Mayank Shah
Well-Known Member
From a DIY amp with TDA 1011 chip with drivers from Universal Radio Company, which were way ahead of the time in 1986, to my first hifi setup with NAD 356bee and Polk Rti A7 4 years back, with many unremarkable systems in between, it has been an incredible ride. I don't recollect as to how I came to know about this forum, but it really helped me tremendously to wash away many misconceptions I had and still learning a lot.
Always wanted a rack system with mean looking separates but my sonic orgasm were limited to magazines and the net on a 56 kbps dial up modem.
Recently the upgrade bug bit, and I still wanted to retain the setup but introduce one good component the NAD Masters M51. Coincidentally one came up for sale here and I grabbed it. But as my sonic fate would have it, the M51 didn't work. Probably due to issue while transportation or something. Put that aside and dejectedly, I moved on. Then one day, sensing my dejection my wife encouraged me to go and get whatever I wanted and I was born again.
I had almost finalised an all Emotiva setup, the complete shebang, pre, dac, FS and power amp. Also decided to get a TT in memory of my father who had 3 of them. Emotiva always reminds me of Star Wars and Darth Vader, both my favourites. Had even planned a Star Wars theme untill..........
The Tannoy XT8F entered courtesy of FM @celester340. I was reluctant initially, but after some online research, prodding and coaxing, I picked them up after a few weeks from his place. This changed everything.
I had a feeling that the 356 may not do justice to the tannoys, but I was very surprised. They pair quite well. Maybe not in the Dom Perignon connessiuer way but a big leap from the A7. Since I was attached to the 356, my focus shifted to a good DAC.
Went through Prism Callia, Meytek Brooklyn, Marantz HD1, Teac and a few others. Some expensive, some not available. Then a thought about an all in one thingy like Cambridge CXN and Arcam CDS50 popped up. But all those vanished when I bumped into the RME ADI 2 DAC on some site and I was sold. The PEQ feature really had me, and it would be good to tweak a bit with an intention (hope) to make the 356 sound better.
By this time I had already got the Project Primary TT, lying packed waiting to be rigged up. There were numerous rave reviews about the Rega Elicit amp with the XT8F. So courtesy of FM @Imtiyaz Ahmad (a gentleman of his word) I picked up his Rega Elicit with an added advantage of a phono input.
Hooked up with an existing Schiit Modi DAC, I was worried as I was only mildly surprised. The Schiit wasn't strengthening the chain. Confirmed with a borrowed chord qutest dac. The chord per se is good and heaps better than the schiit, but I found it a bit too superficially airy kind and often to be surgically precise.
So ordered for the RME DAC. It was hand carried from Germany to Chennai via USA and Saudi Arabia. Took about 4 weeks to get home. Meanwhile I was trying to convince my wife about the importance of proper listening space (read as moving the furniture around) and hatching a plan to buy or get a rack made.
I was getting a good deal on the Marantz CD 6006 and picked that up before the divine blessings from the wife were to wear out. A rack has to be complete right.
I was planning to hook up the pi and digione for streaming, untill courtesy of FM @superczar who introduced me to the Paradigm PW Link. The perfect little thing with pre/dac/streaming and ARC was hard to pass up on.
Then arrived the RME DAC, one pair of SVS Soundpath RCA, vinyl cleaning kit and 1 dozen brand new vinyls. Picked up a few good CD's courtesy FM's celester340 and Mash.
I was blown away and in floating in space. The rme dac gave new life to my FLAC collection, the first things to hit me were the analogueness, channel separation, clarity, weight and the sparkle. Being a hardcore Iron Maiden fan, and having heard all of their songs a gazillion times, it was the first time I heard the guitars of Dave and Adrian so separately and clearly. Even the slide of the fingers on the frets is crystal clear even at low volumes. Steve's bass had more clang and heft. Nicko's bass drum has a hair raising slam and punch. I can hear Bruce taking a breath while singing. Metallica, Judas Priest, White snake, Jethro Tull, Eminem, Beethoven, Ravi Shankar, MS Subbalakshmi, Agam, Avial, Masala Coffee were home. The Tannoys literally begged for more power, the Rega got better as it picked up heat. The spectrum Analyser on the DAC, the PEQ are exquisite. Neighbours got very intrigued. Blessed to have good ones.
