Soldato
A few of you may remember that I sold my Arcam set up which I had loved for 5 years in search of higher quality for less than I sold the set up for.
My Priorities were:
Sound Quality
Sound Quality
Sound Quality
Value for Money (i dont have much at the moment)
I didnt give a stuff about looks, flexibility or how many jigawatts it had. As long as it could fill a room with sound of reasonable volume, I'd be happy.
So what went:
Arcam Alpha 7SE
Arcam Alpha 8R
B&W 602s
Cambridge Audio Pacific Interconnect
Sony MDS-JE330 (to our very own Yewen)
All in all I got €890 (about £600) for that lot (excluding postage). Left me with a fair amount to play with DIY wise.
What I used temporarily:
Wharfedale DVD-750S
Sonic Impact T-amp
£20 Ariston speakers
Yuck. Thankfully this was only for about 5 hours or so, as I went and picked up a set of oldish (1989) Mission 763s from a guy near me in exchange for a t-amp, so about £30. They were mid range floorstanders in their day, and apart from being a bit bright, they are ridiculously good for the money I paid. I was cautious about floorstanders in my room, as my fathers B&W DM7Mk2's had overpowered my room. These just about are ok - at times are a bit OTT but they'll do until I can scrape the cash to come to the UK and do some uber demo'ing
So that was the Speakers sorted for now, but my source and amp weren't going to win any awards - still stunning for the money though (£50 DVD, £30 t-amp, £30 speakers). I had some big choices to make...
Front end:
I had bought my father a Non-Oversampling DAC for christmas (after Mr_S's educated recommendation), based on the TDA1543 chip and built by Derek Shek. I was mightily impressed by this and seriously considering buying one for myself. I did some research and found that there were a few alternatives out there. One that interested me a lot was DIYParadise's Monica 2 N.O.S Dac. After reading a few reviews, the only major critism was a lower output compared to other DACs. I decided to take the risk, and at $125 who could say no - it was a lot cheaper than the £160 for Derek sheks DAC and used the superior 1545A chip. Review: http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/monica2_e.html
I also bought a Optical to coaxial converter so that I can use the SPDIF output on my laptop for casual listening through the DAC.
Amp:
I was convinced that class T was the way forward on a budget so I decided to investigate what was out there. I'd been blown away by the T-amp on a purely value for money aspect, but it definately got lost when playing some very badly recorded or complicated tracks. It was also a tad bright.
There were several options available to me, the main ones outlined in this review: http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/tripath_amps_e.html. I had liked the look of Charlize, purely from a few comments I'd read, and it seemed stunning value for money. This thread really sealed the deal for me: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66269
Cables:
I have a fair few interconnects here, 2 DIY ones, a decent transparent one and a few of the standard ones - I'll pick what's best. For speaker cable I got some free CAT5 cable and I also got given some Nordost Super Flatline - whatever is the best of those two stays!
So, I decided to put in an order for 1 Monica 2 DAC, 2 charlize amps (with air core conductors) and an alps blue volume pot. The total coming to €310, about £210, only £50 more then Derek Sheks dac!
It all arrived about 3 weeks ago. My original plan was to bi-amp the amps for a bit more oomph, but it turns out that the way I did it, little charlize didnt like her clone, so there was no real difference between one and two of them. I'll get back to that though.
I ran them bi-amped for the first 50 or so hours, and I had a friend around to listen to them, the chap who sold me the missions in fact. We first listened to the Derek Shek DAC with the charlize amps & my fathers B&W 802's. We were using cheap supra speaker cable, Transparent interconnects and a DIY digital cable. We tested various other cables for a while, and almost totally forgot about Monica! Once Monica was plugged in, we put on Dire Straits Communique and immediately went to the final track (one of my favourite test tracks). The difference between the DS dac and Monica was like night and day - we both agreed - Monica had a Magic that the DS dac didnt - sound stage was much better, resolution and separation much better, it made the DS dac sound like it was cheap and totally off the ball! I know people will say that it wasn't a blind test, but there was no need for it - the difference was clear. I didn't mention any prices to him before the demo, he assumed Monica was a lot more expensive then it was.
