grubyhalo
New Member
So, after about 17 years of scrounging for second-hand audio magazines, drooling in showrooms, stealing extended demos, comparing, dreaming, planning, hoping, learning, unlearning, estimating, fantasizing, budgeting, fidgeting, frustrating, understanding, mis-understanding and theorizing, I think I am in a good position now to list down what I think I need for a reasonable-fidelity audio system. I am also thoroughly convinced that the biggest bang for my buck in India would be to go DIY.
I am hoping to use this thread as my public notepad to gather my thoughts, keep track of all the to-dos and more importantly to hear opinions and ideas from anyone who would indulge me with a few minutes of their time. Even if I do not end up implementing everyones thoughts and ideas, I would at the very least know what to look out for. I am also hoping that this thread would help others who may be looking for the same things as I am. Or throw up a lot of anecdotal knowledge through interesting OTs and asides that usually accompany threads. I am also planning to open individual threads for logging the build details for each component I decide to go with. The entire journey is probably going to be over a long period of time and will certainly be one component at a time. I am hoping that I have the patience to sustain the pursuit till its over.
Musical Preferences
My musical preferences are quite all over the musical spectrum and I expect my system to do justice to all possible types of music. Based on my limited experience, I would hazard to say that any system that does large-scale western classical well could pretty much nail all the other genres, without any significant problems. Of course, I have a lot more silly ideas where that one came from.
Sonic preferences
Having experienced a lot of live music of all flavours, one thing I find lacking in most systems I hear is dynamics which makes it to the top of my wish-list for my speaker/system. I should also be able to listen to music without losing details at very low levels. I can compromise on the last drop of resolution as long as I make up for it in sound-stage. Imaging would be nice but as long as the music makes me slap my thighs and bob my head with a stupid grin on my face, it shouldnt matter too much. I also prefer to have my symphonies sound real enough with decent separation of the instruments. I am not sure if I would dare wish for a speaker that can go down to 13Hz to sate my craving for the organ fugues but at the least I need my double-basses to sound real. I would be perfectly happy with a 30Hz response, in-room. It appears to me that Im looking for something like my Sennheiser HD650s, but big enough to take on my room. I am not sure if Im missing anything else.
Room and placement constraints
The room would be 12X14 foot (approx.) and would also double-up as the living room. It does not have too many pieces of furniture or upholstery. I can spare a foot and a half behind the speaker and a foot on the sides. The listening position would be about 4 feet from the rear wall, opposite to the speakers, on the shorter side of the room. WAF is not a big worry as my slightly better-half is music and audio-trained. I do plan to implement a bit of portable acoustic treatments to the room without any structural modifications.
Speaker preferences
No open-baffle or full-rangers. As much as I would love to have an OB in my house, I just do not have enough space to make OBs effective. I am yet to hear a full-ranger that can do hard-rock as good as I want it to sound. My initial idea was for a bookshelf-sub combo, however considering the added cost and efforts involved in building a BS and a sub, Im thinking a compact floor-stander is a much better option. My options are still open. BOM budget: 50000 INR
Pre-amp/buffer preferences
Tube-based, 3 inputs, 2 pre-outs, 1 tape out. BOM budget: 30000 INR
Amp preferences
Though the ultimate choice of the design would depend on the speaker I decide on, I am quite certain of a few things. As much as I love the sound of SETs, I am not sure they would handle hard-rock (or dub) with enough aplomb. Class A monsters like the Pass F4/F5 could be a very good option but Id rather not if I can get away without. I really do not want to spend money fitting an AC for my living room. I guess my options are still open. BOM budget: 30000 INR
Source preferences - Digital
Like a lot of people, music reproduction off of a vinyl disc sounded more real to me than all the digital options I have heard. But then, I have not heard a lot of digital systems, or analog systems for that matter. That said, I am pretty certain that with all the CDs, SACDs, DVD-As and concert DVDs I have been collecting over the years, the sensible option would be to get a working digital rig before thinking of a turntable. Unless ofcourse I get really, really lucky and get a good vintage turntable for cheap. I am also fairly certain that I could not live purely off of vinyl in the future. Taking all these into account, I expect the heart of my system to be a DAC and Im going to try and get the best that I can. To begin with, I would be hooking up my old Pioneer universal DVD player to the DAC and will be building a cheap media player using an inexpensive platform like the Raspberry Pi. Eventually, I would like to get a Denon universal player, like the 2930, and hack it to use it as an SACD transport, feeding the DAC. BOM budget - DAC: 40000 INR, media player: 10000 INR
Cable preferences
To start with Im planning on getting Mogami cables, clad and heat-shrunk for the interconnects, terminated with Neutrik Pro-fi plugs. Thinking of TDK/Mogami/Belden raw cables for the speakers. BOM budget: 3000 INR
Room treatment preferences
I am hoping not to need room treatments right off. Over time, I am hoping to figure out a way to implement simple bass-traps, corner-traps and diffusers that do not need to be nailed to the walls. BOM budget: 12000 INR
This is what I have in mind at this time, any comments, critiques, suggestions, advice are all most welcome.
