Getting my old stereo working again - from about 1992!!!

BS Dave · 2 Aug 2023 at 10:45

My partner bought me some new speakers (Elac Debut 5.2s) to go with my aging Sherwood amp from the 90s - an ax4050r (this was repaired in the last 3-4 years), but I need a few bits to get it working again, so was hoping to get some tips from you guys/gals.

I need a CD player and was hoping to get one 2nd hand and was also thinking about getting a cheap DAC too (again 2nd hand if possible)

My sources will be Apple Music via my iphone (I'm currently with Spotify but I'm getting sick waiting for their hi-fi option) and my old CD collection.

Are there any CD players I should be looking out for? Is a budget of £50-75 reasonable?

For the DAC is there anything I need to look out for so that it'll work with my iPhone?

I've got some old speaker cables in the loft and connectors, but they're gonna be as old as the amp...

ALSO are there any cheap tricks and tips for getting things to sound better? Clean power supply etc? I know there's a lot of snake oil vendors out there...

I know my amp is probably the thing that's going to let things down but I'd like to get things running and see how much use everything gets before potentially spending more cash

Thanks in advance

Dave

BS Dave · 3 Aug 2023 at 13:22

Thanks for the replies. For the DAC I was thinking a desktop/shelf top box that could take say a usb c (I'm get a new iphone when they come out) from the phone like a dragonfly but also had either a co-ax or optical in as well. Does such a thing exist?

I wouldn't use Bluetooth as yeah I know the bit-rate is terrible.

Interesting about turning the volume down on my phone, I would have presumed it would have been fine into an AUX channel on the amp. Should I also be careful with my car stereo? I have my phone plugged into that too!!

BS Dave · 5 Aug 2023 at 20:43

Update. I had a good rummage in the loft and found 8 gold-plated banana plugs, a 3.5mm jack to phono leads so i plug my ancient iphone 6s in (apparently it has better DAC than the ones in the adapters people have to use with the new phones - so that's a bit of result). I also found metres of really thick gale speaker cable xl315-2 with separate wires for the bass and tweeter (the guy in richers sounds must have really upsold me back in the day). I've split it down the middle as i only need two cables per speaker, and it's sounding great. Quite bassy - I guess if I put some isolating feet under the speakers it'll help with that, but i can hear so much more in the music. The guitars really sound like there's a guitar next to me - the same with the other instruments - and i'm still listening on spotify. Now i need to give apple loseless a go. Exciting times!!

BS Dave · 5 Aug 2023 at 21:43

They're going to go on a shelf in the kitchen - a nice big shelf mind. I don't really want to put the speakers on spikes or anything they could slip off as I have kids... would something like this do it? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Self-Adhesive-Isolation-Feet-Electronics-Black/dp/B08KDM9QY3

BS Dave · 6 Aug 2023 at 00:38

JasonM said:
Yes they will be fine for your situation.

Thanks. I shoved 3 Lego breaks under each speaker to see if it made a difference... and it did!!

One more thing ( there will be more im sure). There's a connection to attach an earth. Do I need to do that as we already have an earth on the plug in the uk or this something completely different??

Also (there it is) the speaker cables have little triangles/arrows on them...the cables aren't directional are they? Is that even a thing??

Thanks

Dave

BS Dave · 6 Aug 2023 at 01:15

With the directional cable. It originally had 4 strands h+, h-, l+ and l-. I've chopped it in 2, so am now only using 2 strands. Do I want a + on red and - on black for each speaker?

Or if I have + on black swap the direction of the cable?

I'll post pictures to make it clear tomorrow

I've got 3 months Apple Music for free too so that's bumped the quality a little as well.

BS Dave · 6 Aug 2023 at 19:09

OK. Sounds like it's fine like it is then. I'm familiar with phase. My parent's wired their stereo speaker wrong back in the day resulting in no vocals for quite a few tracks...

I have a question about DACs now.

Do they interpolate a lower quality source to make it sound better? For example a CD. Will a 24bit 192khz DAC create 3 DLSS 3 samples for every real one? And with a bunch more more accuracy (24vs 16 bit) or will it sit there twiddling it's thumbs until it's fed a higher quality signal ie 24bit 192khz like apple hi-res lossless?

Thanks