805s

Interconnects MIT

The amazing thing about this thread, is that our kids in this whole new generation haven't a clue as to how good music and sound. The fact that the turntable. I kept, a Luxman linear arm, which was a little better than just okay in our day is now something that everyone who sees it wants to know if it's for sale. The funny thing is, while it is a good turntable. The prices of the new ones such as SOTA, or Lynn are in the $50,000 and up range. I can imagine what the stuff I sold as I was trading and swapping would be worth today, especially the Mac amps, and things like the old Dahlquist speakers which were things that were subjective to people's ears would be worth today. The Mac amps are lost on me as I couldn't appreciate the difference the tubes made, and one I told the sound engineer that I thought his speakers sounded like crap to me. He almost had a heart attack. Something like that is subjective to him though speakers were great, to me, they sounded tinny as all get out and hardly worth half the price, but now that you can get them probably get three times the price. And when you try and explain clipping to the iPod generation. All you get is a blank stare. But I think I'll keep my old stuff as they just don't make things like that anymore.

Probably the only area of audio that has improved over the years are speakers. Back in the 70s the best were really bad. The cats meow were a pair of AR 3a speakers. I had mine up until I got the Vandersteens and by comparison the AR's sounded terrible.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Probably the only area of audio that has improved over the years are speakers.

True. Speakers these days will last almsot forever if properly cared for.

Marketing would be the other area where the audio sector has vastly improved.