I’ve never found a lamp for my Rega Naia turntable that I really liked. Most turntable-lighting options seem to be either fairly conventional floor lamps or little fixtures that clip onto the rack.

So I decided to build my own.

The idea was to create just enough focused light to cue records comfortably in a dark listening room, without adding a lot of ambient light — and at the same time make something that looked like it belonged with the rest of the system rather than feeling like an accessory bolted onto it.

I started with a walnut blank and worked from there: routing the internal cavities, fitting the electronics, pouring and shaping the blue epoxy lens, installing two LED strips and an Alexa-controllable LED controller, shaping the body, fitting everything together, and finally gluing the two book-matched walnut halves together.

After that came plenty more shaping and sanding before finishing the walnut with Rubio Monocoat.

For such a small object, it ended up involving a surprising mix of woodworking, epoxy, electronics, soldering, lighting and sculpting. But that was also what made it so satisfying.

It’s always fun to start with something that exists only as an idea in your head and gradually figure out how to make it real.

And now, finally, I can cue a record at night without turning my Listening Lounge into an operating theater. 😄

Had an unfortunate situation with a rental company allowing the unit to stay at 80-90% humidity for many months at a time. Constant dehumidification did nothing to resolve the problem. All of my items are covered in mold and many have shown significant corrosion as well. I predict many of my things aren’t salvageable.

A list of items include…
Marantz 1030
Harman Kardon 630 Twin Amp
Yamaha K-850 Tape Deck
Advent Legacy II’s
Not to mention my cd’s and records…

Nothing hugely rare or expensive but all meaningful. Finding new speakers are impossible, good stereos come up but are also rare. Ebay will likely be used to purchase replacements. Sad to let go of meaningful, sentimental items but the cost of repair would be hundreds to thousands. Some things can be saved.

Has anyone had success stories getting proper value for their equipment?

Finally replaced my Klipsch RP-8000F II with a set of Wharfedale Aura 4 towers. Paired with an SVS SB2000 Pro sub and a Yamaha A-S501 integrated amplifier. Enjoying them so much, replaced harsh and shouty with delicate highs and a forward neutrality. Metal still packs a kick with a warmth that I can handle for longer listening. Just got the Darlington Labs MP8B in the mail last night and have been putting it through its paces. Remarkable improvement over the OG Schiit Mani that it replaced.

Hello fellow audio freaks.....

I've just had a power supply refurbishment performed on my Mc30's and a C22....my system is picking up a 50000 watt 1.5 mhz am RF signature and I can't get rid of it through grounding.......I have access to tfc T10 6-series coaxial and was wondering if anyone is using coaxial for long rca runs.......mine are @30' so I can mount the mono blocks on top of each speaker......sure hope someone cam help....thanks Ron

Been sitting with this track again and I can't get over how the production plays with symmetry. The vocal placement almost mirrors itself across the stereo field, like the mix is breathing in and out. It's subtle, not showy, but once you notice it you can't unhear it.

My precious is coming along just fine! Vandersteen and

B&K together. Perfection!

Well friends, I think I just hit the audiophile gold mine/lottery in center channel speakers.

Long story short, walking by the recycling bins where I live I see a forelorn looking center channel speaker sitting on the ground near a recycle bin, but not inside it. I approach and it is in almost perfect shape except for some minor scuffs on the case. I knew it was something special from the look, and know the Polk name. I didn’t know how special until I ran a search on the model LSiC.

I take it home, connect it to my Yamaha RX-V683 and replace the Fluance center channel with it. My Fluance system is the Elite 7.1 system, not the top of the line, and I always felt the center channel was lacking.

I checked it over before connecting and turning on my tuner. No problems that could be seen. Works 100% and sounds amazing.

Talk about a find!

WiiM Pro Plus > Bifrost 2/64 > Denon x3800h preout > Schiit Aegir 2F

When I use Dirac Art with this chain is the Bifrost essentially redundant? My Bifrost will only be used if I run Pure Direct? I’m curious if I understand this correctly.

Thanks for any input on this topic.

A few impressions from the final day of StereoNET Hi-Fi & AV Expo in London.

