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Calling All Members

The Board says hello. 
This month The Board announces the biggest giveaway in the history of the Audiophile Society-Foundation-Mega-Corporation’s existence! (Please note that we are not suggesting any association with Lumon Industries.)

This contest is open to any and every member of the Audiophile Foundation as part of our “Bring Members Together” campaign. With this campaign, we are opening up the Muse Intro to all members regardless of the cost of their stereo components. Rather than just hearing from Grant and a few Board members every month, we are soliciting a brief feature presentation from all our members. You do not need a mega-bucks system to enter or be featured in our monthly Muse Intro. Your presentation can be as simple as listing the individual components in your system. Added details like how long you’ve owned each component and what it replaced, approximate cost, new or used, and what you might replace a component with if you had the opportunity to do so will be enthusiastically received, but these details are not required. And sure, you can go on and on about your cables and interconnects, room tweaks, power conditioning, or VooDoo isolation components (full disclaimer here- I own and use VooDoo isolation components) but you don’t need to own, write about, or recommend such things in order to be entered into the contest. And, you do not even need to write about your system. Feel free to expound on anything else remotely audiophile-related that you think would work well in the Intro section of our newsletter. 

And pictures! Please include pictures with your contest entry. The pictures do not need to be of your system. If you think you are photogenic, or you’ve got a nice landscape, send us a photo of yourself or your garden. But, we do request that you own the rights to any pictures you send us for publication, or at least have a fair use release.  

We will be naming the contest, The Muse Egg Bar/Waffle Party Pulitzer, (name pending approval from our legal counsel on appropriating the “Pulitzer” name). All those who make the minimal effort to submit their listed components will be eligible for our yearly Grand Prize! But don’t wait to submit your entry until the end of the year. We only publish monthly, so receiving hundreds of entries all at once will lessen your chances of being featured during the next 12 months, though you will still be entered into the contest even if your entry is not featured in the Intro.  

The impetus for this new direction in Muse Intro content has been driven by The Audiophile Foundation's growth and expansion of members from a widening geographic area. Put simply, there are more of us spread over a larger area. But this in some ways conflicts with the common denominator of most members of every audio group who have a desire to get together and share their gear while listening to music. But, inherent within such a like-minded gathering is the goal of discussing music and the electronics we use to reproduce the best sound we can get in our homes- hence, our request for you to tell us what you’ve got! And no, we won’t be publishing your address with your post, just to assuage everyone’s fears of admirers knocking on their doors.

As an example of what your submission might look like, I am posting a brief description of my bedroom system (pictures follow) that you could use as a template for your own submission.

Speakers: Realistic Minimus-7 with a 4” woofer and 1” dome tweeter. 8 ohm in die-cast aluminum cabinets. Reportedly with a 50-20,000 Hz range (hah! on the 50 Hz). Purchased new in around (?) 1992 for use with a desktop computer sound system. My pair states, in a sticker on the back, that they were “Custom Mfd. in Korea for Radio Shack”. Online info indicates that the early speakers were manufactured in Japan and the later improved models manufactured in Korea. As with most online information, there are disagreements, in this case, the disagreements are over which speakers sounded better. And, you can even find information online about ways to modify the crossovers and the speakers to improve the sound- though some suggest the easiest way to improve their sound is to replace them with better speakers. More information here.

Pangea Audio Vulcan Audio Rack Purchased in 2017 for around $99

Amplifier: Sansui G-5000. Purchased well used but in very good condition around 2017 for ~$350

Turntable: Technics 1200 GAE (#1189) purchased new for ~$4000 in maybe 2018? 
Cartridge: Fidelity Research FR-1 MK3 F. Purchased as new old stock around x-1 number of years ago for… a good price at the time, though the exact or approximate price escapes me now.

Step Up Transformer: Ortofon T-20. I purchased this after buying my first moving coil cartridge somewhere around sometime in the 1980s. I prefer this SUT in this system over my other SUTs as this one has a bypass switch so that if I change cartridges on the Technics- easy to do with the bayonet headshells- I can simply press the bypass button and not have to bother taking the SUT out of the system.  

