I take the quality of my music playback reasonably seriously (though not too fanatically as in silver wire and loudspeaker cables like something Powergen would use on the national grid distribution system) so I'm very fortunate that over the years, primarily through luck and a lot of DIY, and often ridiculously cheaply as people have fallen for the old upgrading charade, I seem to have managed to assemble different systems to suite differing types of music and for different rooms in our house.
For Hi-Fi in the old purist sense and with vinyl playback, I have settled on this setup for our big room...
The deck (been put away for a couple of years but due back out shortly) I purchased about 30 years ago now and is an old 'biscuit tin' Dunlop Systemdek with an Ittok arm, fine for the rest of the system, but I've forgotten what cartridge is on it.
(While fine for in the car or on iPlayers and mobiles, I really don't like MP3's for relaxing and critical listening as I find I notice just a bit too many strange artifacts, so our music I store as .wav files on a multi TB server out in my office and I currently use via a wired network an old Dell M60 latop for playback and web radio outputting via an Echo Indigo card though I'm planning on changing to one of my old M90's and getting an RME Babyface for Computer-DAC soon)
This goes into an old Cyrus Pre (which also takes the DVD/HD player and TV sound in the room that it's in).
It's ok as a pre, reasonably neutral though not quite a wire with gain. I chose it as it's compact, simple, provides RIAA correction for the Phono input from the deck, and most importantly has a simple remote control that allows the wife to switch between the different sources and control the volume without buggering things up. (If I just used the PC Card, I would drive the amps direct with line level...don't really like pre's as all they usually do is introduce distortion)
The Cyrus then feeds two old Avantic Beam Echo DL35 Valve monobloc amps (c1955 or so) like these...
The Rolls Royce of Mullard implementations and quite heavenly. They cost me the grand sum of £2 around 23 years ago though needed a few components replacing that I did myself.
The DL35's feed a pair of old plywood Lowther Acousta folded horn cabs loaded with PM6c's...
These are very fine full range single coil drivers so you don't get any crap from crossovers being introduced into the sound by signals being reflected back into the amp output stages and causing sonic instabilities (though valve output stages are far less susceptable than Mosfet designs to this). Their only problem is the speaker surround is foam which deteriorates quite quickly, around five years or so, especially as we sometimes have coal fires in our house when it gets really cold that throw all kinds of chemical stuff into the air that reacts with the foam, but Lowther have a reasonable exchange policy.
Being folded horn cabs, they're quite large and also need a largish room and careful positioning but they produce a quite wonderfully detailed and delicate sound and require little power for adequate volume, just perfect for classical and old jazz (Ella etc) though since the horn dimension is not quite big enough, really deep bass can be lacking for modern material so to ring the changes I also have a pair of Tannoy Lancaster cabs with 15" dual concentric HPD's that I can alternate with the Lowthers for non-classical music.
Adequate thumping from them though as with most speakers they too could do with being in much larger cabinets for best working. It's always a compromise between wife friendly stuff and getting an optimum sound. I'm planning on getting the HPD's reconed at some stage from rubber to paper edged cones ala Golds.
I've also have a pair of largish open baffle speakers lurking somewhere that were given to me that I've yet to try out. They're equipped with some kind of low power 15" dual concentric on them with I understand a hemp cone instead of a paper one, some kind of exotic from a small bespoke US manufacturer that was raved about a few years ago. Since they are really designed for very low power single ended amps, I'm not really expecting sonic nirvana from them though the crossovers do look very high quality, but I'll try and rig them up and give them a go some time in the next 12 months once I've got other things to do out of the way.
Elsewhere, in what we call our 'music' room, the room I normally work in when at home, I have another playback setup that I also plug my work laptop(s) into as well via Indigos if I'm watching Youtube etc but this setup is primarily used for music recording.
No turntable there, but for playback monitoring the signals from the sources (instruments, mic's, mixers, outboards, RME Fireface 800, PC's etc) eventually get fed via balanced lines into a Mackie BigKnob.
