Thangleby

Bach and his Music - side 4 (looking forward to the second song on this disc, the Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor. That's one of my favorites). I just picked up a Fluance RT85. This bad boy is great.

Lyle Lovett & His Large Band If I Had A Boat (Live) OK, so how does one insert a YouTube video into a comment?

Howdy, neighbor! I live in Spring - off Aldine Westfield. Like you, my introduction to Carver gear was as a young serviceman stationed in the Philippines (Clark AB, RP - Angeles City). I just picked up my first bit of Carver kit a little while ago - a CT Seven preamp and a m-0.5t power amp. Welcome to the forum! We could use more Houstonians here.

Sorry for the late reply. Thanks for the welcome! I watched CheapAudioMan on YouTube tell me that if I had a computer I didn't need a streamer. But, by the same token, the WiiM Pro sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I am thinking that a file server coupled with the ability to interact with WiiM on a client might be the best mix. But I'm just a geek - accustomed to failure.

Thanks for the welcome @Sk1Bum ! I really appreciate it! Sorry for the delayed reply. It has been a ridiculously eventful week. The transmission in my car gave up the ghost. I had to have the car evaluated, work a deal on the rebuild, figure out where I was with money, etc. I tried to reply the other day but I am afraid my laptop seems to have a flaky WiFi card. I submitted a response, got a network not available message, and then was returned to a page where my response was neither saved as a submission nor saved in the comment box. Cue frustration. So now I am typing the reply into LibreOffice Write so I can get it right and not lose it should my flaky WiFi card cause me the same issue when I try to post it. Still, if that is the worst thing that happens to me this week...well...it has been a good week. 😉 I love the file availability here. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have downloaded owners manuals and service manuals for the Carver gear I picked up. That is such a valuable resource. I have never heard of Oppo, but now that I am aware of them I will look into them. Thanks! Once I have all of the Carver gear set up and connected to the Vandies (along with a decent media center in which to house them) I will certainly submit photos. Right now things are cluttered. The current functional system is an inexpensive Sony stereo receiver tied to a pair of Klipsch KG4s, an old JVC CD player and a Dual 502 turntable – all of it housed in an old tall & narrow old school, glass-doored stereo cabinet. All of that will be going to my 82 year old father. He was visiting with me early last year. He is a Norwegian immigrant who loves classical, opera, and 50s doowop. One day while we were hanging out chatting I put Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite on the turntable. He did something I never saw him do before. He stopped mid sentence, listened for a bit, and said “Man, I wish I had something like that at my place.” He is a gruff old fellow, a man from a different era who never spent money on something so “frivolous” as quality sound. I really thought he never cared about it. Turns out he likes it and would love to have something that sounds good at his place. Well, wish granted, Dad. You’re not getting the Pioneer, but let’s get you set up with a decent system for you to listen to. I had hoped to do it over Christmas, but things didn’t work out for me to make the trip up to Arkansas, and then my transmission gave out. I am thinking about asking him and my son (who is also up in Arkansas) to come down to Houston for a week. I would love to go up to Arkansas but given the cost of the repair on my car I need to build my bank account back up. That is also going to cause a delay in getting my CT7 sorted. Ah well. Next up I have a Pioneer SX-1250 (which has an issue with the phono preamp and the aux port) attached to my Vandersteens. The Pioneer is apparently valuable enough that selling it might reduce my amplification/speaker cost to zero dollars cash outlay. At worst I might wind up out a couple of hundred for the system that will reside in my listening room. That sounds pretty good to me. I think I will be really happy with the Carver & Vandersteen gear. The Pioneer has developed an issue in the aux port and the phono preamp. That will need repair prior to me selling it. So, as you can imagine, things are a bit crowded in the listening room! Once I have it all sorted and set up, I plan to post some images of my setup. I love that I can post it here for people who will appreciate the setup to have a look. As it stands now, most people I know pay no attention to such things. I have tried talking about it with some “normal people”, but their eyes quickly glaze over! 😛 OK – another post where I rambled on. Thanks for the welcome! I hope you and yours have a profitable, lovely, happy year!