After that night which was about 2 weeks ago, I have been busy with Uni and sorting the car, so the amps have been in a corner whilst I waited for the time to rewire one using silver wire and see how that got on. The silver wire arrived a week ago and I got lazy. The motivation arrived this morning when a UPS delivery arrived containing my fathers Meridian Monoblocks back from Meridian. I fired them up with the DS dac, and sat enjoying music for a while! I then realised that I needed to build Charlize and do a direct comparison! After spending 3 hours trying to get my thermostat housing free on my car, I decided to give up and head inside to do a bit of soldering. A couple of hours later and charlize was all wired up ready to be played solo. It was actually louder with 1 than 2 - which was odd - must have been how I wired them initially!
Anyway - I'm once again blown away. I havent had the chance to do a side by side comparison yet with my dads system, but for the money it's astounding.
Money spent to date:
DVD player - £50 years ago
Monica, 2 charlizes, Pot - £210
Wire and digital cable - £30
Optical to Coaxial converter - £20
High Quality SMPS Power supply - Free
Speaker cables - Free
Thats a total of £310 (£260 if you dont include the second charlize which is dormant at the mo!) and includes all delivery costs etc. I think that's pretty special personally - it easily blows my Arcam system out of the water, and from what I've heard could easily give my dads set up a run for its money, even with the (relatively) crappy Missions!
Future plans include a valve pre-amp, a better transport and new speakers.
As I said above, I hope to get to the UK sometime during the summer, and I know there are a fair few on here already anxious to hear the setup!
As a side note - I know I'm always banging on about people letting their ears decide, but I decided to take a risk for the good of the audio community on this side of the world, and I think it paid off... Maybe... I'll know more next week when I do a side by side test versus the Meridians!
Enjoy my longest post ever,
Mark
My Priorities were:
Sound Quality
Sound Quality
Sound Quality
Value for Money (i dont have much at the moment)
I didnt give a stuff about looks, flexibility or how many jigawatts it had. As long as it could fill a room with sound of reasonable volume, I'd be happy.
So what went:
Arcam Alpha 7SE
Arcam Alpha 8R
B&W 602s
Cambridge Audio Pacific Interconnect
Sony MDS-JE330 (to our very own Yewen)
All in all I got €890 (about £600) for that lot (excluding postage). Left me with a fair amount to play with DIY wise.
What I used temporarily:
Wharfedale DVD-750S
Sonic Impact T-amp
£20 Ariston speakers
Yuck. Thankfully this was only for about 5 hours or so, as I went and picked up a set of oldish (1989) Mission 763s from a guy near me in exchange for a t-amp, so about £30. They were mid range floorstanders in their day, and apart from being a bit bright, they are ridiculously good for the money I paid. I was cautious about floorstanders in my room, as my fathers B&W DM7Mk2's had overpowered my room. These just about are ok - at times are a bit OTT but they'll do until I can scrape the cash to come to the UK and do some uber demo'ing
So that was the Speakers sorted for now, but my source and amp weren't going to win any awards - still stunning for the money though (£50 DVD, £30 t-amp, £30 speakers). I had some big choices to make...
Front end:
I had bought my father a Non-Oversampling DAC for christmas (after Mr_S's educated recommendation), based on the TDA1543 chip and built by Derek Shek. I was mightily impressed by this and seriously considering buying one for myself. I did some research and found that there were a few alternatives out there. One that interested me a lot was DIYParadise's Monica 2 N.O.S Dac. After reading a few reviews, the only major critism was a lower output compared to other DACs. I decided to take the risk, and at $125 who could say no - it was a lot cheaper than the £160 for Derek sheks DAC and used the superior 1545A chip. Review: http://www.tnt-audio.com/sorgenti/monica2_e.html
I also bought a Optical to coaxial converter so that I can use the SPDIF output on my laptop for casual listening through the DAC.
