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Rosco8

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Everything posted by Rosco8

  1. Just finished a 3 State (NSW, SA and Vic) 15 Day Railway adventure with Cruise Express. 8 Trains and 4500km. Stockinbingal NSW Port Augusta SA Pitchi Richi Railway, recreation of the Ghan Brill Railcar Quorn SA Pitchi Richi Railway Steamranger Mt Barker Victor Harbour Drysdale Victoria Bellerine Railway, recreation of the Tasman Limited Newport Workshops Newport Workshops, Gala Dinner for 82 Albury Albury Junee and old GM's Stawell Vic and recreation of Spirit of Progress Geelong and Steamrail set
  2. June long Weekend on our friends farm, outside Scone My new acquisition wandering thru the over grown tracks Wombat wandering thru twin creek crossing Wallaroo Joey, mother was saved by by friends and hand raised. Looking down the Valley Dry Creek reflections My friend Woody bringing back a damaged gate to straighten with the magnificent 'Maid' behind him
  3. A couple of weeks chasing Steam around Queensland. Mary Valley Rattler Gympie and Southern Downs Warwick.
  4. Just spent 2 weeks on the West and N/W Coast of Tassie, great Trip
  5. Large area and as other say a hard ask on that amp. With your budget restrictions I would recommend a good set of 2nd hand PA speakers. I have a pair of QSC K10's active PA speakers, sound rather good for music covering large areas, used mine with a band, events at work and parties on my alfresco. Come in 8" 10" and 12" varieties. 2000W Class D amp on board, 1000W for each speaker .. I sit mine on stands .. can also get a sub or two to go with them. They come up 2nd hand quite often so fantastic value. Next time you are at a big concert their big brothers are often used for live performances., strung together in a semi curve and hosted up at each side of the stage so talking professional gear for professional sound. Plenty of other brands floating around as well. https://www.qsc.com/solutions-products/loudspeakers/portable/powered/portable-pa/k2-series/k102/
  6. I just luv' good street art .. excellent examples
  7. Noice speakers .. I don't think its as much about watts as about BIG transformers .. I run a pair of Apogee 6's (gets down to 2.75 ohms) with 25 watts but its a valve amp with really big transformers and weighs a lot It also runs my Dynaudio C2's which are very demanding though i prefer my Bryston 4bsst which is on that system .. now that brings alive most hard to drive speakers, unfortunately not easy to move around as it weighs a tonne. I do have a spare Music Fidelity A300 Integrated amp .. which is 260 watts into 4 ohms and do live in Sydney.
  8. Pradeep I have a Accuphase A70 driving Harbeth 40.2's, and previously Dynaudio C2's. I was originally using an Ayon Auris pre which sounded great and upgraded to a Supratek Cabernet DHT (older model). I like the fact that I can tube roll and subtly change the sound using various 2a3's or 45's. Its a whole new world playing around with different valves.
  9. I don't see anyone saying spent $25k ... in my tiny mind I was thinking approx $4k as an entry point (2nd hand integrated approx $1.5, my Music Fidelity was under this, 2nd hand speakers approx $2.5), sell your amp and speakers which helps fund them ... Yes again in my little mind you could step up to $8-10k with a power amp like Bryston or equiv for $3k, 2k for a pre, 4k for speakers but i think by your response this is way too much at this point of your journey. You have a very nice turntable, match it up with some quality gear. I luv'd my Wharfdale Dovetail iii's (still have them but need re doing) back in the early 70's, but one of my boys brought a set a while back and not in the same league.
  10. mmm .. not enough information about your room size ... and whats your budget ? I think as a starter you need to replace the amp and the speakers, 2nd hand and buy from this forums classifieds. If you want lots of big full sound (grunt) then the Bryston 4bsst in the classifieds is as good as you will get for the dollars, I have one and they are serious amps, you will need a pre-amp of course, i prefer valve and have been using various brands in front of mine. I find it can run all my speakers (4 different brands, 5 sets of speakers) in the house happily from low to silly volume levels. Music Fidelity have some nice Integrated amps as well, i have a 2nd hand A300 which is also nice. Then look for and trial some good 2nd hand speakers ... you will find that your current spend is but a wee drop in the ocean, but buying quality hifi 2nd hand is a wonderful way to go.
  11. I use Windows PC-> Rotel RC-1570 Pre inbuilt DAC > active speakers for my Desktop system. I have seen these come up used in Classifieds occasionally. I have quite a few DAC's and tried a couple, Arcam and Cayin without a Pre but the Rotel does the job really well, gives me the control i want and simplified the setup. I spend too much time on my PC, and stream TIDAL. I found no need to go overboard as i tend to do most of the time. Luv' the sound.
