TerryO

Item: Synergistic Research Fuse either Blue or Black Price Range: Neg. Item Condition: New or Used Extra Info: I’m looking for Either a Blue or Black 3.15 amp Slow Blow 20mm x 5mm fuse. Please pm me if you have either for sale thanks. cheers, Terry

We have a dedicated listening / HT room that measures 4.2m x 6m x 3m and I find it slightly to small, if it was solely a listening room it more than likely would be fine but add a 110” projector screen and it soon becomes a compromise. A 5m x 7m would be my ideal size. Something to take into consideration is door placement which does impact on set up and acoustic treatment as well. When the house was built by the previous owners a focal point of the house design was the then dedicated HT room, they had the walls and ceiling packed with sound proofing insulation and the two centre rear wall French doors are solid 50mm Timber with acoustic seals around and between them. Shut the doors and without the return cycle aircon on I reckon you would eventually pass out from lack of oxygen or heat stroke, they seriously had the room sealed that well. In theory given the dimensions this room should have worked a treat acoustically but it was in fact seriously horrible, a simple clap test could almost make your ears bleed. However once it was professionally acoustically treated the difference was staggering, the only thing is the room is that accurate it now shows up every issue my system has and most any change in components no matter how small is usually very noticeable, which is not always such a good thing believe it or not. Good luck with it and hopefully you will share your room build with us. For what it is worth a often say on here the single most important part of any HiFi system is the room, so having a chance to have a dedicated purpose built room is such a good thing. cheers, Terry

As some have said PL amps are auto biased so power tubes don’t need to be perfectly matched, take it from someone who sells PL amps and KT150’s. cheers, Terry

Yeah hard not to enjoy the TB, it is a fantastic amp, same with the Discovery's both excellent bits of gear on their own, but seriously together they are a stunning combination. It was me who hassled Jeff to buy the Discovery’s when they popped up as I had read on several forums that the TB integrated and the Discovery’s were an exceptional pairing. The shame of it is in his room they don’t work anywhere nearly as well together as they do in my room, he also just sat there shaking his head when we played the TB and the Discovery’s together this morning. Anyway they are now packed up and Jeff has headed off. ... so it’s sulk time. cheers, Terry

Well this morning has been a revelation the combination of the Wilson Benesch Discovery’s being driven by the Technical Brain Integrated is simply stunning, the best sound I have heard in my room, not sure how I can convince Jeff to leave this gear behind on long term loan when he heads back home to the hills later today. ... 😞 This combination is simply magic. ...Bugger!

Geeze thanks for that, yes I'll take you up on the offer, a new Land Rover Defender would be nice. ... ... 😉 cheers, Terry

Yes Daz there have been a number of stand mounts in my room lately and most of them are extremely good, but still my favourite speaker in my room is still the Beethoven Grands. So far no chance of them being moved on anytime soon. Having said that Jeff is planning to bring his ML2’s down for a session and who knows where that will lead. ... 😉 cheers, Terry

Jeff and I had another listening session today, I was lucky enough to have him bring over his very special Wilson Benesch Discovery 1’s to try out and they didn’t disappoint. If you closed your eyes you would swear you had a large sweet sounding yet powerful pair of floor standers playing, they are definitely very nice speakers. To top off the day another SNA member Gary popped over with his Lavardin integrated literally tucked under his arm and man that is one very impressive amplifier, stunning bass control and a huge excellent sound quality that basically killed my updated PL integrated even though it is rated at near half the power. Out of the many amps we have tried in my system over the last couple of years I could easily live with this amplifier, most impressive. . I know they are reasonably rare here in Australia but if you ever get the opportunity to listen to a Lavardin Amplifier make sure you don’t miss the chance, they seriously are that good.

Agreed I have a pair and they are an excellent valve. cheers, Terry

@chimchimster

A $6k system can sound great but only if you have a exceptional room, a great sounding room can make most any system sound much better than it otherwise would. Never ceases to amaze me how many people keep swapping expensive gear trying to achieve that ultimate sound with out spending a dollar on room treatment. The best bang for dollar money I ever spent on my system was to get my listening room professionally treated. Once that was done then it was possible to seriously then start trying to find true synergy between components and the sound delivery I was wanting to achieve. cheers, Terry

Agreed. cheers, Terry

What we found was the better the speakers we had the more we started to listen and appreciate much more diverse music than what we used to mainly listen to, which got us more into jazz and female singers like Jacintha, Melody Gardot etc. cheers, Terry

X2 for me. The reality is having five pairs of low end speakers might seem like a fun thing, but chances are you will end up picking what works best in your system and rest will just become dust collectors. Or you will want better sq sooner or later and then sell them all to find better speakers. You can buy some very impressive speakers for $10k secondhand if you are patient and then use them as a reference point to build your system around as you upgrade over time. cheers, Terry

As Initforthemusic mentioned I have various VA speakers, so yes I can rant on about how good they are but then I would, as I like them. Best to put it from a different view, another SNA member who I’m friends with who owned a pair of Aria 936’s came around and visited last year and we had a great listening session, he went home and shortly after put his Focal’s up for sale and purchased a pair of VA Concert Grands. Now I mainly listen to Jazz, Pop, Alternative and some Rock, but Jason is a died in the wool head banger that is seriously in to heavy metal. Once his new VA’s were run in I asked him what he thought of them and he said they were much better than his Focal’s.. How does the Baby Grand compare to the Concert Grand? With a Low powered Tube amp the Baby Grand is much easier to drive and is better all round than the Concert Grand, with a mid powered (200w) amp the Baby Grand has better bass, excellent mid range, but the top end is not as sweet or detailed as the Concert Grand. Once you add a reasonably high powered quality amp then the Concert Grand is pretty much better all round. However in my opinion bang for buck the Baby Grand is very hard to beat and is a extremely good alrounder with truly excellent bass, did I mention the bass! . Before we purchased these speakers we auditioned quite a number of others mainly in the $6k to $12k range, including Dyn’s, Paradigm’s, Focal (936’s, 948’s),PMC’s, Harbeth’s and some others that were a little less than memorable and in the end we purchased VA’s. However I accept that VA was the pick of the bunch for my and my wife’s ears, but everyone is different and others may well have picked one or more of the others. I hope you find the speakers that make you truly smile, but not being able to audition is a real challenge and a gamble, good luck. cheers, Terry