Various Naim boxes into passive SBLs.

Thanks for the replies, lots to consider.

Still using my 20 odd year old Rega as well, it’s ace.
As is the Technics 520 CD player which is about the same age.

Will keep an eye on ebay for some Regas, but will do a bit more auditioning before deciding.

Amp is a PM66se KI, which I’m more than happy with.

In the meantime, Hadge, am on a long shift at the mo but will contact you in the next few days re those MA7s.

Regards,
Peter Belt’s tinfoil hat.

20 years + NAD 3020i amp through B&W DM110s here. Still using my trusty Technics MASH CD player from the same vintage and a newish Pro-Ject turntable.

lamb chop, you have just about described my first HiFi system. The one I have now is much better (in £ terms), but doesn’t give me the absolute thrill my first one did. Hang onto it for another 20 years, mate!

Mission 760se, still going strong after all these years…

10 yr old AE evo aegis 3 floor standers down stairs, though my amp went bang before christmas 🙁 and some ae evo aegis 1s of a similar vintage up here in the office. Been very good purchases.

Kef egg ci with a kick ass REL stadium, not what you would call HiFi but lots of fun with movies.

Mission m30i

Some technics amp.

No idea if either are any good but the old hifi all in one unit packed im and ebay got me the amp for peanuts
Powerful amp bust the speakers

Speakers were procured from gumtree.

Sounds good to me 🙂

AVI ADM 9 with upgraded tweeters and Sub. Sound great and no need for spending silly money on interconnects and cables, just a Sonos ZP90 and airport express via optical in, both live under the sofa, very neat. 🙂

Ho Hum & GJP are obviously men of impeccable taste in audio quality 😉

Cheers bennn, you must have bi-passed my Neat Ultimatums 🙁
I was lucky to get them at a bargain price and think they’re stunning little boxes and bettered my previous B&W PM1’s by some margin too.

I just bough a secondhand pair of massive Ruark cl30, they are huge but great, the deep bass is really noticeable. Running with a creek ego amp. Some stuff sounds a bit cluttered and messy, not sure if that’s down to recording or the system though (or perhaps my room which needs a bit of damping)

Some 2nd hand Rega Kytes from a chap on here, funnily enough. Would like a bit moar bass. They were meant to be a stop gap but Ive never got round to replacing them.

Did cynic-al design the cl30s?

For fixing my bike in the garage I have KEF model 105 with a rotel amp. Lovely, massive woofers.

In the house, a world audio design valve amp into JBL cabinet speakers on Atacama stands.

A pair of Dynaudio Twynn floorstanders being driven by a pair of Denon POA4400A monoblocks. Both of which came from the guy who got me into biking years ago, in fact, he built the speakers from a kit! I dread to think how much I’d have to spend to get something that sounded better

Mackie MR5 monitors. not “hifi” speakers I guess but I like having reasonably flat monitors rather than stuff that colours the sound.

Rega RS5’s and a set of dreamcatchers in the other room which are lovely.

Really want some large Castle stand mounts.

None of this sub satellite crap. Big sound needs big speakers!

Castle Edens.

Bought new for 250 quid (should have been 600) over ten years ago as they were end of line. Having now outlived the Arcam Alpha 9 they were originally driven by, they’re not in the least be shown up by my Naim Uniti 2 that demonstrates just what a bargain they were. Whilst auditioning the Naim I took the Castles in to the shop and set them up to listen to a couple of amps. Having settled on the Naim, the salesman then swapped out the speakers for some $2000 Klipsch floor-standers. They lasted half a song before he resignedly plugged the Castles back in as it was obvious straight away that the Castles were a far superior sound.

In short, if you find a pair of Castles and have a strong punchy amp with which to power them, get those!

B&W D620’s 8)

Wharfedale 9.2’s and SW150 sub for my HIFI. You’ve read the reviews, I quite like them!

Roth Oli 4’s and Oli 2’s for my surround sound. No Sub required. Not so common and scantly reviewed. Picked them up for a bargain with little to loose. Absolutely blown away with the quality and reproduction. Punch well above their weight IMO.

Rural Crusaders with a Rega Mira acting as a pre with a Nad C270 as power and a pair of Ruark Sabres run off the Mira

These: linky

They’re quite frankly awesome.

I am slightly biased, what with spending “some” time making them from scratch. But, 18mm & 25mm MDF based cabs (weigh a ton), air cored inductors & poly caps throughout. The sub is a 80cm cube, all 25mm MDF. Sadly I now don’t have enough room to use all of them and am really only using the small surrounds 🙁

Many moons ago before I had that, I used some NS10 clones. Which were quite nice.

John Bowers (B&W) Active 1’s

Main speakers are a pair of Tannoy Mercury S which, quite frankly, were a bit of a bargain when I bought them 20 years ago. Were being driven by an equally vintage Rotel amp but that has just been replaced with a Yamaha AV receiver. Speakers still sound great.

Temporary hifi setup in the other room is another vintage Cyrus ensemble driving a pair of Mission 752s. These are delivering some nice, full bass sounds and am getting reluctant to sell the whole thing – but wifey not happy with the amount of space being taken up by it all so it will have to go.

Recently auditioned a Naim amp and CD player with Focal 906 speakers. Not particularly impressed with that setup. There was good clarity in the vocals and the higher frequencies but once the tracks got “busy” bass guitar and drums disappeared. Tried with a smaller but more expensive pair of Neat’s and although they held the bass better the top and mid went quite harsh. Not a sound I was impressed with for a pair of speakers costing £1000! Won’t even go near a pair of B&Ws as I have yet to hear a pair that sound remotely pleasing on my ears.

After running a hifi from college days, and getting my first job in a recording studio, I paid a trip to richer sounds.

