Bean

Wave as you go by Gary if your on I55 about 35 miles south of Chicago Hehehe... its Dan. The only Gary I know is TNRabbit. I will be driving up 65N from Indianapolis to the Toll Road, hit 90/94 and then take 94 to the Milwaukee area.

Well hows about that.... I drive through Chicago on Wendsday... you wouldn't need to lighten your Carver amp load by a TFM-55 by any chance would you

too many words... bookmarked for later lol......

Ideally there shouldn't be anything between the speakers.... notice the quotes around ideally. This is true for most stereo speakers such as Carver AL-III's, Magnepans, etc.... But ideally and reality dont always meet... So keeping as much stuff out of the way as you can is good. Or pull the speakers out where they are NOT flush with the system if possible. I honestly am not sure how I am going to set mine up just yet. I have a "plan" but until I get them in the room I wont really know. I am hoping I can minimize things keeping my gear a bit behind the speakers but again not 100% sure... I think in my case as long as I can keep the gear at or below the height of the rear firing tweeter I will still get a large part of that wrap around effect... Ideally I would break into the closet behind my setup and build an enclosure that comes into the room but is flush with the wall. I may still do that eventually lol...... I also need to investigate the linen closet in the bathroom thats behind that wall to see where it falls. If I can take some of that for a rack, I probably will but again I wont know w/o drilling a tiny little hole lol.... while my wife isnt around

So funny story here folks.... I am all digital. However I find that honestly unless you have really good gear and really good ears the difference in high rez starts to blend together the higher the bitrate. My DacMagic automatically upsamples everything I send it and thats enough for me. I used to try and stay digital till I hit the pre-amp, but its just not easy to do anymore. So I find that once you have a decent DAC that can play your music right, just stop. Keep the rest analog and just get decent cables. I dont download high-rez stuff because its more expensive than the physical CD (which is then ripped to FLAC) and is still NOT ALWAYS actually high rez. Besides lets be honest, most music that is popular today has a MUCH more pressing issue than its bitrate - compression/dynamic rage or lack there of. If I am gonna listen to some Skrillex, Deadmau5, etc, the music is already compressed as a source file. The bitrate cant really help with that so why spend more for it. Besides buying the Cd is cheaper, you get a physical copy on top of the digital one as well. Plus I see no point in rebuying my existing library in a higher bitrate.... But thats just me. I will say though that digital is here to say as its MUCH easier to transport music between devices and I plan to stay digital with no CDP at all, and just my TT for the older stuff I already have. I dont go out of my way for LP's at all but if I find some I will take em lol....

Link to that kit? That setup looks VERY nice and very modern (with housing the transformer external and all...)

I'm all in digital. I have a Squeezebox Touch Classic downstairs to stream music to my AVR (Integra DTR 5.9) to my Carver amps (AV-705x & M1.0t). Also have a WD Live TV + 3TB external hard drive with all my movies on it so I can watch em w/o getting up.... I use XBMC upstairs to play the same music to my DacMagic to a Sunfire TGP-II to my Parasound HCA-750ii. I've built a couple HTPC's for folks and had one myself I had to pay (tax man wanted his money lol).... but been around the block quite a bit. What you wanna know about the digital stuff, seems like you've got a decent handle on things. Best suggestion, make sure your source files are as good as you can get. Gear cant make it sound better than it starts out with....

I am ill. Speaker thats been on my want list a long time..... Too bad I am not where I could actually utilize them right..... But that doesnt mean I cant be envious lol.... Wish you lived closer, add you to my list of buddys whose houses I like to demo at lol..

Welcome to the Jungle. Hide your kids, hide your wives, but especially hide your WALLET... cause we be making everybody up in here broke...

I am an ABOVE average idiot myself

There are many decent headphone amps out there though. I have run through the Meridian Explorer, Audio GD NFB-5, Objective 2, and all of those are under 200 bucks with the Objective 2 being VERY low cost. Now tube headphone amps..... yeah your gonna pay there, but you better do it to get a good unit. A great place to read up on headphones and amps is headfi.org. Also read reviews at InnerFidelity.com (Stereophiles headphone website)

I own a set of Beyer DT-770's 32 ohm's and for just about any type of normal listening they ROCK. That said, they are not the most "accurate" headphone out there. They excel in enviorments where you don't want others to share your music, just listening while doing other things, or overall long usage. I have had them on for 10 hours straight and my ears didnt hurt or ring, nor did they sweat at all. I wear glasses so it was important they didnt make my head feel like its going to explode, and they dont. Overall they are VERY comfortable and I know as a fact that a lot of broadcasters use them (like the guys that do radio announcing for sports games). Again not the most accurate, but for sure just about the most comfortable out there. If you want accurate, look at the Grado's Gene linked you too. I put my ears on some RS2's once and they just sounded PHENOMENAL!