  12. Sorry, I haven't compared it with a good SS pre so don't know, but i assume so based on my journey which took me from SS to Valve pre's and once there its just gotten better with each upgrade. I started with, and still do have a SS Parasound pre and power amp but my journey changed radically when i acquired a pair of Dynaudio C2 Plats, and an unbeknown (to me) need to reduce harsh highs. I am currently listening now to those Dynaudios, which are on my dining room system and being driven by my original valve pre amp, an AR LS15 Valve with a Bryston 4BSST SS power amp. beautiful sound. I found that the valve amps smoothed out the sound, and added there own pleasant flavour which i like. They pair well to my ears with SS amps. I also ran the Harbeths for a while on my nos 2 system which is all valve, Mc C22 and 2x MC 75's. i was originally recommended the Mc and Harbeth 40's (mine are 40.2) as a great combination and it does work extremely well.
  13. I use a 2nd hand Supratek DHT powered by an Accuphase Power amp .. various speakers, Harbeth, Dynaudio and Apogee and all sound good with this combo, occasionally one pops up here for sale, older ones should just be in your price range. Before that I used a 2nd hand Ayon Auris pre on this system, also a very nice valve pre for the right price.
  14. I was struggling with wifi, my Node 2i's were buffering and stalling quite often, after analysis was way too many devices for the exiting system, its amazing with 4 heavy users in the house on how many devices we have. I had put a number of wifi extenders in but eventually that didn't help as the overall bandwidth was regularly saturated, especially uploads which is quite restricted. I suggest install a wifi analysis app for your phone and test around the house, see how many devices are competing and what each device is using. I was quite surprised to see what cloud based security cameras use, as well as cloud based application platforms such as for my sons mortgage business and lets not mention gaming platforms !!! i am lagging !!!!! I am lagging !!! I researched and put in a Mesh system, Netgear Orbi AX6000 and have a unit at each end of the house, there are plenty of effective lower cost options now. I have high coverage across the house, huge difference. I also pay a little extra with Aussie Broadband for higher NBN uploading, I am currently getting 99 Mbps down and 36 Mbps up. As you would expect my 2x Node 2i's just purr along and no more complaints from the household. So I fully recommend installing a Mesh Wifi.
  15. Wings over Illawarra airshow on Saturday. Comedy of errors, took the wrong zoom lens 70-200 instead of my 100-400 which was in the bag from the previous week from my sons wedding, battery was flat on my new video camera, had plugged it in and it showed green which i thought was charged .. arrived at the show with our VIP tickets and the car queue to the VIP parking was horrendous with a 45 min delay, eventually found out that 2 cars had gotten bogged in the Gold car park. Having been anxious on missing the opening events there was nothing flying, high winds. So only half the show eventually got airborne ... still the rain mainly held off and VIP included a free bar, good food and being right on the flight line. Having the 70-200 forced me to modify my shooting and some use of software tools, which i think turned out alright. Such is life Sadly that was it for the F18's, decommissioned today, awesome aircraft. Still we have Super Hornets flying for quite a while in the ECM role.
  16. I cannot comment on the new models, but as a owner of a Bryston 4bsst i can vouch for its sound quality and ability to handle anything, I use them in a large open area to drive a pair of Dynaudio C2 Platinum which are quite demanding and look to have similarity to your Aurum speakers. I upgraded my Bryston on my main system to a Accuphase A70 which was a step up in sound quality, those Accuphase A48's that sold earlier this month I think would have been a great option to try.
  17. Always thrilling for me when I get pictures published. I wrote an article about my 4wd journey starting in the 70's for the LROC (Land Rover Owners Club) which they published this month including all my photos, the big surprise was getting one of my photos on the front cover. Here we have my mid 70's Series IIa climbing over a dune on Fraser Island in the early 80's.
  18. When i was based in the USA for 26 months (family relocated with me for a year) working for Qantas and I brought back quite a few USA goods, and as long as i had owned them for more than 12 months I was able to bring them into the Country tax free. I kept the receipts to show date of purchase, so amongst things I brought in was Camera gear, 2 sets of speakers, mountain bikes (kids and ours), tools, brush cutter (note bringing in petrol powered gear is harder, oil and fuel must be emptied) and computer equipment. I found this statement ... 'As a general rule you are able to import your used personal effects and household goods into Australia without having to pay customs duty and tax provided; The goods are your personal property and that you have owned and used whilst overseas for at least 12 months before departing for Australia.'
  19. No probs here .. on 1.2 acres, sound treated room and plenty of gap to either neighbours, none at the back. Last house i used to get complemented on my choice of music, only thing is needed to turn off the subs by 8pm as they carried half way down the street Maybe chat to them about their music genres and see if you can fit in ?
  20. Now to finish my years with a Walkman I find really sad and depressing .. I remember a fellow resident at my parents nursing home having a very nice, but smallish hifi unit with a pair of book shelf speakers and all very good brands. He was a classical fan and played his music at low volume. It sounded great, also had an acoustic guitar he played. So there can be a good musical end point if you have to go into a Nursing Home, for me as i have said i am planning on home nursing as long as i can, hopefully many, many moons to go
  21. Shockingly i collected 100 guitars, but i know others with collections well in excess of this. Still i have sold a few and mainly to professional musos, older Jazz and semis and its a privileged to see them being used as they were designed. I liked variety so I have a wide range from lap to shredders and everything in between. At my peak I had 2 buyers in japan and 1 in the USA sourcing guitars for a mate and I. I finally realised that it was never ending, the vast majority are beautiful examples, especially the late 70's and 80's Japanese which i specialised in collecting for a while. The workmanship is just amazing. Oh dear ..
