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RE: So you stole it? or just got it free from some dead or not dead relative?

Very nice!

A friend gave me his ESP-9's, they're sitting in my closet . . . haven't tried them out yet . . .

Mostly, I have a lot of stuff I've been using for years or that's sitting in the closet, like my TT. So I guess you could say I really did buy it, years ago. Now, when I want something new, I just sell something old, which is all I can afford to do right now thanks to ridiculous dental expenses.

The thing is, it seems that there's so much good stuff out there these days that you can put together an amazing system for practically nothing, and if you bought classic stuff it retains its value. Forex I noticed today that my 1-D's are selling for $300 more than I bought them for used in about 1980.

So I sold some stuff, got a pair of Tympani IVa's on Audiogon for $1800. Then Fedex put a fork lift through them so the insurance paid for a rebuild by Magnepan (still to be done). The source is my new computer which I needed anyway. I had to buy that but I'll sell an old one on Ebay, if you buy the right computer components you can basically upgrade for free forever by doing that.

Eventually, I'll do some hacks on the 1Va's (Satie's Neo 8 midrange upgrade, single pole or high-slope FIR crossovers, updated ribbon tweeters, triamp), run some of that cool DSP software to smooth the bass and do digital crossovers. Add a Lynx card for D/A and I'm hot to trot. I'll have to get some more amps at some point, I have an XPA-2 which will do bass duty and an old Hafler which will go to Ebay. The mids are incredibly efficient so once I do the I can use a couple of small, sweet amps to triamp the mid and treble. Haven't really thought about what amps I'll get, but at the rate things are going it's going to be next year before I'm ready to put in the new midranges and triamp anyway. At some point, I might add some subs, my current sub is too small for the Tympanis so it gets sold. I think I'll end up using the GR servo drivers.

OK, so, if I wanted better sound than this and had an unlimited budget, what would I do? I can think of a few things, but not terribly much. The biggest improvement I could make is a less crappy listening room, but I'll have to move for that!


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  • RE: So you stole it? or just got it free from some dead or not dead relative? - josh358 17:41:17 08/03/12 (0)

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