Was never much into cables and interconnects. Was using the older DAC brand RCA, but the SVS Soundpath is a revelation for me. Have ordered for a few more pairs. Had Chord UK speaker wires earlier, untill the Mogami (courtesy of @celester340 again) blew it out of the water. Nothing wrong with the chord. It is like how you start hearing after a good dewaxing of the ears or when the air pops when you are in a flight and the ears adjust back to normal atmospheric pressure.
The XT8F produce astonishingly good amount of taut bass and mid bass. These are the kind of speakers which makes you sit back and listen to them seriously. Highs have a wonderful sparkle, mids are very clear and vocals are very live sounding.
My hectic travelling was not helping me set up the system properly. Things were very untidy, a spare room was filled with boxes, packets, pre owned records, old cables, power cords, nad, A7 etc. My wife stopped talking to me for a few days ( we men tend to exxagerate). Was not getting an appropriate ready made rack and my regular carpenter was busy.
So decided to put all my tools back into service and embarked upon a 10 day DIY rack. I had a very clear and a different design for a rack in mind, but since I was going to DIY, didn't have the courage to go through that. Was proud to acknowledge and be within my creative limits, but over estimated my physical capacity. This DIY after a long time was a good wake up call to my fitness levels. Took a bit longer than planned. Lucky to have had a helper for a few hours a day.
Courtesy of FM @elangoas and @liverpool_for_life and others on my local group and also FM's here, I stepped into the world of nulls and peaks and for the first time I ran REW measurements. It is planned for some interior work in the near future, so wanted to see if I could incorporate some kind of basic room correction along with that. I am very happy with the SQ of the setup as it is now so won't be loosing sleep if I won't be able to get the correction done. Wife has also started showing uncharacteristic interest in the sound and now wants a Spotify account after she understood how streaming works and the volume of content available. My 10 year old daughter who loves music has already taken ownership of the setup saying that it's hers.
Attaching a few pics of the DIY and the not so final rack. Waiting on some cables and small hardware to finish it all up. Will connect all RCA out to the amp and also CDP coax and streamer optical to Rme dac.
Thanks for your time in reading this rant.
Top to bottom
Project Primary TT
Sliding shelf for laptop
Marantz CD6006
Rme ADI 2 DAC with Paradigm PW Link
Rega Elicit R
NAD 356 bee ( not connected)
Bottom removable open box with stabilizer, ups and power strip.
The back is a 3 inch box design which conceals all the cables. Bottom 2 shelves are adjustable/ removable in case of a bigger Poweramp or something.
Always wanted a rack system with mean looking separates but my sonic orgasm were limited to magazines and the net on a 56 kbps dial up modem.
Recently the upgrade bug bit, and I still wanted to retain the setup but introduce one good component the NAD Masters M51. Coincidentally one came up for sale here and I grabbed it. But as my sonic fate would have it, the M51 didn't work. Probably due to issue while transportation or something. Put that aside and dejectedly, I moved on. Then one day, sensing my dejection my wife encouraged me to go and get whatever I wanted and I was born again.
I had almost finalised an all Emotiva setup, the complete shebang, pre, dac, FS and power amp. Also decided to get a TT in memory of my father who had 3 of them. Emotiva always reminds me of Star Wars and Darth Vader, both my favourites. Had even planned a Star Wars theme untill..........
The Tannoy XT8F entered courtesy of FM @celester340. I was reluctant initially, but after some online research, prodding and coaxing, I picked them up after a few weeks from his place. This changed everything.
I had a feeling that the 356 may not do justice to the tannoys, but I was very surprised. They pair quite well. Maybe not in the Dom Perignon connessiuer way but a big leap from the A7. Since I was attached to the 356, my focus shifted to a good DAC.
Went through Prism Callia, Meytek Brooklyn, Marantz HD1, Teac and a few others. Some expensive, some not available. Then a thought about an all in one thingy like Cambridge CXN and Arcam CDS50 popped up. But all those vanished when I bumped into the RME ADI 2 DAC on some site and I was sold. The PEQ feature really had me, and it would be good to tweak a bit with an intention (hope) to make the 356 sound better.
By this time I had already got the Project Primary TT, lying packed waiting to be rigged up. There were numerous rave reviews about the Rega Elicit amp with the XT8F. So courtesy of FM @Imtiyaz Ahmad (a gentleman of his word) I picked up his Rega Elicit with an added advantage of a phono input.