For nearfield monitoring in the room the BigKnob feeds into a Martin MX-4 electronic crossover set at 800hz...
...again all balanced line that then feeds into a pair of old MASS 500's (250w rms per channel and once again balanced signals), that drive a pair of transmission line PMC-TB2's and a PMC XB1 dual coil sub.
The PMC's are good enough for the Beeb and many recording studios so are good enough for me and my clumsy musical tinkering around. With a 1000w RMS on tap driving them there's plenty of headroom in the system and it's reasonably controlled and accurate. I've got another pair of PMC's, TB2a actives as spares but with very dinky Flying Mole Class D amps on them that I might rig up sometime for surround though in general I'm not too impressed with surround sound for music playback, but that's just me.
For room playback, the Bigknob also feeds an old Turner A300B studio monitor amp. This will happily make a 1kw fire element glow all day and not destroy itself with again plenty of headroom. It also looks great, mines in black.
This comfortably and with precision controls a pair of Tannoy Berkeleys with bog standard Tannoy crossovers...
...again 15" dual concentric HPD's, and can also be switched to drive an old pair of Hitachi HS-335 3 way speakers placed on top of the Berkeleys to get an idea of what it will sound on most ordinary hi-fi's.
I've been tinkering with another pair of Berkeley cabs that I've loaded with 15" concentric cone Beymas though early signs are these aren't anywhere as good as the Tannoys. While loud, they do sound a bit agricultural with little finesse and though they are full range, I suspect they are designed primarily for on stage foldback and not really musical playback. I think the Beyma crossovers might be causing some of the trouble but possibly it's the HF drivers but I really can't be arsed experimenting with them at the moment and will likely just stick them in a pair of wedges and get shut of them.
Since I'm rural and remote and don't have any near neighbours, out in my old office that I sometimes use in the summer around the back of the house I have a much larger playback system that I originally assembled for my son's band when he was at school for use as a PA.
Four big old 70's EV Eliminator pattern folded horn W bins for low end loaded with 15" Altecs and 15" PD's, and then on top of them 2 x Altec 12" long throw flared mids, and then on top of them 2 very large flare altec compression driver horns, all fed by a pair of EV active x-overs signal limited via a Drawmer M500 (under rated so cheap but analog and very musical) to protect from nasties, and then on into a mix of 2 x HH VX-800's for the bass, so comfortably around 400w rms for each bass cone, and also an HH S500D giving around 250W rms for each mid and top horn side. As could be imagined, capable of illegal sound pressure readings effortlessly at half volume in a small room and with no distortion at all, it's ridiculous OTT but pretty blissfull with the right sort of music and with dynamics and headroom from the bottom of the ocean all the way up to Heaven. The Angel Trumpets and Devil Trombones on the Fuzzy Warbles don't get to sound much better (I tried other amps like Chameleon 2200s but kept going back to the HH amps as although old and heavy, they are ridiculously cheap and very easy to repair if anything ever fails and they just seem to have that ooomph that is missing from more modern compact lightweight stuff).
I've also got a pair of ancient 15" Altec 4560 type bins with Altec sectoral horns equipped with unknown compression drivers sitting on top just like these below but without the top row of piezos (eeuugh!)
Originally for infill on stage, but now for use in the garden at BBQ's for background mood music, driven by a pair of HH S500D's via another pair of EV active x-overs and an Alesis 3630 for limiting, just about all a 3630 is useful for.
In the kids and the guest bedrooms there's an assortment of old Leak Sandwich and Wharfedale/Celestion speakers driven mostly by NAD 3020's (lovely little amps) though I've been collecting some old 70's classis Japanese manufactured JVC and Hitachi amps the last couple of years, they currently cost pennies, so there's a few of them lying around.
But yes, I agree, I'm quite mad and I've got far too much stuff.
