Bollux HiFi

TDL RTL3s ... biggish floor standing speaker gongs, big sound

Peter

Lovely looking, rich sounding big speaker, but sonically at odds with the system I had at the time.

Not that I didn't like them, but I soon realised they were going in a different direction to where I wanted to go with my music...

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

Many moons ago bought some CD feet. In 2 sections, a downward facing spiked disc on which the player rested and a cupped receptacle which sat on the shelf.

Took ages to assemble the whole arrangement and the next day my cleaning lady lifted the player to dust (I had no idea she did this) and spent the next few hours trying to rebuild it all, embedding the sharp spikes in my nice quadraspire top in the process.

Never got to hear what difference they made!

The cleaning lady is recovering but sadly crippled for life

Bruce

[This message was edited by Bruce Woodhouse on MONDAY 18 March 2002 at 10:22.]

Kenwood Graphic Equaliser!

I had the audacity to show off about it to someone in the pub I later discovered owned naim, in his defence he sounded very enthusiastic for me.

This was before naim though of course.

Chaps

My one and only mistake was buying some Bose speakers which were about the size of a Rubick cube.

Bloody awful.

Regards

Mick

Hifi can be a pretty sucky habit sometimes.
We must all try to forgive ourselves

A Sugden A28 amp (class A bla. bla.). It sounded s**t and had build quality like s**t. And to rub it in, I was near buying a NAIT instead!

JohanR

Peter Belt 'Electret Foils' - Yay! - Whatever happened to him? (and was he and Doctor Magneto one and the same?)

Nuff said. (Electra E100 int amp). I used to read What-Hifi.

Some Mana... (only joking, only joking..)
Bob

For current info on Peter Belt, check out his web page if you dare ...

Naim 82 with a single Hicap. I added the second Hicap two years later and could have wept when I realised what I had been missing.

Nic P

Naim 82 with 2 Hicaps. I added a Supercap two months later and could have wept when I realised what I had been missing.

Alex S

Bose 901 loudspeakers. When I was in High School these were "It" and I bought a pair. What bothers me most in retrospect is not the thought that these fantastically ill-conceived horrors once sat in my appartment. It's the thought that by buying them I contributed in some small way to the continuation of the line and, for that matter, the company.

Actually, what bothers me most is the fact that these are still made.

Without doubt the original Musical Fidelity MVT pre-amp, bought sound unheard for 800 UKP in 1984. I sold off my 42/Hicap for next to nothing. It wasn't until I set up the hifi months later (in the US) did I realize what a mistake I had made.

The only piece of equipment that I returned in short order was a pair of Linn Kans circa 1982- they just sounded horrible when plugged into my A&R A60E- this integrated amp had a rolled off bass with rounded bass transients which worked fine for big flabby speakers, but was a dose of hemlock to Kans.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

.. I entirely forgot to mention why I bought the MVT pre-amp.... it was because I had bought an early pair of the Celestion SL600s (sort of like a much more expensive, furry SL6 but with a much duller sound), and the dealer would only trade their price towards an equivalent purchase. It took me a month of two of playing around with these to realize they were totally without merit. So I swapped them out for a brand new MVT. Mea cupla!

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

CD destroyer.

It was between this and a NAD ???? - Can't for the life of me remember. I chose the Nak cause it balanced better with the amp I had at the time
( Harmon/Kardon PM640i ). The NAD seemed too soft, warm and fuzzy. When I upgraded to the Nait 1, the Nak was so bright, bass shy and forward that it was almost unlistenable with 90% of recordings. In this case the NAD would've been better. Oh well, live an learn.

I still have it, boxed somewhere, It now likes to eat disks when warm, but when cold, has a nasty buzz but forgoes the eating.

michael

In the mid-eighties I had money to burn and burnt it on these items. When combined they made an awesomely bad HiFi...

Sold the vtl and used the cash to buy a NAP140, which I still use, traded in the SL600's for Epos ES14's and I was happy at last.

Ahhh, the OMS-2. A friend of mine ran one of those with a luxman integrated, and later with an MF B200 ... and yes, it always seemed rather thin... even compared to my (then) Philips CD150. I was lent (and nearly bought) a Nak OMS-7 some time later, and although it was a bit rough-and-ready in some areas, it really did have a thumping great urgency in the bass. Great fun for the...

Plinius II & Plinius III pre and power amp. The preamp ran off of the Poweramp a-la naim, although separate signal interconnects were used, and poser was carried on a regular 180 degree 5-pin DIN. Ok, not the last word in music, or even in hiFi - but bought for a reason, and provided plenty of 100wpc action for a young penniless apprentice... the preceding Kenwood KA5700 integrated amp kept topping out the power meters as the PSU ran out of drive when playing Shriekback at large, large SPL's... and I picked up the Plinius as best value for my strapped wallet (NZD700 used at the time, IIRC)... this amp was so bad I couldn't even detect major improvement when finally adding the Plinius IV pre-amp PSU some years later! Finally sold off to a friend in the same position some years later - after exchanging my trusty B&W DM220 speakers (veterans of many, many parties and even rewired with (shudder) Monster Powerline 3, for some fairly decent Arcam 2's and a MF A1-X.

So there - the skeletons are out of the closet. I think the Yamaha belt-drive semi-auto turntable - B-300? (my first hifi purchase) was excusable, as I was too young to know any better. It served well until the Thorens TD125 turned up.

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

B&W 601, B&W CDM2 and B&W CDM1 The money wasted climbing that slippery ladder makes me weep. If I hadn't done that I'd be running a P9 today. Seriously. At least I had the coolest stereo of all my friends. (sorry Peter)

Audioquest Isobearing I replaced the feet of my Rega P3 with these. Wow, increased blackness and deeper bass. I missed out on a lot of music in the mid-90s.

Rega Sooper Bias My first foray into vinyl. This cart was the cause of my "vinyl is crap" phase. It was so bad, it must have been waay off-spec.

I want to add the YBA Integrated, but at the time, I loved its idiosyncratic laid back, hi-fi spectacular noise. At least I can bite my thumb at round-earthers without ignorance or hypocrisy.

Linn Saras - bought new when I was a student (and couldnt really afford them) and trounced by a pair of s/h Kans at a fraction of the cost.

Some Meridian amps (s/h) - the original thin thingies - cant remember what they were called but a 12S/160 completely demolished them, such that they were a joke.

Mission 770s (new) - just not very nice to listen to (the Saras replaced those; frying pan...fire).

The original Systemdek (new) - Not bad but couldnt get used to the fact that it wasnt an LP12. Sold it soon after to get an LP12, which I shouldve done right from the start.

Syrinx PU2 - sounded good; built like utter crap -smashed up a Decca London with it when I was pissed (you think an ARO is unstable?!).

Steve

ebirah,

Man, if Linn Saras and a Systemdek were among "the nastiest pieces of kit" you ever bought you ought to consider going into the business.

If I'd been this well informed (or lucky), I'd be a few years closer to retirement with the savings.

Hi,

A couple of things:

1. Fear not, you'll get there in the end and the incremental improvements are part of what make owning Naim such a pleasure; and there are always eager takers for what you're leaving behind.

(Yep, CDS2 first IMO)

2. I'm mad and can safely be ignored, especially with regard to the 82.

Alex

KEF Coda 7.

The sound did not as good as mention in What HiFi

Moppy

Ha I had coda 7s. compared to a pair of B&O S80s they sounded rather good.