Hi! guys...
First off all a big thanks for the wealth of information on this forum. I have benefitted so much from this forum. Keep up the good work of spreading the "sound"...:clapping:
I grew up listening to the likes of Pink Flyod, DireStraits, Eagles, mettalica...
The last band i followed was Guns & Roses. After which i think Rock never reached that heights of 70s and 80s or may be i lost interest because i joined an engineering college in the Hindi heartland of Madhya Pradesh where listening to Rock music was considered "Oversmatness"..
After a decade of working in a PSU, marriage and a kid, music never came in the list. Couple of months before, i hit upon this forum and the desire of listening to something good rekindled. My current setup was a sony dvd player combined with a 18 year old Philips Power House system. Some of you may remember it ... a black cube with 3 levels..a double cassette deck at bottom, a graphic equaliser in the middle and an FM radio at the top. Served me well for all these years. Recently i think its amp got busted because of shorting of speaker wires. It has those push type spring loaded connections.
So the quest for a new 2.0 system started. Set a budget of 40-50K for CD player + Amplifier + Speakers + cables and interconnects.
Living in a small city like Bhopal has some of its disadvantages. None of the Hi-Fi brands have a shop here. Sony/lg/samsung is what sells here which i think is certainly not Hi-Fi grade. Onkyo did open a shop here through e-zone but closed in 6 months for lack of market :sad:. The poor guy could'nt manage to sell a single system. :lol:
Coming to Mumbai or some other place and staying there for a week and auditioning different brands was just not possible for me because of logistics ...expenditure and leaves from office. However thanks to people like you all guys like me can make some reasonable judgements and take calculated risks :thumbsup:.
So after hours of pouring in the threads on this forum i zeroed down on following
CD Player
Oppo 980H (black colour)
$190 - Rs 9500/-
I was in look out for an upscaling video player with ability to play different formats and have good audio cd playback. Could not afford a dedicated CD player like Marantz or CA or NAD. Oppo 980H fitted the bill perfectly.
Hence got it through a friend coming from US. The best part is its 110-240 Volt compliant.
Amplifier
Norge 1000 (black colour)
Rs 9750 + Rs 400 for Shipping
Here again severe budget constraints were there and hence zeroed down on Norge. 2060/2000/1000. Finally got the Norge 1000
Speakers
Mission M35i (black ash colour)
Rs. 25000 + Rs 2750 for shipping
Here as usual was the most confusion. My room size is 15x12. First was wheather to go for bookshelves or floorstanders. But with a six year old kid in the house i was not at all comfortable with expensive speakers on stands.
So that pretty much sealed the fate...Floorstanders it is.
I had initially set a budget of 15K for the speakers but it seemed that there is no free lunch. Hence upped my budget to 25K. Based on many of the posts
regarding pairing of speakers with Norge amplifiers narrowed down on to two brands. Wharfedale / Missions.
Now how the heck i hear these speakers let alone with Norge. Finally managed to hear mission m34i paired with Onkyo 606 in Bangalore at a friend's friend place. Liked the sound coming out of it. Could not manage to hear wharfes 9.5 in Bangalore due to shortage of time.
Decision time.....based on suprateeps review of mission m35i took the plunge and ordered them from Vijay Sales Mumbai. I like my equipments to be in black.
Cables & interconnects
12 AWG oxygen free copper cables from Monoprice. Gold plated screw type banana connectors from Monoprice.
cable cost $23 for 100 ft. Banana plugs - $10 for 4 pairs.
Having grown up always with a shortage of funds i could not justify myself of buying 125-150 rs/m cables. moreover my budget was crossing the limits. Read about monoprice and decided to buy a spool of 100 ft 12AWG cables for
current and future use. Got it along with oppo from US.
For connecting the 980H with the Norge i am currently using rca cables which came with 980H.
Oppo and cables were with me for past 3 months and speakers and amps arrived at home a week back.:yahoo:
So with a Total cost of Rs. 50K i manged to set up a "budget" 2.0 system. Pretty expensive for me though...litrellay had to pay through my nose for shelling out 50K. Blessed are those with unlimited funds...!!
To be contd..
