What hi fi system you got ?

I got old Rotel RCD 855 CD player, (sounds better than my old Arcam 7i) !

Rotel RA 971 mark 2 amp,

KEF Q35.2 speakers,

NVA silver speaker cable and Swiss gotham 'coax (digitol)' interconnect (yes you can use coax cable for audio).

Plus
A really nice 18v battery headphone amp by Neco sound labs off ebay modded with older nicer sounding op amps and a pair of Audiotechnica ATH-AD headphones (did have older Sennheiser HD580 but didn't like them)

Have had lots of other set ups too. But really like this old combo.

A Sony Mini Hifi thing with a MiniDisc recorder built in, the only thing that still works on it, but it was a useful machine at one time what with audio cassette, Compact Disc, Radio, Mini Disc ad pc link up, great for whatever recordable media was required for what in Car entertainment or portable player.

Now it is exclusively an old Creative Zen Vision M for everything plugged in to where it is needed, Mp3 is good enough for me, but plugged into the Sony, it is excellent sound quality.

Music and hi-fi's my main pastime really, esp. now I'm too ill to do much wild camping.
CD player: Theta transport, Musical Fidelity Tri-Vista valve DAC
Amp: Pathos Twin Towers valve-mosfet hybrid
Speakers: Alon Lotus Elite Signature

It's a lovely sounding system in a smooth, natural kinda way - doesn't really have a 'Hi-Fi sound' which I find is often a bit like sonic-pyrotechnics at the 'high end'.
The speakers are superb and too good for the rest of the system really, - you can hear every tweak and inadequacy down-stream. They were the Hi Fi Plus magazines review pair and I got em for under 1/4 full price (over 8K new) ..a very interesting design with open baffle mid and treble: http://www.alonspeakers.com/reviews/lot ... 0403.shtml

amp: http://www.pathosacoustics.com/twineng.htm

It looks posh but just sounds very natural, even a bit boring initially. Instruments and voices sound realistic and it's extremely subtle. Copes well with every thing from Maria Callas to Meshuggah!
..My Pride and Joy!

all modern stuff here, I'm afraid.....


.... Apart from my dad's 35+ year old Kef Concerto's which still sound more amazing than a lot of new stuff...

ferrus that's some seroius kit. I've only dabbled in the lower end of things, but it all sounds different. Hads a Linn and Systemdeck combo turntable that i liked.............an Onix OA 21s amp which was fun........well as for speakers, tricky things.
Only Musical fidelity stuff i owned was an x-can and an x-tone.

i got a proper retro
ROTEL RA1212 running some MONITOR AUDIO RUBY 8 SPEAKERS
the rotel weighs a ton and gets nice and wam when you push it
sounds lovely and is well punchy indeed
the monitor audio ruby speakers are really lovely the clarity of them is amazing especially for what i paid for them
thees are my two favorite items for what i payed for them
new stuff can shut the door on the way out

My stuff is firmly locked on the early 90s'

Aura Evolution VA100II amp
Mission 760's on Cyrus stands
Pioneer PD-S802 stable platter CD player
Linn Sondek LP12

An apt thread, I reckon as I reach a saturation point with retrobikes I'll dabble with some hi-fi I craved BITD. Interesting parallels with mountain biking for me, pored over the magazines of both, largely believed the hype and based most choices on looks. Anyway heres mine or whats left of it.



Gloriously underused as an amp for the computer I guess I would eventually like to have a retro set up but able to play a digital library.

I'm itching to say something...

But wont.

Ok, dammit, its like a bloody What Hifi love in! Valves? For heavens sake why?

Next thing some of you will be telling us you have Russ Andrews cables!