Recent content by philandsue

Yup. Rubbish. How hard can it be?

My experience of KEF LS50 driven by a Rega Elicit R was completely underwhelming. I'd try a few alternatives and don't get taken in by the hype.

Running the speakers in parallel will halve the impedance not double it, so your amp will need to source more current, risking something blowing, and will probably be far from its best and not the situation you want for trying to spot difference between speakers. my advice would be keep...

I upgraded recently and listened to a collection of amps and speakers. i was unimpressed with kef LS50 even when driven by rega elicit r. I listened to the Arcam A29 and Kandy K2, and by chance the salesman had a Music Fidelity M3Si on the rack. As soon as I listened to that my mind was made...

In my case, the single most significant upgrade I made was moving from a decent CD player (£300 ish) to an ARCAM IRDAC. The clarity was vastly improved. i ripped all my CDs to Apple lossless and just use my iPad now.

I too tried to get better 2 channel audio and stick to just a single AV receiver. I was assured Arcam was the way to go, so arranged for a demo. When I got there I listened to the Arcam AVR450 first. It didn't blow me away on 2 channel compared with my existing Sony STR DN 1030, though it was 4...

By 'sharp' I mean pin point accurate. The amount of detail they find is tremendous, they present it with precision and yet warmth.

If you have anything over than ceramic or metallic cones, I'd be worried about the effects of uv changing the characteristics of the speaker markedly. So I keep my grills on.

I'm not sure what price bracket you are in, but I had a similar problem of being happy with AV but stereo Hi-Fi was lacking. I ended up getting a Marantz NR1504 AV Receiver that has pre-outs and a Music Fidelity M3Si that has a unity gain input. Best of both worlds.

Looks to me like you need a lead that has an RCA phono on one end, and banana plugs ( or bare wires under the binding posts) on the other . The powered speaker is doing the amplifying for itself and the other speaker, which looks like is is fed from the yellow phono to the speaker inputs. It...

Your 'too much bass' problem sounds similar to my predicament. I tried Kef 100 and Kef Q100 and Kef Q300. of the 3 I prefer the Q100 which is really crisp and detailed, with a surprising amount of Bass, but not boomy. I also tried Kef LS50 and was unimpressed. Recently I've switched to a Music...

I've just been auditioning a few bookshelfs for use on stands in a smallish living room. Here's my findings for what they are worth. 1) Kef q300. Too boomy but nice detail. 2) Kef R100. Too boomy and not much detail 3) Kef q100. Great detail and enough base without boom. Definitely preferred...

It's some time since my post on this subject, and in the mean time I've replaced amp and speakers. To get the stereo performance I wanted I tried £1600 AV receivers and, as stated, they were still not a match for a £1000 stereo amp. So I bought an AV receiver with pre-outs (excellent Marantz NR...

Who said I was looking for sympathy? I was simply providing insight to the hi-fi performance of one amp versus the other. I don't suppose there are too many people who can afford or accommodate the luxury of separate amps, so the insight might be of interest. And if an amp can't drive 2...

I used to have a Sony STR-DN1030 used for cinema but mainly to drive my hi-fi. I also had an older 800 used for cinema in another room. When the 1050 came out to rave reviews, I thought I'd get rid of the 800, relegate the 1030 to replace it, and install the new 1050 to drive my hi-fi. The...