I have had a busy weekend re-doing the living room stereo. Again. Nancy gave up long ago trying to figure it out.
I have read much about the "significant" improvement high quality interconnect cables can make and do agree. For years I have been using now long discontinued Radio Shack interconnects. Plus two sets of Atlona ones. They are all three feet or perhaps one meter long. Trouble is, that often is too long.
I came across a seller on eBay that was selling "slightly used" Liberty cables. They are all the top-of-the-line THX™ Certified and are called Z-500. The audio versions are blue and quite thick, slightly more so than the Radio Shack versions. He was selling half-meter ones. So I
bought two sets. Unfortunately, I'm not the only person looking for shorter cables. So, I ended up buying a pair that are 1 1/2 meters long and a whole bunch of the component video cables
in 1/2 and 1 meter lengths. They are red and are slightly thinner. Component video is a set of three, so two sets equals three pairs. Simply covering the green identifier with red or blue tape
allowed me to keep left and right channels straight.
A lot of audiophile folks swear they can hear the slightest of things. I don't have "Golden ears" but know when something sounds good or not. I did detect the music to be clearer with the Liberty cables. Thus the buying of enough to completely rewire everything. Here is a link to
Liberty Cables Z-500 page:
http://www.libertycable.com/prod_details.php?pitem=Z500NA.5THX
Remember, I bought used ones, so they were a tiny fraction of the cost of new. In the process of this buying I have struck up a friendship with the seller. He is an airplane mechanic. I also have an e-mail connection with the fellow I bought the Kenwood power amp from.
What Kenwood, you ask? You remember me having a huge Adcom power amp? Well, unbeknown to me, aged Adcom power amps have some capacitors that go bad and leak whatever fluid they have inside onto nearby unsuspecting circuits.
I turned on the stereo one day and all of a sudden the left channel stopped working. Quick troubleshooting revealed that it was the power amp. An on-line search told me the slight soft crackling I was hearing was a precursor of failure. Well, I looked inside and saw lots of capacitors, but no sign of damage and frankly, did not want to touch anything. I did find the left channel fuse blown. So, I put the Adcom on eBay fully informing potential buyers of the problem and had a Buy-It-Now price of $149.99 starting the bidding at $19.99. It was snatched up pretty quickly BIN. The amp weighed 53 pounds all buy itself. So you can imagine shipping it. The buyer was happy and that BIN $ was what I paid for all three Adcom components together @ Salvation Army. So, I was pleased.
I looked at a lot of replacement amps and settled on a Kenwood KM-X1000 it too is THX™ Certified and puts out 130 watts per channel. Slightly more than half the Adcom's 250 WPC.
So, it arrives safely and I hook it up only to discover there is no bass coming out of the left speaker. "Weird," I think and take off the speaker's grille. That's when I saw the woofer was jammed all the way back. Turns out the voice coil in the woofer overheated and bubbled the former that the coil was wound on, jamming it.
Research on replacing the woofers showed me that I would have to spend $150. I bought the PAIR of speakers for $30.00 way back in the late '90's. 1/20th of the new cost. So, a look at the local pawn shop yielded me a pair of DCM (The American Speaker Company) KX-12 speakers. I'd heard of DCM, but not until researching them (before buying) did I learn of the company's history and read many dozens of reviews. Seems they are popular with college students.
The KX line of speakers are modified transmission line units. That means the rearward movement of the woofer's cones audio output is sent along a path that eventually comes out the rear of the cabinet. The KX-12s have TWO SIX INCH diameter ports on the back and
an inner wall that extends from the central top about 3/4 of the way to the bottom.
The Optimus PRO-4000 speakers have an efficiency of 93 dB at 1 watt input. The DCM KX-12s have 99 dBs. Thus are very easily driven to insane levels of sound with very little power. The O-P4000s were rated at 8 Ohms resistance. The DCMs at 4 Ohms, but in fact
measure 2.8 Ohms! Theoretically, the lower the speakers resistance, the more power an amp is able to produce because of the lower load. However, going below 2 Ohms is almost a short circuit.
So, the 130 watts the Kenwood is able to produce into an 8 Ohm load is theoretically more than doubled with a less than 3 Ohm load. My LED power meter shows that a tiny fraction of ONE watt produces sound levels that are more than significant for a realistic listening experience.
Below, I have a photo of the newly completed reconfiguration of the stereo, front and rear.
The left side components top to bottom are: Denon DP-23F turntable upon the new-to-me Sony SCD-CE775 SACD player. (Super Audio CD). Next shelf down in the Insignia HD radio tuner atop the Adcom GFP-565 pre-amplifier. Below that is the new-to-me Kenwood KM-X1000 power amp. Bottom shelf holds the Denon DR-M203 3-head cassette deck.
The right side has starting at the top, the left smaller unit is the LED watt meter and the
speaker switch is to the right. They both sit on the Denon DCM-290 CD player. Next shelf down is the MXR 147 graphic equalizer atop the KLH TNE-7000A Transient Noise Eliminator. Both now wired in series. The bottom right is the two Adcom ACE-515 power conditioners.
In the photo below you can see the blue audio cables and red video, now audio ones. The twisted pair going up to the top are the 12 gauge speaker cables going up to the speaker switch.
I bought 200 feet of that wire in order to run a pair of speakers in the "office". After this "final" edition, I have two feet left. It's fantastic cable. The positive wire is silver plated copper and the return wire is pure copper. They have the finest strands of wire I've ever encountered. The finer and more of them the better because of all the added surface area for the signal to travel on.
To me, it looks as though the shelves, are curving downward in the center on the back side. This is an optical effect of using an 18mm lens for the image.You may notice that the shelves now sport casters. They are heavy duty three inch diameter models that have a 1/2" threaded post on top. It required me to enlarge the already threaded holes and tap them to 1/2"-20 TPI. WHAT a difference it makes in accessing the back!
On the way from Hong Kong is a TUBE headphone amplifier. I have a set of Audio Technica ATH-AD700 headphones that are PHENOMINAL! Here's a link to Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Technica-ATH-AD700-Audiophile-Headphones-Neodymium/dp/B000CMS0XU I got mine via eBay for less than $60.00. I'd never imagined how good headphones could sound.
In the future, I MAY dabble in other tube equipment since these DCM speakers are so efficient. So, am I done? Hardly!
