Pitdog75, If it were me, I'd replace the speakers and build around Magneplanar 1.6's, a terrific speaker with all the detail, clarity, and sound stage you could ask for. Also, money allowing, I'd get a Supratek Chardoney tube preamp, new at $2100. It is so good that you will rarely, if ever, see one for sale used. A world class preamp comparing most favorably to those costing $10,000 or more.
Here is a tip--get yourself two pieces of maple 20"x20", 2and 1/2 to 3" thick. Outfit your 35s with some HEAVY spikes. Set another pair of spikes into the bottom of your new 20x20 maple seaker plinths.....set those 35s atop the maple plinths-----cheapest DRAMATIC improvement............... If you would like pictures of this setup e-mail me. tightens up the bottom end like mad adding clarity, speed and definition to the lower reisters....
ATC 35s ATC SIA 150 integrated Quad cdp2 denon DP-60L and tehnics 1200 TTs Cardas Golden Reference inter connects
there's now active version of SCM35. i dido not go with the active for a couple of reasons: 1. cost, if i go for active, it'll be at least SCM50 or higher, 2. room acoustics - relatively new house, im still correcting the acoustics, its much better than it used to be, no point in getting top gear just for the heck of owning it, just to be held back by bad room acoustics, 3. passive ATC is a nice way to enter the world of this company, i think this stuff will remain in my posession as a secondary system, when i finally go for the active big boys.
Well - a satisfied audiophile :) since obtaining ATC speaker-amp combination, i forgot about hardware - now im finally listening to the music and not worrying about the system. if i remember correctly in the meantime the only thing that has changed were speaker cables - now scm35 are triwired, some relatively basic well made copper cables with good shielding. also been playing around with the music server idea. i realize i can have a better system with big active ATc speakers, but im in no hurry to go up yet. and knowing what the next step up hardware wise will be is quite comforting.
soon some updated pics - just the furniture has changed ;)
its a lame temporary DIY rack, i didn't even bother with painting the hdf shelves... actually, im still thinking what to do with it: throw it away and get sth which would go with my coffee table, or change the shelves to some nice wooden ones (and shorten it a bit, its kinda too tall right now)
>Shadorne oh c'mon, not boxers... :) thanx anyway. i like the plain and simple look of ATC speakers (rugged and old fasioned some of my guests call them)
System edited: some pics, poor quality - shot with a mobile. new speaker cable Krautwire triwire, added Waveterminal U24 and started building a PC-based music server (via USB to the U24), now looking for some nice way to control the system. soon hopefully i'll deal with the room acoustics as well.
right on Elberoth - as far as the whole Usher and Threshold deal goes. in this situation if i were looking for a solid budget poweramp, i'd go surely for the Threshold not the Usher.
"You did blow-up Usher yourself, didn't you ?" - not exactly, the failure was in one of the elements of a very basic protection circuit board. the amp after playing for say 1-2mins wen quiet. it was repaired without any hussle by the local distro (one cap changed or sth). but - earlier i had the poweramp checked out and the power stages were not working exactly the same. first off - one side delivered only 110W and 300% of the declared noise. it turned out to be caused by a sloppy manufacturing practice - a small metal ding was inside of the amp causing one of the channels to perform so poorly. when it was cleared the amp played evenly - 140W on both channels (not declared 150W).
with my ATC integrated its quite the opposite - in delivers close to 200W while the declared power is 150, and about 2/3 of the power output is in class A. nice little honest performer.
Usher R-1,5 has nothing to do with pure class A operation, it runs in A/B. it's a knock off design of a classic 80's Threshold Stasis poweramp (designed then by N.Pass), but it runs at half the bias of the original (gets only a little warm too), other than that its identical to the old Threshold (btw Threshold just reissued its classic Stasis S/350e poweramp at a very competitive price, and it really is stasis, so right now i wouldn't see any point in going for the Usher, if we can have the original, a bit updated and most probably better sounding). as far as ATC integrated vs Usher poweramp - gimmie a couple of days to evaluate, coz im kinda busy right now, but my first impressions are very positive, it seems i got what i wanted - smoother midrange, better stereo imaging, more detail, while retaining great controlled bass, punch and brute force, ATC plays anything with ease. to sum up - less of a digital sound, sounding more natural. and - 6year guarantee as opposed to 2years for the Usher, which broke once.
I see you went for ATC's amp. Any noticable difference versus the Usher R-1.5? Both amps use mostly Class A, I believe, and have similar power... so what is the verdict? [Apart from the obvious benefit of volume control, which I can't figure how you did without!]
yep, right now im using a minute passive controller, without any remote... degrades the sound considerably. i'll soon look for a good preamp (but not sure if ill go for tubes) or a nice cd with variable output, like some respected accuphase model. there's also one more option - a good quality integrated, sth like MBL7008...(if ti is good for ATC) but even more pressing matter than the lack of a pre is the room itself, i just ordered some stuff to fix the acoustics, then i'll be able to start really listening to my stuff :)
>Krzycho witam kolege :) coraz bardziej sie przekonuje, ze ATC to jes to