Tried some mission, and mordant shorts which both very capable, and suited classical music, wanted something to feed my addiction to heavy metal. So settled on these, my amp then was an old marantz, but upgraded that for the surround sound amp with the expected flat screen not long after. The TDL speakers are superb, still going strong after near on 12 years abuse, clean, punchy sound, detailed crisp riffage, throughly recommended if you can still get them.

TDL RTL2 Speakers
Sony STR DB780 Surround sound Amp

ricardo666 – Member
After running a hifi from college days, and getting my first job in a recording studio, I paid a trip to richer sounds.

Tried some mission, and mordant shorts which both very capable, and suited classical music, wanted something to feed my addiction to heavy metal. So settled on these, my amp then was an old marantz, but upgraded that for the surround sound amp with the expected flat screen not long after. The TDL speakers are superb, still going strong after near on 12 years abuse, clean, punchy sound, detailed crisp riffage, throughly recommended if you can still get them.

That’s funny. I tried Missions, Mordaunt Shorts and the TDL RTLII’s as well before settling on the TDL’s. The Mordaunt Short (MS25 MKII’s, I think) were at the time hailed as the best at that price. But, I thought they were really poor. They were good for gentle vocal stuff, but there was no power behind them. They just had no impact whatsoever. I even checked that they had been wired up correctly, as I thought they were out of phase.
The Mission’s were OK, but not as good as the TDL’s and the TDL’s were more compact.

I think I got mine in ’94 at the same time as my amp. The CD player is perhaps a year younger (I originally was using an Aiwa ADF-450 cassette deck).

I used to love going into Richer Sounds and just looking at all the kit. It was refreshing to go into a hi-fi place (even if their stuff isn’t that hi-fi) and not be looked down at by hi-fi snobs who had no time for you, unless you were spending £5k on the latest Naim/Linn set-up.

captaindanger – Member
Did cynic-al design the cl30s?

No, only the Icons, Dialogue 1 (“award winning’ 8) ) and a re-fit to the Paladin and some prototype work on other models.

stumpy01 – Member
That’s funny. I tried Missions, Mordaunt Shorts and the TDL RTLII’s as well before settling on the TDL’s. The Mordaunt Short (MS25 MKII’s, I think) were at the time hailed as the best at that price. But, I thought they were really poor. They were good for gentle vocal stuff, but there was no power behind them. They just had no impact whatsoever. I even checked that they had been wired up correctly, as I thought they were out of phase.

… It was refreshing to go into a hi-fi place (even if their stuff isn’t that hi-fi) and not be looked down at by hi-fi snobs who had no time for you, unless you were spending £5k on the latest Naim/Linn set-up.

Look at the correlation between award winning companies and those heavily advertising in certain magazines.

And remember hi fi shop staff have a LOT of tyre kickers and those wanting to ogle the shiny things to tolerate, so be nice to them if you’re in just to do that.

i use a pair of Bose Model 100’s and a pair of old Wharfedale Diamonds…
they’re not the most glamorous sets of speakers but they seem to do a decent job for me when i use them. they’re very bass heavy which is good for dance music and movies but there are much better stuff out there.

I’ve got pair of Focal 806W speakers powered by a Creek Evo amplifier. Its not the most bass heavy sound but it is very crisp, nibble and gets my toes tapping. I prefer quality over quantity and that’s what they do.

I used to have a set of Focal 807V but the woofer got damaged some how. The shop gave me a great deal on the 806W (W tweaked chassis and better speaker cones) which was just a bit more than getting the original speakers repaired.

Look at the correlation between award winning companies and those heavily advertising in certain magazines.

And remember hi fi shop staff have a LOT of tyre kickers and those wanting to ogle the shiny things to tolerate, so be nice to them if you’re in just to do that.
This.
Also – to get an award every year, you have to release a new speaker every year – hence all the ‘i’ ‘se’ tiny meaningless revisions.

If you think how many tens of revisions there have been since something like the Mission 760s – they must be simply incredible by now!
Yet, a pair of 15 year old Rega Kytes will still sound better to many.

ATC SCM50’s here with the ATC C4 sub.

Good enough that I don’t have any desire to upgrade.

I have B&W CM9s, absolutely love Bowers and Wilkins stuff, these are my 4th set of speakers from them. Using an Arcam FMJ A28 integrated amp and an FMJ P38 power amp bi amped. Sounds great, really happy with it.

ATC SCM50’s here with the ATC C4 sub.
Good enough that I don’t have any desire to upgrade.

Speakers for life.

Neat Elite as their downwards firing bass ports mean their not too fussy were you place them so they work well in odd shaped room. Driven by an Arcam Solo but deserve a better source

Pair or re-cased Yamaha Ns1000m, re-worked XO for the raal tweeter which replaces the Yamaha tweeter.

ATC SCM50’s here with the ATC C4 sub.
Good enough that I don’t have any desire to upgrade.

Speakers for life.

I was a compulsive Hi-Fi upgrader until I got my ATC SCM50 Active Towers.

I’m not surprised – aren’t they £20,000 or something?!

Meridian DSP5200 with a squeezebox touch – simple but stunning

I’m not surprised – aren’t they £20,000 or something?!

a quick google shows a bit lower but **** me! you could buy a few bikes for that! 😯

My cheap and chearful combined music and AV system consists of Kef Concerto Ones ~2000 as main speakers, 4 KEF Cresta 2’s and a Cresta C of a similar age as center, sides and surround plus a bottom end KEF Sub to help out the extremely vocal Concertos below 80Hz all run off a relatively new Yammy RX-V673. System has been chopped and changed over the years but currently adds up to ~£650 due to new amp but SH speakers locally off eBay over a few years.