@AndrewJohnThank you so much for that in-depth response! I'd also like to thank you and everyone else for being so welcoming! My experience with a soldering iron is limited to soldering a long ground wire to a shorter one so my turntable's ground wire would reach my my receiver. One of the things I would like to pursue is learning how to read a circuit, diagnose an issue, and make repairs on a component level. It's something I have long been interested in learning. A few years ago I took a Pioneer SX-1250 to a repair shop in Houston to get it sorted. While conversing with the shop owner - a guy who has been in the business since the 1970s - he mentioned that competent electronic repair guys are a dying breed. He told me that he had a couple haul an old 1960s console stereo from Chicago for him to repair. According to him, the last guy in Chicago had died. He was an old, semi-retired fellow that was doing electronic repairs to keep his mind active. His son ran the business side of things (taxes mainly) so his retired father didn't run afoul of the IRS. When his father died the son closed it all up. The son didn't know anything about the actual repair side of the house and he already had a career he was happy with. The notion of people hauling old gear from Chicago to Houston looked like opportunity to me. I'd like to retire someday. Sadly, given economic reality, straight up retiring looks to be out of reach. I also think one needs to keep himself active and interested in something if one wants to do more than simply wither away once done with the daily working grind. I cannot imagine spending my days getting angry at television programs. I would much rather go to estate sales, find good gear that needs a cleaning and a little solder work, and resell it. I figure that learning how to handle repair on a component level and doing it as a side sort of thing might be just the ticket to keeping me going a few years longer. It might also make enough dough to feed a hobby that at first blush seems like it can be a bit pricey. I can see buying, repairing, and selling as a good hobby - if not a really lucrative one. If nothing else it can help keep quality gear in circulation for a few years longer. Maybe it will help an aspiring audiophile find something he/she can love! As far as I can see you gave some great advice in there regarding the repair. Believe me, I am very big on safety. Safety is actually a big part of the corporate culture where I work. I will take the advice to heart. Thank you so much for that! Regarding streaming - I will definitely look into BluDento. Never heard of them before. I don't personally have a need for multi-room streaming. I do have an AV system in the living room which I cobbled together over the last twenty years. That is comprised of a cheap Denon AV receiver, a pair of Polk R50 fronts, Polk R30 towers as surrounds, an old KLH center I bought at a Goodwill for a pittance, and a JBL passive subwoofer that I just picked up on the cheap because I'm tired of buying used active subs which die shortly after purchase. The Denon offers Bluetooth. It's fine for casual listening if I'm on my laptop in the living room, watching YouTube videos, or streaming the Buffalo Bills. (Go Bills!) I'm also putting together a cheap bedroom system. It will be an experiment in ChiFi/Class D amps. I'm waiting on a Aiyima T10 preamp to be delivered in the next week or two. I thought to put it to use with the M-0.5t while I figure out the CT-7. I'm curious about all that inexpensive new stuff coming out of China. It sounds to me like we might be in a new golden age of hifi. CheapAudioMan on YouTube certainly seems to think so. Once I have the CT-7 sorted and in place I plan to eventually use the Aiyima as a bedroom preamp/DAC coupled with a cheap Aiyima class D power amp to drive the sound from TV/Blu ray video and to stream during a lazy day abed reading. If I find the Aiyima disappointing for straight music listening through the M-0.5t and the Vandersteens, it will at least sound better than the cheap speakers in the television. Well, as long as my sacrificial KEFs aren't sacrificed in the name of learning something new. If that does happen it's nothing more than another opportunity to find something else I like on the cheap. There's no shortage of people dumping their old surround sound speakers on various sites. I find the hunt almost as fun as the listening! OK - I've rambled on long enough. Thanks again, sir!

@all I'd like to thank you all for the warm welcome! I think I am going to like it here very much!

Hey, Andrew! I live in Spring - a few miles north of Houston. I moved to Texas in 93. Most of that time was spent in Huntsville (not as an inmate!) and Houston proper.

Hello, everyone! First, I want to apologize for the long post. I'm new and enthusiastic. I hope y'all can understand the feeling and forgive me for being long winded. I was a young fellow in the 1980s. When I was in the USAF one of my buddies had a Carver receiver (TFM series, I think) running through a pair of JBLs. I lusted after that system but couldn't afford anything of the sort. He was single & living in the barracks. I was married junior enlisted and living in off base housing. Money was really tight back then. Frankly, it remained tight for a few decades after that. I have only recently found myself in position where I could enjoy some of the things in life that I have always wanted but couldn't see my way clear to pursue. It's amazing what time and perseverance can do for a guy, isn't it? I just joined the site as a new Carver owner; or rather, an older guy who just got his first bit of Carver kit - a M-0.5t power amp, a CT-7 preamp & a TL-3200 CD player. I believe the fellow I bought it from might be a member of the site. I know I saw him post on TCS Facebook group. That's where I found the M-0.5t in the first place. He was absolutely a pleasure to deal with. His wife is just as nice as can be. He also had a very friendly cat! According to him, the CT-7 has a wonky left line output. He believes the problem with the preamp is likely just a bad/loose RCA port. I believe he is right. I just downloaded the schematic from the site. While I'm a complete novice when it comes to schematics, I noted that the headphone amp and the output port lie downstream of the buffer amp. We tested the unit using headphones. The CT-7 worked well through headphones. The previous owner told me that he'd get a horrible squealing noise which blew the tweeter on a couple of his speakers unless he propped up the output port with a coaster and a folded up napkin. For a while he ran the CT-7 though an Adcom amp that had attenuators/volume pots, which allowed him to get the workaround working prior to running the amp at volume. The M-0.5t has no such thing going for it. It's a straight 140 watts. Looking at the port I can see that it does move a little when pressure is applied to it. So, a repair is in order before I connect my speakers and start using it here. The plan is to run a Dual 1264 turntable, the Carver CD player, the CT-7 & M-0.5t through a pair of Vandersteen Model 2Ce Signature (series i) speakers. I still need to figure out streaming. I have a couple of questions and don't know if they're appropriate for this introduction forum. Being new I am still trying to figure out the rules. If it's a violation of any policy please let me know. I will delete the questions immediately and post them in the appropriate forum. I do not want to run afoul of the rules around here. You have already been a huge help through file downloads. It looks like the wealth of experience on this site will be a huge help beyond just Carver gear. There seems to be a bunch of old electronics pros here. Question 1: Is replacement of a line out RCA port something that a total novice with a soldering iron can accomplish, or is this something best addressed by taking it into a shop? I have a pair of sacrificial speakers. I wouldn't be upset about if I blew a tweeter in one of them. Question 2: What do you guys do for streaming? I'm an infrastructure tech working in the bowels of a gigantic multinational corporation - more of an IT generalist, really. I'm toying with the idea of building a NAS/streaming PC using Linux. I have a tub of FLAC rips and a subscription to Amazon Music. I have a computer case that looks like an amp. The thing is that I know there are a bunch of pre-made streaming devices out there. That's the sort of thing that's been off my radar. So what do you guys do for streaming? OK - wrapping up - I'm really looking forward to the interaction here. Happy holidays to you and yours & here's wishing all of you the best in 2023!