Hi All,
Some of you may have noticed me posting some stupid questions around here, so i figure its about time I posted a few pictures and wrote a bit of a story.
It all started a few years ago when i picked up a pair of Andrew Jones designed Pioneer Bookshelves, I hooked these up to a budget AVR and more or less left it the way it is for a few years.
One day I woke up REALLY wanting to hear a record, I have no idea why... I just really wanted to hear (what I thought) was that trademark turntable sound. So i began hunting around ebay and gumtree looking for a turntable.
Eventually I came across a JVC JL-A1 in good condition at a reasonable price, I pushed the button and purchased it!
I grabbed a few records and hooked it up to my Yamaha AVR's built in phono stage.
It was definitely more detailed than the iTunes MP3's I have, but it was lacking a little warmth and seemed to not have much low end.
I read about cartridges on stereonet and decided it was something I should try and change. I grabbed myself an Ortofon OM10 and decided to have a crack at changing it - not having any real idea what I was doing, it took me a little time to get everything installed and aligned properly. But eventually I sorted it out and it was a definite improvement in sound, much better than the previous 40 year old JVC setup!
Just before I got the turntable, i had just purchased my first house. I decided it would be nice to have a bit of a home theater setup, not a full on dedicated theater room, just a half decent atmos setup to make movie watching a little more enjoyable.
Mel (my better half) and I decided to make a trip out to Lifestyle Audio and Sydney Hifi to have a look and listen. Basically we wanted to get a better idea as to what is available and what kind of stuff we both liked. I had my heard set on the B&W 683's but after listening to them next to a pair of Krix Harmonix, the harmonix just sounded better all round!
Previously I had asked here about some advice on a budget pair of atmos speakers, the overwhelming response was "increase your budget" "buy krix" and "don't cheap out". Well after enjoying the sound of the Krix floorstanders, we left with a pair of Krix ceiling speakers.
We spent the weekend running speaker cables under the house, installing wall plates and finally installing the Atmos speakers. Mel was happy to have the speaker cables no longer running along the floor and I was happy to have a set of ceiling speakers in!
The next weekend we went back to sydneyhifi to say thanks and ended up spending some time there chatting and listening to a few different setups. We got talking and I asked a few questions about phono stages, specifically if I would notice an improvement moving from the inbuilt phono stage to a budget external one... long story short I left with a Rega Fono mini. A noticable improvement in sound, notably warmer and a bit more low end sound, pretty happy with that decision!
Shortly after I came across a Krix Graphix center speaker here on stereonet, I decided to buy it with the eventual goal of getting a pair of krix floorstanding speakers. So currently I have a mismatched LCR, but the Krix speaker is an immense improvement over the crappy little pioneer HTIB speaker I had previously, it also highlights how average my pioneer bookshelves are!
So my setup currently is:
AVR - Yamaha 2079
Turntable - JVC JL-A1
Phono Stage - Rega Fono Mini
L&R - Pioneer SBP22
Center - Krix Graphix
Sub - Jamo Sub250
Surround - Cheap Jamo speakers
Atmos - Krix Hemispherix AS