Amp:
I was convinced that class T was the way forward on a budget so I decided to investigate what was out there. I'd been blown away by the T-amp on a purely value for money aspect, but it definately got lost when playing some very badly recorded or complicated tracks. It was also a tad bright.
There were several options available to me, the main ones outlined in this review: http://www.tnt-audio.com/ampli/tripath_amps_e.html. I had liked the look of Charlize, purely from a few comments I'd read, and it seemed stunning value for money. This thread really sealed the deal for me: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66269
Cables:
I have a fair few interconnects here, 2 DIY ones, a decent transparent one and a few of the standard ones - I'll pick what's best. For speaker cable I got some free CAT5 cable and I also got given some Nordost Super Flatline - whatever is the best of those two stays!
So, I decided to put in an order for 1 Monica 2 DAC, 2 charlize amps (with air core conductors) and an alps blue volume pot. The total coming to €310, about £210, only £50 more then Derek Sheks dac!
It all arrived about 3 weeks ago. My original plan was to bi-amp the amps for a bit more oomph, but it turns out that the way I did it, little charlize didnt like her clone, so there was no real difference between one and two of them. I'll get back to that though.
I ran them bi-amped for the first 50 or so hours, and I had a friend around to listen to them, the chap who sold me the missions in fact. We first listened to the Derek Shek DAC with the charlize amps & my fathers B&W 802's. We were using cheap supra speaker cable, Transparent interconnects and a DIY digital cable. We tested various other cables for a while, and almost totally forgot about Monica! Once Monica was plugged in, we put on Dire Straits Communique and immediately went to the final track (one of my favourite test tracks). The difference between the DS dac and Monica was like night and day - we both agreed - Monica had a Magic that the DS dac didnt - sound stage was much better, resolution and separation much better, it made the DS dac sound like it was cheap and totally off the ball! I know people will say that it wasn't a blind test, but there was no need for it - the difference was clear. I didn't mention any prices to him before the demo, he assumed Monica was a lot more expensive then it was.
After that night which was about 2 weeks ago, I have been busy with Uni and sorting the car, so the amps have been in a corner whilst I waited for the time to rewire one using silver wire and see how that got on. The silver wire arrived a week ago and I got lazy. The motivation arrived this morning when a UPS delivery arrived containing my fathers Meridian Monoblocks back from Meridian. I fired them up with the DS dac, and sat enjoying music for a while! I then realised that I needed to build Charlize and do a direct comparison! After spending 3 hours trying to get my thermostat housing free on my car, I decided to give up and head inside to do a bit of soldering. A couple of hours later and charlize was all wired up ready to be played solo. It was actually louder with 1 than 2 - which was odd - must have been how I wired them initially!
Anyway - I'm once again blown away. I havent had the chance to do a side by side comparison yet with my dads system, but for the money it's astounding.
Money spent to date:
DVD player - £50 years ago
Monica, 2 charlizes, Pot - £210
Wire and digital cable - £30
Optical to Coaxial converter - £20
High Quality SMPS Power supply - Free
Speaker cables - Free
Thats a total of £310 (£260 if you dont include the second charlize which is dormant at the mo!) and includes all delivery costs etc. I think that's pretty special personally - it easily blows my Arcam system out of the water, and from what I've heard could easily give my dads set up a run for its money, even with the (relatively) crappy Missions!
Future plans include a valve pre-amp, a better transport and new speakers.
As I said above, I hope to get to the UK sometime during the summer, and I know there are a fair few on here already anxious to hear the setup!
As a side note - I know I'm always banging on about people letting their ears decide, but I decided to take a risk for the good of the audio community on this side of the world, and I think it paid off... Maybe... I'll know more next week when I do a side by side test versus the Meridians!
Enjoy my longest post ever,
Mark
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But i think il stick with some heavy modding of my marantz cdp during easter, with a new clock, PSU, op-amps, and mechanical changes. 