Hooked up with an existing Schiit Modi DAC, I was worried as I was only mildly surprised. The Schiit wasn't strengthening the chain. Confirmed with a borrowed chord qutest dac. The chord per se is good and heaps better than the schiit, but I found it a bit too superficially airy kind and often to be surgically precise.
So ordered for the RME DAC. It was hand carried from Germany to Chennai via USA and Saudi Arabia. Took about 4 weeks to get home. Meanwhile I was trying to convince my wife about the importance of proper listening space (read as moving the furniture around) and hatching a plan to buy or get a rack made.
I was getting a good deal on the Marantz CD 6006 and picked that up before the divine blessings from the wife were to wear out. A rack has to be complete right.
I was planning to hook up the pi and digione for streaming, untill courtesy of FM @superczar who introduced me to the Paradigm PW Link. The perfect little thing with pre/dac/streaming and ARC was hard to pass up on.
Then arrived the RME DAC, one pair of SVS Soundpath RCA, vinyl cleaning kit and 1 dozen brand new vinyls. Picked up a few good CD's courtesy FM's celester340 and Mash.
I was blown away and in floating in space. The rme dac gave new life to my FLAC collection, the first things to hit me were the analogueness, channel separation, clarity, weight and the sparkle. Being a hardcore Iron Maiden fan, and having heard all of their songs a gazillion times, it was the first time I heard the guitars of Dave and Adrian so separately and clearly. Even the slide of the fingers on the frets is crystal clear even at low volumes. Steve's bass had more clang and heft. Nicko's bass drum has a hair raising slam and punch. I can hear Bruce taking a breath while singing. Metallica, Judas Priest, White snake, Jethro Tull, Eminem, Beethoven, Ravi Shankar, MS Subbalakshmi, Agam, Avial, Masala Coffee were home. The Tannoys literally begged for more power, the Rega got better as it picked up heat. The spectrum Analyser on the DAC, the PEQ are exquisite. Neighbours got very intrigued. Blessed to have good ones.
Was never much into cables and interconnects. Was using the older DAC brand RCA, but the SVS Soundpath is a revelation for me. Have ordered for a few more pairs. Had Chord UK speaker wires earlier, untill the Mogami (courtesy of @celester340 again) blew it out of the water. Nothing wrong with the chord. It is like how you start hearing after a good dewaxing of the ears or when the air pops when you are in a flight and the ears adjust back to normal atmospheric pressure.
The XT8F produce astonishingly good amount of taut bass and mid bass. These are the kind of speakers which makes you sit back and listen to them seriously. Highs have a wonderful sparkle, mids are very clear and vocals are very live sounding.
My hectic travelling was not helping me set up the system properly. Things were very untidy, a spare room was filled with boxes, packets, pre owned records, old cables, power cords, nad, A7 etc. My wife stopped talking to me for a few days ( we men tend to exxagerate). Was not getting an appropriate ready made rack and my regular carpenter was busy.
So decided to put all my tools back into service and embarked upon a 10 day DIY rack. I had a very clear and a different design for a rack in mind, but since I was going to DIY, didn't have the courage to go through that. Was proud to acknowledge and be within my creative limits, but over estimated my physical capacity. This DIY after a long time was a good wake up call to my fitness levels. Took a bit longer than planned. Lucky to have had a helper for a few hours a day.
Courtesy of FM @elangoas and @liverpool_for_life and others on my local group and also FM's here, I stepped into the world of nulls and peaks and for the first time I ran REW measurements. It is planned for some interior work in the near future, so wanted to see if I could incorporate some kind of basic room correction along with that. I am very happy with the SQ of the setup as it is now so won't be loosing sleep if I won't be able to get the correction done. Wife has also started showing uncharacteristic interest in the sound and now wants a Spotify account after she understood how streaming works and the volume of content available. My 10 year old daughter who loves music has already taken ownership of the setup saying that it's hers.
Attaching a few pics of the DIY and the not so final rack. Waiting on some cables and small hardware to finish it all up. Will connect all RCA out to the amp and also CDP coax and streamer optical to Rme dac.
Thanks for your time in reading this rant.
Top to bottom
Project Primary TT
Sliding shelf for laptop
Marantz CD6006
Rme ADI 2 DAC with Paradigm PW Link
Rega Elicit R
NAD 356 bee ( not connected)
Bottom removable open box with stabilizer, ups and power strip.
The back is a 3 inch box design which conceals all the cables. Bottom 2 shelves are adjustable/ removable in case of a bigger Poweramp or something.
It is 2 + X
