Bodrum

[Bodrum]

Hello to you all, I just registered and AR keeps asking me to say hi to everyone in the Introductions forum, well I could not find it o I am posting my message here. I am a 50 year old American currently living in Bodrum/Turkey. I am trying to set up an audiophile system, I have searched and written to many manufacturers recently, I am looking for a top line integrated amp plus an MDF or HDF or any cheap wood board free loudspeakers i.e. constructed from either aluminum, carbon or real wood. System must be very simple, do not care for thousands of miles of cables at 5000 dollars per foot and do not care to have a rack full of equipment, just an integrated a clean power source and a digital source. I have researched the following;

Speakers
Living Voice, UK, out board cross over can make Bespoke design speakers
Wilson Benesch, UK, ARC, Trinity or Discovery
Sonus Faber, Italy, Guarneri, Auditor M
ATC, UK,
Piega, Switzerland, most of the range

Electronics
Lavardin, France, model IT hybrid design
Accuphase, JP, E-530
Mark Levinson, US they do not make 383 integrated any more sound is too bright
Jeff Rowland, US, Concerto
Boulder,US, 865 its a tank
PS audio, US, GCC 250 + power plant premier (I like what I have heard about them)
Audionet, Germany, SAM V2 (low power 110W)
Mimetism, Switzerland, model 15.2 180W per channel looks great reviews are great

Ok every one I have written too much I look forward to some response, it is 7:30 AM in Bodrum and already 25 C:21:

[blackraven]

Hi and welcome to AR! Thats a pretty good list of equipment there and hard to improve on it. You might want to consider musical fidelity's KW550 integrated at over 500wpc. Some other speakers to consider are electrostats or panel speakers (if you have the room)like Quad, Magnepan and Apogee.

[Bodrum]

Dear Mr. Blackraven:

Hope all is well, thanks for the reply, this is the first time ever that I have joined any type of a forum, so excuse my ignorance when it comes to certain forum protocols that am not ware of. I was replying to your message an hour ago when we experienced a power cut, another wonderful and often experienced problem in my part of the world. We have very hot and humid weather conditions here so the Hi Fi equipment must be built like a tank plus the materials used in the inside of the electronics must also be the same very high quality. The system must last 10 years albeit not the digital source since they are changing by the day. Now what do I mean by "built like a tank";

Speakers
no MDF or HDF or any other veneered man made cheap wood board, you sir after a few years of listening to music at a rather high DB rate, MDF or any other man made glued board starts coming a part due to high internal vibrations, in fact where the baffels are bolted to the cabinet, you will see the screws starting to become loose. In hot and humid climates this issue tends to get worse. I have narrowed down the choice of speakers now to two companies;
Living Voice Bespoke design speakers, i.e. Living Voice will manufacturer a speaker from the material of your choice aluminum, carbon or real wood.
Wilson Benesch, either ARC or Trinity

Electronics
The chassis and enclosures to be built from solid thick materials i.e. either aluminum or copper based materials bolted together to make the box not bent thin aluminum enclosures that far eastern producers are known for, course not all of them for instance KONDO from Japan who produce some of the best electronics on our planet but the wife factor will not allow spending 50k on an amp. When it comes to circuit boards, low distortion and and low noise factors, I can write till the cows come home but we will leave that for later. I have also a problem with equipment being manufactured in the far east accept for KONDO, Esoteric, Accuphase to name a few, I rather stick with companies that manufacture their equipment either in the US or Western Europe, I do understand that I am shooting myself in the foot when I bypass companies like AMR of UK and LSA Group of US who produce outstanding integrated amps but with plants in China, again more on this later too. I have narrowed down my choices for electronics as follows:

Mimetism 15.2 integrated from Switzerland
Boulder 865 from Colarado
Lavardin Model IT from france
PS Audio from California GCC 250
Jeff Rowland Concerto

When it comes to digital source Mr. Blackraven you are now going to go in shock regarding what I am about to tell you, I would like to use my 4th generation ipod which will soon be sent to Red Wine audio to be imoded. After the modification the ipod becomes something totally different, checkout red wine audio web site for details.

I will be very interested to hear your responses Mr. Blackraven. Thank you

Bodrum

[basite]

Hi Bodrum, welcome to the forum...

Can I ask, which speakers you were using previously, because speakers falling apart because they were playing loud sounds pretty suspicious I'd say...

how big is the room you are planning to use the system in?

I also found it weird that you noted 'real wood' as an option, since MDF and especially HDF are more dense, and non resonant, so they work better as real wood for speakers.
So if I can recommend this, also look at other speakers made out of HDF or MDF, real wood is hardly used anymore these days in speaker cabinets, exept maybe for details, but the enclosure itselves is made out of MDF or HDF most of the times...

