College dorm turned listening space

by diver_downtown on Opinions Please

Description

I have collected gear and built my system up since I was about 13. This is what it currently consists of: VERY budget minded with most of the components bought used or acquired via hand me down. I do a lot of thrift store and garage sale shopping for stuff so as a result I have an excess of vintage items that just sit on the bench and look pretty or wait to get parted out.

Recently I have started doing various tweaks, replacing cable terminators, speaker wire, and jumpers. I am currently on the look out for power conditioners and new power cables. The emi/efi interference has started to annoy me quite a bit so I think its time to fix that. Any pointers on what direction I should take to fix this problem would be appreciated.

The reason I love this hobby so much is because it is always a work in progress which gives me new and better ways to listen to great music constantly. Any and all comments, suggestions, critiques and criticisms are more than welcome. Thanks for looking!
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Components Toggle details

    • Pioneer VSX-517-k
    Pretty standard 5.1 HT receiver, bought it new a couple years ago for $100. It's due to be replaced.
    • Marantz 2285B
    Found this in excellent condition at a garage sale for $5. Probably my best find to date. Sounds wonderful.
    • Stanton STR8-50
    Bought used from a local record store, pretty basic but I like it so far.
    • Empire EDR.9
    Pictured with the Stanton. This was a hand-me-down from a fellow audio collector. The better of my 2 cartridges, however it is quite rare so a replacement stylus may not be possible.
    • HD-DVD player XBOX 360
    My trusty xbox serves as a media center to stream the music stored on my hard drive via a local area connection. I also have the HD DVD peripheral that I use to play movies.
    • JVC XL-FZ258
    Freebie. This is a nice little player, serves my needs.
    • Polk Audio Monitor 70
    Bought these new but only paid about half what the full retail is thanks to a promotion. I like these a lot, huge improvement in my system overall.
    • Cerwin Vega D-5
    Bought these second hand for $45. They served as my mains for a while but I was dissatisfied with the upper frequencies, waaay too bright and harsh. They were replaced by the Polk Monitor 70's.
    • Sony SA-W3000
    I bought this inexpensive 12in subwoofer at the same time as the Pioneer HT receiver. Decent but nothing special, it is entertaining to have for movies and video games.
    • Polk Audio CS-1
    Bought this center channel on the bay for $20. It does its job but I'm not overly impressed as it doesn't match main Polk mains as well as I wish, to do that I should upgrade to a CS-2.
    • Bang & Olufsen Beogram 2400
    I bought this in an
    • Nakamichi Gold plated banana plugs
    My first foray into cable tweaks. These are quite inexpensive but I was surprised to find an audible difference when using them.

Comments 5

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I presume that the Polks are played more often, maybe not. If so, I'd flip the positioning with the Vegas for a better soundstage.

I'm not a ton older than you but if I had started buying solid vintage stuff instead of all the big box retail garbage I did in high school and college I would have saved quite a bit. I love the direction you've gone.

clissold

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