Hi,
kennyk said:
If you had unlimited funds to spend on your system, what components would you buy? or in other words, your ultimate fantasy system.
Okay, I would buy a nice large house with a large garden and a decent distance to other houses with several large downstairs rooms to arrange the systems in and to make for want of a better word "Play/Living/Party/Event" Rooms.
I would have at least two room, probably three as such.
Room One
For ambiance would be a small concert hall / cinema intended for all sorts of home cinema and also classical music as well as various concert DVD's etc.... This would have a surround sound system and would include a decent approach to extract surround sound (based on the work by Douglas Rife) from 2-Channel recordings.
Speakers would likely be Supravox Fieldcoil Drivers on Oris 150 Horns X 5 (5.1) with suitable Woofer sections (probably also horn loaded - with 50Hz - 150Hz coverage the old 18" Fane Horns could do well) and some horn or ribbon supertweeters driven by some nice custom SE Valve Amplifiers likely 300B on the Woofers and 10Y or 45 on Supravox Drivers and supertweeters using passive line level crossovers.
As "infra woofers" (for 32' Organ pipes etc) I'd probably go for some fostex FW-800.
Source would be either PC based (for digital) or a Rockport Sirius or similar style "super turntable" with a top notch pickup and a custom LCR equalised Phonostage plus a Final Laser Turntable, line controls would be 6-Channel Transformer Volume based, all controlled via Home Automation systems, most gear hidden.
To the Turntable inputs I would add either an original Cello palette or a custom based version based on Valves and LCR Filters, for the PC I would use Waves Renaissance PEQ 6 with suitable settings and a small touchscreen, I would probably also set the system up such that any LP played would be recorded to the PC's HDD in 24 Bit/192KHz, so a pro ADC of the higest grade would have to be found.
Anyway, that would be room one.
Room Two
For Ambiance I would take the cues from Tokyo & Paris Jazz Cafe's, small cafe style armchair seating around kidney shaped marble top tables, low light, small bar and big DJ Booth and modest stage. There would also be a top notch projector and screen on the stage, PLUS a complete setup for a small jazz ensemble, including drumkit and most likely a Hammond Organ.
There would be a 2-Channel stage sound system for the stage, probably for fun I'd get all original old WE Filmsound, WE91A Amplifiers, WE555 Horns and all that (or maybe modern replicas and Cogent Systems or Goto Drivers etc.) and back this up with a more modern system based around top notch Studio Monitors like the Meyer Sound X-1 and matching Subwoofers.
Sources would probably be an old EMT Studio Turntable with Ortofon Arm and SPU Pickup (spherical needle) and a Studer Studio CD Player, secondary source would be PC based for DVD Video and modern Audio replay with a db/lavrey DAC and adding on the Final Laser Turntable. I'd probably also have another Cello Palette (original here).
Room Three
For ambience this would be a "rock bar" again a bar, a DJ Booth and a number of Pinball and other game machines, Billard Table and some seating at the bar. Again a full stage with screen, projector, drumkit, Marshall guitar stack, Ampeg SVT Bass stack and the various instruments and definitly including a Fender/Rhodes E-Piano.
Sound would probably be something like a Linn LP-12 fully loaded and a Naim Preamp as well as a Laser Turntable and a Marantz CD-12/DA-12 2 Box CD Player (refurbished, upgraded), plus (again) a Cello Palette (original again) and most likely a old JBL/Amcron(Crown) 1970's Studio monitor setup on one side and maybe another Meyersound X-1 & Sub Set.
Main Living room
Tannoy GRF Autograph reproductions from Octave with Monitor Red or Silver driver or maybe Jensen Imperial Horns for RCA LC-1 with LC-1 Driver, Kondo/Audio Note Japan Amplification (probably several choices, collectors perogative) and as Turntable maybe a Acoustic Solid or Platine Verdier or Grease Bearing Garrard 301, Denon DL-103 in SME-3012 and Ortofon SPU in Ortofon 12" Arm, CD-Player probably PC based with Kondo/ANJ DAC or maybe a Zanden DAC.
Anyway, that is what I would aim at (final solutions might well differ) to have in my pad for music, I would have very frequent parties to which I would invite Musicians who are friends to play on the stages and I would probably see if I can set up a small independent label and re-issue interetsing historical material and record new stuff and artists that interrest me.
Ciao T