What would be your budget, since that would make it easier to help you out :)

I can recommend you Thiel, their new CS3.7 is extremely well & solid built, sounds fantastic and will last really long. I have a pair of CS2.3's myself, and am continually amazed by how good they sound.

or look at Wilson audio, if you really don't trust mdf or HDF, they use a material of their own production, which states to be harder than HDF. good sounding, and were designed to go loud also... (note, Wilson audio is a completely different manufacturer than Wilson benesch)

For electronics, if you want 'built like a tank', then don't forget to add Mcintosh to your list. goes fantastic with both Thiel and Wilson audio. Refined power and great sound, they will last forever...

and how much as I'd like to believe it, I don't think an Ipod, albeit modded or not will compare to a cd player ment to be used in your priceclass...
you could try it, but later on I'd look for a good cd player, or a media server, you can use a pc for this, and run the digital signal to a seperate DAC, or with a logitech transporter of somekind...

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

[Bodrum]

Hi bret thanks for the comments, regarding MDF it would be inappropriate to name the manufacturer but trust me when I tell you 14 months after having the new speakers I started seeing powdered wood around the stands, at first I thought it was just dust but then the powdered stuff kept coming back then the veneer started coming off. I sold the system as a package just before Christmas and took out my Bose accoustimss out of the box which I had bought in 1994 and am still using it till the new system is purchased. Will never buy speakers made out of MDF again. Sonas Faber make their speakers from real wood. But after all the research I think I am going to settle with Wilson Benesch, Wilson Audio make amazing speakers but again I do not care for their look. I know what you are thinking "are looks more important than sound to this guy?", yes since I also have to appreciate the system when looking at it. I love the way the Wilson Benesch sounds plus it is made like a tank.

My room is 26 square meters Bret.

Mcintosh have been building superb equipment for years now, I never thought of them I will try to arrange a listening session with their integrated.

Regarding my budget pal I do not want to go above the 20,000 USD mark for the entire system.

I listened to a Wadia 581 i se, the ipod produced 50% of the sound of the Wadia without the modification, ipod 200 USD and Wadia 10,000 USD. But I think I am going to agree with you here also that the ipod will fall short, lets get the system going first. I am interested in your idea of computer plus a DAC, I have a mac laptop G4 17" thats not doing much how can we use that in place of a CD player?

Thanks a bunch for your ideas can't wait:thumbsup: :thumbsup: to hear back from you.

[basite]

Hi bret thanks for the comments, regarding MDF it would be inappropriate to name the manufacturer but trust me when I tell you 14 months after having the new speakers I started seeing powdered wood around the stands, at first I thought it was just dust but then the powdered stuff kept coming back then the veneer started coming off. I sold the system as a package just before Christmas and took out my Bose accoustimss out of the box which I had bought in 1994 and am still using it till the new system is purchased. Will never buy speakers made out of MDF again. Sonas Faber make their speakers from real wood. But after all the research I think I am going to settle with Wilson Benesch, Wilson Audio make amazing speakers but again I do not care for their look. I know what you are thinking "are looks more important than sound to this guy?", yes since I also have to appreciate the system when looking at it. I love the way the Wilson Benesch sounds plus it is made like a tank.

My room is 26 square meters Bret.

Mcintosh have been building superb equipment for years now, I never thought of them I will try to arrange a listening session with their integrated.

Regarding my budget pal I do not want to go above the 20,000 USD mark for the entire system.

I listened to a Wadia 581 i se, the ipod produced 50% of the sound of the Wadia without the modification, ipod 200 USD and Wadia 10,000 USD. But I think I am going to agree with you here also that the ipod will fall short, lets get the system going first. I am interested in your idea of computer plus a DAC, I have a mac laptop G4 17" thats not doing much how can we use that in place of a CD player?

Thanks a bunch for your ideas can't wait:thumbsup: :thumbsup: to hear back from you.


you can PM me about the manufacturer, I'd really like to know, albeit for future upgrades...

I quite agree the Wilsons don't really look that good :)

Definately go take a look & listen at Mcintosh :)

the idea of the PC & dac is pretty simple...

you use the laptop as your source (you put all your music on it, possibly with a few extra external hard drives, to accomodate all the music), then you connect the laptop to the DAC using either the digital out on your laptop (if it has one, check for that...), or the USB port (it definately has a USB port...)

there are several good DAC's out there, 2 I'd recommend looking at are the PS audio Digital link III (http://www.psaudio.com/products/digital_link_iii.asp),
or the benchmark DAC1 USB (http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/dac1/)...

then simply connect the DAC's outputs with stereo interconnects (good ones, preferably :))
and there you go, high class sound...

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

[blackraven]

Have you considered one of the Class D digital integrated amps from Bel Canto. They are made in the USA here in Minnesota. Class D amps have fewer parts and some weigh as little as 5 pounds. Class D amps are going to become more popular because of the lower cost to produce them. They have been getting great reviews. Check out the s300i, its 150wpc at 8ohms and 300wpc at 4ohms. On their web site you have to click on the manual to see the specs.

http://www.belcantodesign.com

[Bodrum]

thanks pal off to belcanto web site, will report back tomorrow

[Bodrum]

Blackraven hope all is well, yes I have decided on the system as follows;

Boulder 865 integrated amp

Sonus Faber Guarneri Memento in Black Graphite

No funds will be left for cd player so ipod for the time being. Thanks again for all of your recommendations.