  22. Not all I would say, but on this thread we certainly have a higher than percentage than the norm In my worst episodes, collecting Guitars was the culprit, for a year or more i used my mates place as a 2nd delivery location and then just snuck gear in, occasionally i would get asked is that new ? Nupe been here for ages I reckon Once the stack grew you reach a point where you couldn't tell anyway We can be rather sad with our collecting at times it certainly is addictive for periods of time and i had to eventually work out a self convincing strategy to stop, just hating myself for lack of control I found was not enough. With hifi its relatively easy, with the addictive juices seemingly in full boost I force myself to assume the listening position in my Music Room and then spend a couple of hours or more listening to my nos 1 system and favorite playlists. So far it works as I come to the conclusion what i have is beautiful, and more than enough and I therefore cannot and shall not justify any new kit. At least the majority of my Hifi Systems get used though with Streaming, LP's just gather dust and its rare for a SACD/CD to be played. Cannot say the same about the Guitars (eck), i need way more discipline to play, or tackle the mineral collection I inherited which is still packed in their boxes from 6 years ago !!!
  23. A little off subject but in common ... sorry on my Soapbox !!!! This thread has stirred up one of my pet frustrations so for some here something to think about as we reach those twilight years. What stuns me continually is those that retire and move out of the city to their retirement heaven with little planning on what age will potentially bring. Beautiful multi story and split level homes, houses built on steep land overlooking the sea. I watch those TV series on moving to the country and just gasp .. doesn't matter whether its the Aussie or the UK series, people seem to be all the same. My parents moved into a wonderful brand new 2 story house backing onto a luv'ly reserve in Brisbane and it was their retirement home. 2 problems, all the bedrooms were upstairs and no bathing facilities on the ground floor, just a toilet. Heaven for so many years and then along comes hip replacements because they were very active walkers, kept them young but body wear and tear takes it toll. A camp bed in the lounge room and hand bathing in the kitchen sink. In the end the house was totally unsuitable after my father suffered a couple of minor strokes yet they didn't want to leave which i understood, I argued extending with a purpose built room and basically locking off the top floor but didn't win that argument. I explored adding a lift but that adds a lot of cost they could afford but being of that age having lived thru the post WWII depression they wouldn't spend the money. An impasse. My father had drilled into me for 20 years DO NOT PUT US INTO A NURSING HOME. In the end he made the decision for them both to go into a nursing home, something I had to manage which is no fun, they both lived into their 90's and Mum is still there. A Nursing home is not ideal to live out those twilight years, for years when i asked Dad how was, the answer was 'just waiting to die'. He would have been so much better off to spend another 5 years in his home with home nursing. So in a parallel world disability came a lot earlier to my household so I got to live and learn about accessibility a lot earlier. My wife got diagnosed with MS over 30 years ago and we have lived thru her becoming more and more dependent on aids. We were fortunate that our old house could be modified with some wonderful NSW State assistance, a new bathroom with wheel into the shower and hand roses, ramps and everything else thru pure luck because we were on a single level on a relatively flat block. My oldest though challenged me 10 years ago, 7 years before I retired and says, so you want to retire in this sh#t hole !!! No ... but my plan of retiring down the South Coast with my boats with fishing and walking the dogs on the beach was gone. The priority now was to maintain the hard fought and wonderful health professionals and carers services we had evolved. Not having easy access to our clinics and world class Neurologists would be a backward step so when the medical crap hits the proverbial fan, being near good medical facilities is also a huge factor. So regardless where we decided to live the need for a sensible house rang loud and clear, initially for my wife but as i had seen with my aging parents then also for me. We searched locally for suitable houses for 10 months, but there are few designed or that can be easily modified for a wheelchair near where we lived. Eventually 1 acre blocks became available and we built using consulting services of an OT from Camden Hospital and made the important decision to design for home nursing, and of course have a dedicated home theatre/music room for ME !!! We have now been here 8 years and it works extremely well, and NDIS works well for us to upgrade services and aids as things change. So if you are that age (60+) and are commencing your planning for your final residence please think about your future needs, there is little in escaping the aging process. Some tips. 1. buy a single level house or into a modern unit or apartment that has good and reliable lift access or get on a ground floor, just think wheelchair access is a damm good yard stick for buying. 2. largish bathroom that can support or be modified for wheel-in to the shower, and for rails to be put in .. 3. Minimal internal doors so open plan works best - if you are building then sliding door are a godsend for bedrooms and utilities areas such as laundries 4. Kitchens and bedrooms, plenty of access to stoves and drawers below and around waist height. No wall ovens. 5. Access to the house, hopefully minimal steps (or a lift) and you can install ramps, not on the side of a massive hill .. 6. Access to good medical facilities, which typically means a medium sized city, not that dream block in the middle of no where !!!
  24. Yep it is .. but as you age it becomes something you really need to address.
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