My Adventures in Stereo

 An Intro

My parents loved music & I was exposed to music from a very young age 

The love affair started then & never really went away

My extended family were also music lovers & I was fortunate to hear music from a variety of sources

One of my uncles was a audiophile & had very nice systems, a sony tape deck, in beautiful chrome finish with VU Meters and standalone 2 way speakers

He also had a HMV vinyl system with Philips speakers

I also liked the sound of the radio & my father loved old Hindi music & passed it on to me

My mother loved Abba, Boney M & jim Reeves, this was a constant background, at our house

I appreciated the qualities of each & they left lasting memories for me

LP's I loved the sound but the reliability, issues kept me away, for nearly 40 years

I went the digital route after college, gave up my cassette & CD collection

On my return from college, I befriended a sound engineer T J Gopinath of GR Acoustics, Kochi Kerala

He designs & manufactures, audio systems and indulged me in my pursuit of a system then

He introduced me to Mosfet amps and concepts of amplifier & speaker design

I still fondly recall the Pioneer subwoofer, I was using then

We  put together a variety of systems for music & movies, great fun & a bit of learning

Felt the need to do a stereo system in the past years

 

 The Bass Journey

 

I wanted to go the classic route & do a stereo with a integrated amplifier and tower speakers

Tried a few and was never happy with the sound, especially the bass

Not really a home theater guy but I am not a fan of sound bars, having gone that route

 I felt a need for clarity of speech in movies & bass, which were both lacking in sound bars

So I decided to go the 3.1 route, found bass lacking with a single sub & decided to go with dual subs

On getting dual subs, getting them set right proved to be a challenge

 

On discussing this with a friend, with  experience in car audio & a deep love for music 

He exposed me to the concept of Digital signal processing & how this was having a great impact in the car audio scene

I had previously stayed away from this, due to the learning curve involved

I invested in a calibrated mike, a mini DSP 2x4 HD & thanks to some really useful tutorials on youtube

was able to calibrate my home theater subs, which are dual 15" Klipsch

The balanced bass that resulted was a revelation for me, it got me thinking about a similar system for my stereo

I tried a variety of subwoofers, in my stereo setup, dual matching ported 12" subs suited my room best

As a fan of DSP based equalisation, the SVS PB 2000 Pro was my choice, with its built in 3 band parametric eq

I was able to get a reasonable balanced curve with SVS built  in DSP

With the bass being handled by dual subs, Towers no longer made sense in my system

I decided to give up my much loved, B&W CM9  

The Amplifier Journey

 

 Kef LS 50

The Kef LS 50 with its highly regarded coaxial drivers, were my first set set of bookshelves

They are beautifully made, with the black gloss on rose gold finish & curves, heavy & rigid

I never quite warmed up to its sound though, after trying a variety of amplifiers

It is rather power hungry & my Yamaha AS 2000 though adequately powering it, did not provide a pleasing combination

I also tried the Parasound A 23 power amp; the Roksan Kandy KA-1, all of which adequately powered it but just did not sound right

At this point, I read a review of the Class D, Nu Prime ST10 Power amp and was intrigued by it

Picked one up & was really impressed by its sound signature

I felt the need for a bit more of headroom

The monobloc version of the ST10, proved hard to source, hence I started looking at other Class D

alternates, after chasing the usual internet sources, I came across the Purifi based class D monoblocs

, from audiofonics in France, which came highly recommended and I picked them up.

It turned out to be a  good choice

Now I had a benchmark sub and power amplification system, a Parasound P6 from my class AB days

, provided the Pre amp section

I was now ready to try different book shelves, to find the best fit

 

Roksan Kandy KA- 1

 Parasound Halo A 23 Poweramp 

 Audiofonics Purifi Monobloc

The bookshelf Journey

 

Revel M106 (Left) Dynaudio Focus 140 (Right) 

 

 Happened to read about Dr Floyd Toole & his pioneering research on modern speaker design & the concept of neutrally responsive speakers.

The Revel M16, the Focal Aria 906 & the Revel M106,were objectively well reviewed on many of the sources, which I place credence in

Wanting to try the cheapest option first, went ahead with the M16, really liked it and started the hunt for the Revel M106

Had a chance to pick up the Focal 906, it is very well made, with some interesting material choices & sounds very nice, wide dispersion and neutral, can be used in a variety of  roles, presently, I use it as my desktop system with the Nu Prime ST 10 & a 12 " ported Velodyne Sub

                                                                    Focal Aria 906

I finally got a chance to pick up the Revel M106, my appetite for this was built up by some surprisingly detailed online reviews, it arrived & has been the centerpiece of my Stereo system since

It is very neutral, detailed, wide dispersion & smooth

Makes for prolonged sessions of fatigue free listening

The Source & back to vinyl

                                                             Fluance RT 85

By this point, I was not listening to much of digital sources on my stereo & started focusing on good recordings and source material

Started off with CD, went the CD transport & DAC route, was happy with the resulting sound

Had a chance to pick up a Yamaha CDS 1000, to give SACD a shot & found them to be very good too

I was still staying away from vinyl at this point

Based on my past experiences & advise from a experienced vinyl collector

The lack of availability of certain source material , on CD & SACD, kept me going repeatedly towards vinyl

At this point, came across a post in a group from a audio enthusiast

saying that, he had given up on DSD and was back to CD & vinyl

which intrigued me, we started chatting and he suggested the Fluance RT 85 ,

with its vinyl platter and Ortofon Blue Cartridge 

So 40 years later, I was back in vinyl land

I enjoy the learning curve in handling vinyl, the hassles of storage, constant battles with dust & static

CD, SACD & Vinyl, are equally acceptable on my system

The caveat being that the recording should be good, in which ever format

If I can find a good recording & its available, I prefer the SACD version, due to reliabilty and absence of hiss & crackle and sound quality very similar to vinyl

I found it quite difficult to get a feel of the gear I have acquired, hence I started a youtube channel to share recordings on my system and as a personal archive, listening on headphones seems to recreate what I hear, to a reasonable extent

Not a fan of this method to experience the system but given the pandemic & limitations related , I am restricted to this

I have posted a few videos recorded on the gear listed above 

                                                    The Rig

 

Adentures in Stereo, youtube sample