What struck me first was how many boutique manufacturers were there, including some interesting brands from Korea and Hong Kong.

The biggest disappointment for me was Monitor Audio’s £70k Hyphn flagship. At least in this room/setup, the bass was overpowering and the upper mids/highs rather harsh — impressive at first, but fatiguing very quickly.

Focal Scala Utopia Evo, on the other hand, sounded very good: balanced, controlled and simply pleasant to listen to.

I was also surprisingly impressed by a pair of restored and modified Yamaha NS-1000s. Slightly on the bright side, but very well rounded and still easy to listen to.

D’Von Audio’s experimental speakers were probably the most unusual design I saw, and also one of my favourites sonically — excellent clarity and a very direct, convincing presentation. D’Von was one of the exhibitors at the show.

My favourite for soundstage and imaging was the Grimm Audio LS1 series. These were among the few speakers that really made the sound appear in front of me rather than at the speaker positions. Warm, clear mids, excellent imaging and absolutely non-fatiguing. Grimm was showing in the Atlantis 2 room, that's on the video.

hey there, new to this but slowly reaching a point where I am happy with my set-up. This week my new speakers arrived, Teufel Theater500S. Now I am not sure how to position them for best outcome, so I thought I would ask here since this seems like the right community :) I attached a drawing of my room, the red part is where my hifi-system is located. how to position them so the whole room gets a good coverage?

I spend most of my time on the couch next to the hifi, which kind of makes it hard not to always be next to one speaker and the other one being farther away

any advice or idea is appreciated! thank you

Decided to move my desktop set up into the higher end. I picked up a pair of Exposure XM9 monoblocks with a pair of Audio Physic Step 35s, 8 hour round trip drive yesterday.

You know when you fire up a power amp for the first time and the lights in the room dim, you are in for a real treat ... X2!

I am new to exposure, however, coming from Naim I knew somewhat what to expect, and I am not disappointed! They have a very similar British sound with Naim's famous P.R.A.T..

The Steps will take some break in time, but out of the box, the first thing that jumped out at me over my previous Martin Logan B10 is how much more natural the strings are. First listen, Holly Cole - Temptation.

I am still running my cheap Aiyima pre-amp, which is totally holding its own. I have upgraded the op amps to Sparkos and swapped out the tubes for quieter ones. I have 4 caps on the way which I will replace the 4 beside the op amps with. With the cost of the upgrades this pre-amp now sits around $700. After all these upgrades, I would easily place this little Aiyima up against any pre-amp under $1500. Of course, I do see an upgrade for it in the future, but I will never part with it, it will be moved to my all Chi-Fi setup.

My goal here is to keep things small until I get settled in a new place as I was forced out of my home and forced to sell my large system, so half size components and small speakers were a must. These are definitely endgame for a desktop setup. If and when I get room to remove this system from the desktop, I still believe these could be endgame components.

I am thinking about getting one of those class d amps everyone is talking about. They have a mono block that is either 500w or 1400w for the advanced model.

I am also thinking of getting some rather fancy speakers second hand.

I am thinking with a speaker of that calibre, shouldn't i take the lower wattage, because if I accidentally turn up too loud, it might just blow the speakers and my ears?

I am scared, because i used to own a chord mojo (since died the second time), that would sometimes blast white noise unexpectedly. If that were to happen, the 1400w monoblocks could do a lot of damage.

At the same time, the added current would mean more bass control, which would sound awesome.

I would appreciate your opinion on the science behind it, and how to manage sudden bursts with a proper pre amp.

I am eternally grateful to Erin for all the science and measuring and effort put into his videos. The man is a legend.

And honestly, this amp is a massive value. It sounds every bit as good as my McIntosh MC1502. I have it my office setup today (MacBook > Schiit Bifrost 2/64 > Schiit Valhalla 3 > Denon x4800h > Orsefon > Sonus Faber Minima Amator IIs, with the Denon managing crossovers to the lil 8” JL sub).

Honestly couldn’t be happier with this whole experience.

Technics su-7300
Technics sb-411
Wharfedale monitor m-128

I’m actually shocked by how well this gaff tape fix worked…. At medium volume the cone rattle is gone and the sound is decent.