Streamer: FIIO SR11. This one works wirelessly in the bedroom. Purchased new this year on sale for ~$79. I purchased a second one of these for my office system to replace an ancient Logitech Squeezebox Touch that also worked as a Roon endpoint.

DAC: Topping D10s. Purchased new this year for $109

Those last two items replaced a simple Google Chromecast device and greatly improved the sound quality, internet connectedness reliability, and bling factor. 

Speaker cables: Um, well, they are white cloth-wrapped cables so they blend in with the baseboard color in the bedroom. I don't recall where I ordered them from in 2023, but they were not expensive and they are adequate for this system.

Speaker Stands…The name of these steel speaker stands and the purchase location escapes me, though I can say they were purchased online in 2019 (during the pandemic). They were purchased new and were, as I recall, somewhere around $80-90.

The cans are Focal Elegia, closed-back headphones with an after-market cable. Purchased new somewhere around 2020 for maybe $600.
 
What I love about this system.

I have the Sansui on a Wi-Fi power outlet so that I can use my phone to turn it on from anywhere in the house- though mainly when I’m in bed- and stream from Roon and Qobuz or my digital music library using the Roon remote app on my phone or iPad as I am reading. This is especially useful if I’m reading one of the audiophile entertainment resources, such as Tracking Angle, Stereophile, or TAS, etc., and the reviewer mentions a piece of music in their review that I can listen to while reading his/her review on the sonic attributes of that same piece. Yes, I could get out of bed and manually turn on the receiver, but the wireless and voice-activated tech is fun and I can set a timer to automatically turn the receiver off after I’ve fallen asleep.

And, with Roon, I have this system linked with my office system, (other systems details may appear in the future), and I can stream the same music from these locations as well as in my Media Room and Living Room system all at the same time and adjust the sound level in each system individually  so that the music plays at reasonable volumes yet is easily listenable as I walk around the house. And, one of the fun things about this Roon facilitated linkability is that even though I no longer have four turntables- I’m down to three after my last move- I can still simultaneously play the Zaireeka albums, albeit digitally. Zaireeka is the eighth studio album by the Flaming Lips, released way back in 1997. It consists of four vinyl records, or CDs, designed so that when played simultaneously on four separate audio systems, it produces a harmonic/juxtaposed sound. The discs can also be played in different combinations, omitting one, two, or three discs. Each of Zaireeka’s eight songs consists of four stereo tracks, one from each Vinyl record or CD. (also available on Qobuz, but I can’t vouch for your ability to stream each individual album simultaneously). Do let us know if you pull that off.

And, though even with Roon it’s a slight bit of work to try and start each of the four albums from Zaireeka at the same time, each album on a different system in a different room, I have found an exactly simultaneous start isn’t required to enjoy the composition. And, starting everything digitally is much simpler than starting four vinyl LPs on four different turntables in four different rooms, especially if you live alone.

And there you have it. The only thing I’d like to change about this bedroom system is installing 5-way binding posts on the speakers (never gonna happen) and adding a subwoofer. Of course, I could go on and on, and replace the Minimus-7s with a better pair of stand-mount speakers, or bring my Quad 57s back into the bedroom, and upgrade every component, but I find the minimalist nature of this system quite appealing. However, I may eventually end up moving the turntable into my office system as I find I so very rarely play vinyl records in the bedroom anymore. ☹

And, if you, like me, have multiple systems, feel free to submit and enter each one for another chance at the grand prize and a feature in our monthly Muse Intro.

Send your submission/entries to:
contact@audiophilefoundation.org

And, remember, you know you don’t want to miss submitting your entry and end up being sent to the Break Room!

Also, I have been instructed to repeat the phrase, “This is only an April Fools' Intro”, so that none of you Outies mistakes any of the content for actual reality. Except for the plea for content. We do need more content, and you can provide that, though I’ve also been instructed to say that my content is too long. Your content submission should be shorter. 

And, my Outie has reached retirement age. That means that sometime this year my Innie, (me) will be rotated out of and off of The Board, probably as punishment for writing such long intros. This means there will be even more room in the Muse for your submissions!

 The board now concludes this announcement.

   

David Hicks, ADR (Analog Data Refinement)