First off all a big thanks for the wealth of information on this forum. I have benefitted so much from this forum. Keep up the good work of spreading the "sound"...:clapping:
I grew up listening to the likes of Pink Flyod, DireStraits, Eagles, mettalica...
The last band i followed was Guns & Roses. After which i think Rock never reached that heights of 70s and 80s or may be i lost interest because i joined an engineering college in the Hindi heartland of Madhya Pradesh where listening to Rock music was considered "Oversmatness"..
After a decade of working in a PSU, marriage and a kid, music never came in the list. Couple of months before, i hit upon this forum and the desire of listening to something good rekindled. My current setup was a sony dvd player combined with a 18 year old Philips Power House system. Some of you may remember it ... a black cube with 3 levels..a double cassette deck at bottom, a graphic equaliser in the middle and an FM radio at the top. Served me well for all these years. Recently i think its amp got busted because of shorting of speaker wires. It has those push type spring loaded connections.
So the quest for a new 2.0 system started. Set a budget of 40-50K for CD player + Amplifier + Speakers + cables and interconnects.
Living in a small city like Bhopal has some of its disadvantages. None of the Hi-Fi brands have a shop here. Sony/lg/samsung is what sells here which i think is certainly not Hi-Fi grade. Onkyo did open a shop here through e-zone but closed in 6 months for lack of market :sad:. The poor guy could'nt manage to sell a single system. :lol:
Coming to Mumbai or some other place and staying there for a week and auditioning different brands was just not possible for me because of logistics ...expenditure and leaves from office. However thanks to people like you all guys like me can make some reasonable judgements and take calculated risks :thumbsup:.
So after hours of pouring in the threads on this forum i zeroed down on following
CD Player
Oppo 980H (black colour)
$190 - Rs 9500/-
I was in look out for an upscaling video player with ability to play different formats and have good audio cd playback. Could not afford a dedicated CD player like Marantz or CA or NAD. Oppo 980H fitted the bill perfectly.
Hence got it through a friend coming from US. The best part is its 110-240 Volt compliant.
Amplifier
Norge 1000 (black colour)
Rs 9750 + Rs 400 for Shipping
Here again severe budget constraints were there and hence zeroed down on Norge. 2060/2000/1000. Finally got the Norge 1000
Speakers
Mission M35i (black ash colour)
Rs. 25000 + Rs 2750 for shipping
Here as usual was the most confusion. My room size is 15x12. First was wheather to go for bookshelves or floorstanders. But with a six year old kid in the house i was not at all comfortable with expensive speakers on stands.
So that pretty much sealed the fate...Floorstanders it is.
I had initially set a budget of 15K for the speakers but it seemed that there is no free lunch. Hence upped my budget to 25K. Based on many of the posts
regarding pairing of speakers with Norge amplifiers narrowed down on to two brands. Wharfedale / Missions.
Now how the heck i hear these speakers let alone with Norge. Finally managed to hear mission m34i paired with Onkyo 606 in Bangalore at a friend's friend place. Liked the sound coming out of it. Could not manage to hear wharfes 9.5 in Bangalore due to shortage of time.
Decision time.....based on suprateeps review of mission m35i took the plunge and ordered them from Vijay Sales Mumbai. I like my equipments to be in black.
Cables & interconnects
12 AWG oxygen free copper cables from Monoprice. Gold plated screw type banana connectors from Monoprice.
cable cost $23 for 100 ft. Banana plugs - $10 for 4 pairs.
Having grown up always with a shortage of funds i could not justify myself of buying 125-150 rs/m cables. moreover my budget was crossing the limits. Read about monoprice and decided to buy a spool of 100 ft 12AWG cables for
current and future use. Got it along with oppo from US.
For connecting the 980H with the Norge i am currently using rca cables which came with 980H.
Oppo and cables were with me for past 3 months and speakers and amps arrived at home a week back.:yahoo:
So with a Total cost of Rs. 50K i manged to set up a "budget" 2.0 system. Pretty expensive for me though...litrellay had to pay through my nose for shelling out 50K. Blessed are those with unlimited funds...!!
To be contd..
hyeah:.but very tight no looseness. No need for a sub...at least for me. The result was same for Doors, Dire starits, Pink flyod.....exceptional. All these CDs were listened at 9:00 clock position of the amps volume knob. :yahoo:
