Introducing myself here - Matthew from the UK. I have been an audio enthusiast for thirty-five years and have owned many different hifi systems. My current system is this:
Cambridge Audio R50 transmission line loudspeakers (1976!)
Michell Alecto Monoblock power amplifiers
Trichord Orca pre-amplifier with outboard PSU
Marantz CD600OSE KiSig CD player
Chord Qutest DAC
Nakamichi DR3 cassette deck (mothballed in the attic)
Chord Odyssey 2 loudspeaker cables
Chord Cobra 3 interconnects
You probably won't have heard of the Michell and Trichord amps. They were both designed by Graham Fowler of Trichord Research, a genius engineer and creator of power amplifiers, pre-amplifiers, photo pre-amplifiers, the Pulsar CD transport and DAC and many other audiophile components. I am fortunate to have spent time in his company.
You may not have heard of the loudspeakers either. They're large four-way transmission line units from the 70s, with KEF drive units and a very complex cabinet.
The system sounds very clean with low listener fatigue. The frequency response is very good, with a solidity of bass that I have only ever heard from transmission line loudspeakers. The soundstaging is poor. The system is very revealing and will tell you all there is to know about the quality of the recording, which results in many of my albums sounding ghastly. The biggest surprise for me has been how good old recordings sound, such as the
1957 Reference Recordings recording of the Red Norvo Quintet in a bar in a city, captured using just three microphones and onto magnetic tape. Most recordings that I listen to from the 50s and early 60s sound wonderful.
The R50s are fairly new to the system and a previous owner fitted them with aftermarket (Falcon Acoustics) crossovers which, although an improvment over the factory unit, are still garbage and will be upgraded. If I lived in the US then I would take the R50s to GR Research for a full overhaul, as I think that there is much potential to be unlocked. However, being in the UK I must be more inventive, which will include at some point asking whether there are any R50 owner in Danny's area who would like to have their R50s upgraded at my expense so that I can benefit from his upgrade.
When I first tested the R50s in my system, they were unlistenable, with a harsh sound full of odd midrange-resonances which had you turning the volume down all the time. I was very close to selling them, but then decided to try upgrading my cables from the Furukawa FS-2T14 loudspeaker cables and no name interconnects that had been in the system for thirty years to the cables listed above. The improvement in sound quality was the most significant in the history of the system, far beyond any changes of loudspeaker of amplifier or anything else. I am now committed to upgrading the cables further.
Currently, the Marantz CD player is being used as a transport connected via optical link to the Chord Qutest. Although the Qutest is highly rated and sounds very clean, to my surprise it is not significantly better than the Marantz with its internal DAC. I suspect that there is some further work required here to reveal the true quality of the Qutest.
The next change to the system will be the introduction of a late 2014 Mac Mini to act as a media server. I already have my 1000+ CD collection accurately ripped at low speed to FLAC files and they'll be stored on a local disk SSD. As for Mac Mini audiophile tweaks and cables and stuff, I have yet to decide.
Here are some photos of the system:
Hi-res photos here:
https://hexfiles.smugmug.com/Shared/n-jZgNMQ/2021-03-03-Hi-fi-system