I am hoping to use this thread as my public notepad to gather my thoughts, keep track of all the to-dos and more importantly to hear opinions and ideas from anyone who would indulge me with a few minutes of their time. Even if I do not end up implementing everyones thoughts and ideas, I would at the very least know what to look out for. I am also hoping that this thread would help others who may be looking for the same things as I am. Or throw up a lot of anecdotal knowledge through interesting OTs and asides that usually accompany threads. I am also planning to open individual threads for logging the build details for each component I decide to go with. The entire journey is probably going to be over a long period of time and will certainly be one component at a time. I am hoping that I have the patience to sustain the pursuit till its over.
Musical Preferences
My musical preferences are quite all over the musical spectrum and I expect my system to do justice to all possible types of music. Based on my limited experience, I would hazard to say that any system that does large-scale western classical well could pretty much nail all the other genres, without any significant problems. Of course, I have a lot more silly ideas where that one came from.
Sonic preferences
Having experienced a lot of live music of all flavours, one thing I find lacking in most systems I hear is dynamics which makes it to the top of my wish-list for my speaker/system. I should also be able to listen to music without losing details at very low levels. I can compromise on the last drop of resolution as long as I make up for it in sound-stage. Imaging would be nice but as long as the music makes me slap my thighs and bob my head with a stupid grin on my face, it shouldnt matter too much. I also prefer to have my symphonies sound real enough with decent separation of the instruments. I am not sure if I would dare wish for a speaker that can go down to 13Hz to sate my craving for the organ fugues but at the least I need my double-basses to sound real. I would be perfectly happy with a 30Hz response, in-room. It appears to me that Im looking for something like my Sennheiser HD650s, but big enough to take on my room. I am not sure if Im missing anything else.
Room and placement constraints
The room would be 12X14 foot (approx.) and would also double-up as the living room. It does not have too many pieces of furniture or upholstery. I can spare a foot and a half behind the speaker and a foot on the sides. The listening position would be about 4 feet from the rear wall, opposite to the speakers, on the shorter side of the room. WAF is not a big worry as my slightly better-half is music and audio-trained. I do plan to implement a bit of portable acoustic treatments to the room without any structural modifications.
Speaker preferences
No open-baffle or full-rangers. As much as I would love to have an OB in my house, I just do not have enough space to make OBs effective. I am yet to hear a full-ranger that can do hard-rock as good as I want it to sound. My initial idea was for a bookshelf-sub combo, however considering the added cost and efforts involved in building a BS and a sub, Im thinking a compact floor-stander is a much better option. My options are still open. BOM budget: 50000 INR
Pre-amp/buffer preferences
Tube-based, 3 inputs, 2 pre-outs, 1 tape out. BOM budget: 30000 INR
Amp preferences
Though the ultimate choice of the design would depend on the speaker I decide on, I am quite certain of a few things. As much as I love the sound of SETs, I am not sure they would handle hard-rock (or dub) with enough aplomb. Class A monsters like the Pass F4/F5 could be a very good option but Id rather not if I can get away without. I really do not want to spend money fitting an AC for my living room. I guess my options are still open. BOM budget: 30000 INR
Source preferences - Digital
Like a lot of people, music reproduction off of a vinyl disc sounded more real to me than all the digital options I have heard. But then, I have not heard a lot of digital systems, or analog systems for that matter. That said, I am pretty certain that with all the CDs, SACDs, DVD-As and concert DVDs I have been collecting over the years, the sensible option would be to get a working digital rig before thinking of a turntable. Unless ofcourse I get really, really lucky and get a good vintage turntable for cheap. I am also fairly certain that I could not live purely off of vinyl in the future. Taking all these into account, I expect the heart of my system to be a DAC and Im going to try and get the best that I can. To begin with, I would be hooking up my old Pioneer universal DVD player to the DAC and will be building a cheap media player using an inexpensive platform like the Raspberry Pi. Eventually, I would like to get a Denon universal player, like the 2930, and hack it to use it as an SACD transport, feeding the DAC. BOM budget - DAC: 40000 INR, media player: 10000 INR
Cable preferences
To start with Im planning on getting Mogami cables, clad and heat-shrunk for the interconnects, terminated with Neutrik Pro-fi plugs. Thinking of TDK/Mogami/Belden raw cables for the speakers. BOM budget: 3000 INR
Room treatment preferences
I am hoping not to need room treatments right off. Over time, I am hoping to figure out a way to implement simple bass-traps, corner-traps and diffusers that do not need to be nailed to the walls. BOM budget: 12000 INR
This is what I have in mind at this time, any comments, critiques, suggestions, advice are all most welcome.
