|
Introduction | I admit it, I'm a bit of an audiophile.
I love music, but beyond that, I also enjoy beautifully and
accurately reproduced sound. Powerful and accurate bass can
make me smile with glee. The clarity of a vocal line can make
the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The added detail
and subtlety I hear when a recording is played on good hi-fi
equipment is intoxicating.
The
hardware | Here's a complete list of what components comprise
my current audio/video hi-fi/home theater system.
Input:
•
Marantz
CD-67SE CD player
•
Denon DCD-595
CD player
•
Pioneer
DV-505 multi-region DVD player
• Pioneer DV-360-S multi-region DVD player
• Sony
MDS-JE510 Minidisc player
• Sony
MZ-R30 portable Minidisc player
• Denon
DRS-810 Stereo Tape Deck
• Denon
TU-580RD stereo tuner
• Mark ED-802 Stereo VCR
• Microsoft XBOX console
• Sony PlayStation2 console
• Nintendo GameCube console
• Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP handheld
Processing:
•
Denon AVR-3300
DD/DTS Receiver
• Marantz
PM-66 KI Signature amplifier
Output:
• Dali
Grand Coupé speakers (front)
• Rega
Kyte speakers (surround)
• JVC
AV-28WT2EN Widescreen TV
• Stax
SR|84 Pro electret headphones
• Grado
SR-80 headphones
• Sennheiser MX-500 earpads
• Sony Fontopia MDR-EX70SL earplugs
Coordination:
•
Marantz
RC2000MkII remote control
Here's a couple of photos of the setup
[ 1 ] [ 2
], as well as some shots of individual components [ 1
] [ 2 ] [ 3
] [ 4 ]. Finally, here
are some shots of my software libraries, like my j-pop collection
[ 1 ] [ 2
] and DVD collection [ 1
]. If you're curious, find out more about j-pop here.
Aural
truth | The Stax SR|84 lambda PRO junior electret earspeaker
system deserves a few words as many people have never come
into contact with the exotic creation known as the electrostatic
headphone.
The construction
and principles behind electrostatic headphones are quite different
from those of the more common dynamic headphones [ read
more ]. For one, most models don't plug into the headphone
jack as they require a special
driver unit to run the phones. Some models plug into the
speaker terminals while others use audio output terminals.
Moving
to how they sound; you know how you sometimes get the feeling
that a headphone or speaker is out of its league and is struggling
to keep up with the music? That never seems to happen with
the Stax 'phones. In fact, they keep pace with such a sense
of effortless ease that you can't help but smile at their
arrogance. Their biggest upside is their amazing accuracy
in recreating the sound captured on a recording. When you
listen to them, it doesn't feel like you're listening at all,
rather, it feels like a direct feed to the music, like the
digital bits on the CD are being decoded in a chip implant
in your brain.
They
also have that magical quality where they make everything
sound brand new the first time you use them. It's like listening
to a familiar piece of music for the first time again, and
you just want more and more, pulling out all your favorite
albums to experience them in this bright new light strapped
to your head.
As mentioned,
these Stax phones don't use the headphone jack, the Stax driver
unit has to be hooked up to the speaker outputs of the amp,
and the speakers then connect to the driver unit. I didn't
want the extra loop for my speakers, though, so what I did
was hook the electrets up to the PM-66 KI, which used to be
the center piece of my system but was relegated when I got
the AVR-3300. The Marantz amp is now solely used to power
the Lambda Juniors. Not very dignified for the amp that won
the 1997-1998 EISA
award for best amplifier, but it works for me.
Software
| What good is a hi-fi system if you don't have some great
stuff to play on it? Below you'll find my honor roll, a list
of 10 of my favorite CDs and DVDs.
CDs
| Here's my list of CDs (listed in alphabetical order). The
Amazon link will take you to the album's entry in the Amazon.com
inventory, where you can read reviews, listen to audio samples,
and buy the CD. Note that I've accentuated diversity, so while
hypothetically my 10 favorite CDs might all be classical music,
for instance, I've picked releases from other genres to make
the list as diverse as possible.
Al
Di Meola/John McLaughlin/Paco de Lucia: "Friday Night
in San Francisco"
CK 65168 [ Amazon
]
© 1981, 1997 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
Donald
Fagen: "The Nightfly"
7599-23696-2 [ Amazon
]
© 1982 Warner Bros. Records Inc.
Donizetti:
"Lucia di Lammermoor"
Callas/di Stefano/Gobbi
RIAS Sinfonie-Orchester Berlin
Herbert von Karajan
CDMB 5 66441 2 [ Amazon
]
Recorded live 1955
© 1997 EMI Records Ltd.
Fourplay:
"Fourplay"
9 26656-2 [ Amazon
]
© 1991 Warner Bros. Records Inc.
Jeff
Buckley: "Grace"
475928 2 [ Amazon
]
© 1994 Sony Music Entertainment
Mozart:
Mass in C Minor K. 427
Stader/Töpper/Haefliger/Sardi
Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin
Ferenc Fricsay
415 919-2 [ Amazon
]
(P) 1960 Polydor International GmbH, Hamburg
Released on Deutsche Grammophon's Musikfest label
Nils
Petter Molvær: "Khmer"
ECM 1560 537 798-2 [ Amazon
]
© 1997 ECM Records GmbH
Sarah McLachlan: "Fumbling Towards
Ecstasy"
74321 19032 2 [ Amazon
]
© 1994 Arista Records, Inc.
Tricky:
"Maxinquaye"
314-524 089-2 [ Amazon
]
© 1995 Island Records Ltd
Øystein
Sevåg: "Link"
SSRCD2 / 74321 136712 [ Amazon
]
© 1993 Siddhartha Spiritual Records
DVDs
| And here's a list of 10 of my favorite DVDs (in alphabetical
order). The IMDb link will take you to the film's entry in
The Internet
Movie Database.
"Amadeus" (Forman)
1984 - Abraham/Hulce/Berridge
[ IMDb
]
"American Beauty" (Mendes)
1999 - Spacey/Bening/Birch/Bentley
[ IMDb
]
"Dark
City" (Proyas)
1998 - Sewell/Hurt/Sutherland/Connelly
[ IMDb
]
"Die
Hard" (McTiernan)
1988 - Willis/Rickman/Bedelia
[ IMDb
]
"Fisher
King, The" (Gilliam)
1991 - Bridges/Williams/Ruehl/ Plummer
[ IMDb
]
"Jurassic
Park" (Spielberg)
1993 - Neill/Dern/Goldblum
[ IMDb
]
"Killer,
The" (Woo)
1989 - Yun-Fat/Lee/Yeh
[ IMDb
]
"Magnolia"
(P.T. Anderson)
1999 - Cruise/Moore/Baker Hall/Reilly/ Hoffman/Macy/Walters
[ IMDb
]
"Seven Samurai" (Kurosawa)
1954 - Mifune/Shimura/Tsushima
[ IMDb
]
"Shawshank
Redemption, The" (Darabont)
1994 - Robbins/Freeman
[ IMDb
]
Bonus
selection*:
Dreams
Come True: "Wonderland 1999 Fuyu no Yume"
TOBF-55013 [ YesAsia
]
*Since
I've focused on films for the DVD list, I wanted to include
an extra pick to use on a music DVD; Dreams Come True's "Wonderland
99" concert in Osaka, Japan. It's simply the finest live
concert performance I've ever had the pleasure of seeing.
Disclaimer:
these lists are likely to change on a whim at any time.
[
who | what
| where | why
| how ]
[ photo | hi-fi
| j-pop ]
Copyright
© 2002-2004 Hans Christian Eikanger
|