Now THAT I didnt know. Thanks for the info. Also the Squeezebox's do have a digital out as well to connect a DAC to them. That said the Roku box's are cheaper but not sure how user friendly the interface is. With the Squeezebox's at least you have ALL control via your phone and it works pretty good. Will have to go try it on my Roku tonight.

The Squeezebox Classic (version 2 & version 3) as well as the Squeezebox Touch & Squeezebox Duet both can access MOG. You run it as a "app" on the player. See link: http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/08/logitech-squeezebox-gets-mog-personalized-music-streaming/ http://feedback.mog.com/forums/77043-home-audio-suggestions/suggestions/835935-mog-for-squeezebox Squeezebox homepage (its in the header all the apps it can run and it can also run Pandora too which is nice): http://www.mysqueezebox.com/index/Home As a sidenote Logitech support has been killed for the Squeezebox line but there is still a MASSIVE group of folks using the products. There is a TON of info out on these units, but IMHO they are the BEST bang for your buck player right now as the Classic v2 and v3 can be had for around 125 bucks on ebay and you can use a app on your phone to browse your library and control playback. Or you can use your laptop as well to access things too.

Cool. It took over a year of a couple people bugging me to do it before I jumped in and now I can say its made my commute to and from work, and during MUCH better. That and I also have a Squeezebox that has a MOG app so I can use my phone to pull up my favorites, etc. It makes those few mins here and there I have to listen to music much more efficient, albeit at the cost of quality, but I find for most listening its adequate. I will PM you my phone number if you want so we can discuss it sometime as I honestly am a HUGE fan. Its also a great way to listen to an entire album before buying a CD copy so you know what your getting... I like everything I am hearing (pun intended). I signed up last night but didnt have a chance to play around much, and not much today. I need to investigate the players, as that is the one thing I use most often. Logitech and Grace both make them I think? Gotcha. Logitech Squeezebox's (Classic and Touch's) have the MOG app you can use to listen to MOG through them. Otherwise you could just connect the phone directly to your pre-amp but thats not how I suggest doing it . If you have any questions let me know.

Call me instead..... you wont miss a box or two.... hehehe

Cool. It took over a year of a couple people bugging me to do it before I jumped in and now I can say its made my commute to and from work, and during MUCH better. That and I also have a Squeezebox that has a MOG app so I can use my phone to pull up my favorites, etc. It makes those few mins here and there I have to listen to music much more efficient, albeit at the cost of quality, but I find for most listening its adequate. I will PM you my phone number if you want so we can discuss it sometime as I honestly am a HUGE fan. Its also a great way to listen to an entire album before buying a CD copy so you know what your getting...

I haven't noticed an issue but IIRC Pandora changed its terms of service and made some changes to streaming quality as well. I also stopped using Pandora and spent money on a MOG subscription in order to get better quality. I would highly suggest checking out MOG. Its a subscription service but it allows you access to the entire 12 million artist library. You get unlimited desktop streaming for 5 dollars and if you get the 10 dollar plan you also get unlimited streaming on your smartphone and can download the tracks for offline playback.... Oh and I forgot to mention... its a GUARANTEED 320 bps whereas Pandora is at max IIR 128 with Pandora One and even less with the free version. Spotify is a similar service but it only offers up to 320 bps so you dont always know if your really getting high quality or not.

I know that it ONLY matters if pics are there... so here are some pics of Pauls setup in the "Man Cave" (taken from Club Polk). He's got a better setup upstairs, but dont see pics of it... TT upstairs:

True, but given how small they are, reach out to folks on the forums you visit and see if one of them cant help ya out if you find a place near em to do it for cheaper. They dont look like they would be that expensive to ship if the price for the painting is right.

As long as it looks good from the LP who cares. Kidding, Kidding, I know how OCD can drive you mad about something no one else but you would notice or care about. A suggestion would be to see if there are any auto body shops that will spray it for you with their stuff next time they redo a black colored car.... They could also clear it I would think. I know the former owner of my LSi 15's had them re-sprayed after doing some cabinet work as a result of shipping damage. And without me telling you, no one would ever know.

Late into this thread, but also like Snow I have read nothing but good things about that particular model line. They are also very interesting to look at and I wouldnt mind owning a pair sometime myself.