Very happy with this system. It's in my basement, decent acoustics, have the sweet spot dialed in pretty well even though the furniture means my speakers are not ideally placed - would like them further into the room and maybe a bit closer together. Brief descriptions of each piece are in the Components section. Always appreciate comments and suggestions!
Bought these slightly used for $4K - never get tired of listening to these beauties! On Sound Anchor 16" stands.
SST Son of Ampzilla II Amplifier
220W class A/B amp. Like it's combination of detail, warmth and power in a nice, small footprint.
Linear Tube Audio MicroZotl MZ2 Preamp/Headphone Amp
A $2000 do it all 12SN7-based preamp that has added huge amounts of detail, resolution and imaging to the music. Beautiful sounding headphone amp as well.
Bluesound Vault 2 & Node 2i
I stream from my own collection on the Vault as well as Tidal (lot of MQA available).
Sennheiser HD-650 Headphones
I don't listen to headphones that often but when I do, it's through these. Smooth and comfortable.
Kimber Kable 12TC Speaker Cable
Not convinced speaker cables make a discernable difference but also didn't want to skimp just in case! These are well regarded for an acceptable price.
Audio Art IC-3SE Interconnects (with DH Labs High Copper Alloy Ultimate RCAs)
Thank you cio52! I did increase the toe-in and liked the results. Will try the back angling this weekend and see what it does for me. Your system looks fantastic by the way!
Thanks for your suggestion jwcondo. I will need to wear down my wife on replacing that cabinet unit! I actually have roughly an equilateral triangle between speakers and my listening position so it's not too bad although Alan Shaw suggests more of a 1:1.5 set up.
The Bluesound for me has been great. I know there are better DACs out there than what is in the Node but the whole thing is so convenient for me, especially since I upgraded my home wifi. And with Tidal native on the Bluesound app, I can easily get at a big library of MQA tracks. I have two of the Bluesound Pulse units for use in other parts of the house as well.
I am just using the Bluesound app for digital music. All of my owned tracks are on the Bluesound Vault and I can access Tidal from that app as well (Spotify too but I am enjoying exploring all the MQA content on Tidal).