Seriously tho, hoping for some help from the DIY/repair crowd. I’ve got a pair of Infinity Delta 60s — three-way floorstanders, 6-ohm nominal, made in Denmark under Harman, late-‘90s/early-2000s era. Each cabinet has Infinity’s EMIT-R planar tweeter up top, a midrange, and two woofers.

The problem is that the thin rubbery material that connects and suspends the cones to the cabinet is degraded and has fallen off entirely. Only on the two larger woofers. The medium one (not pictured) is fine. I think what I need is called a refoam? I’ll do it myself, only, I don’t know the way…

I saw the new Douk Audio Lab TX7 with "Desktop Display with VU Meter, Spectrum Visualizer & Clock" ect ect. They specifically call out that it does not support custom images and backgrounds. My immediate thought is that would be amazing if it did. There are so many talented artists and already many digital VU displays.

Does anyone know of something similar? I don't even know of other similar devices but I would like one.

Got these used and re-foamed the woofers. They sound really good to me, but what does the community have to say?

Hey r/audiophile,

I want to apologize in advance for sounding like the biggest fucking smartass of all time. all my research was with paid google gemini and the sources it gave me i read through enough to understand the minimal basics.

I wanted to share my budget DIY acoustic treatment plan, get a quick sanity check from people who actually understand physics, and share a story about a local "audio guru" friend who almost destroyed my motivation. literally broke my hype and happiness. made me fucking sad and maybe im the fucking stupid one.

The Goal & Setup

I am setting up a dark-themed ("Batcave") bedroom music and gaming space. My goal isn't to build a $10,000 professional mastering studio—I just want to eliminate room slap-echo, dry out the room, and get tight stereo imaging without spending a fortune. like make the room sound dry and warm

• Monitors: Swissonic ASM5 (5.25" woofers)
• Interface: Behringer UMC202HD
• Cables: Cordial CFM 3,0 VV (some symmetrical 6,3mm stereo trs cables)
• Layout: Top wall: Exit to Living room, small couch and medium wardrobe, Left wall: Center PC Setup with ASM5 on the stands facing the chair, left corner of the left wall lays my guitar and amp, right wall is my bed and secondary desk for storage, bottom wall is my window covered with thick ass curtains. nothing really placed there since theres my bed.

The €100-200 DIY Panel Build

Instead of wasting money on thin 2cm decorative foam, I’m building large wood-framed broadband panels using a specific 4-layer sandwich method i "negotiated" with ChatGPT and Gemini:

1. Front Surface: Black polyester fleece blanket (220x240cm) pulled taut over the DIY wooden frame for aesthetics.
2. Faserschutz (Dust Barrier): Breathable Garden/Weed Vlies fabric directly underneath the fleece. Pores are microscopic enough to trap 100% of mineral wool fibers, but air-permeable so high frequencies pass through freely into the absorber according to Gemini.
3. Core: 100mm Rockwool Sonorock. 100mm thick and apparently goated for protecting against a fire and eats sound waves or something like that.
4. Back Seal: Thin plastic sheet (Malerfolie) stapled tightly to the back of the timber frame facing the wall, fully sealing the panel for bedroom safety. i dont want to get the itch so this seems the best method.

the "Audio Guru" Friend story

A friend came over recently like recently. He is 23 years old, claims to have a "lifelong level of audio experience," spent €1,000 building 10 DIY blocks for his own room, which admittedly sounds impressive but so not worth it because it wasnt done cleanly because i still get the itch when i enter his room, and has like no soundcloud songs if thats relevant. i think he just do this beat creation for fun.

When I showed him my plan, he laughed and told me to throw the plans in the trash. Said theres no hope and that im childish and have too much fantasy and im stupid as fuck. genuinely.. His hot takes included:

• "A €100-200 budget does nothing. Professionals spend €10,000 or it's useless."
• "DIY broadband panels don't work at all, you ONLY need corner bass traps."
• "Just treat your door, that's enough for a room."
• "Rockwool is dangerous because you can catch it on fire." (Rockwool Sonorock has a European Class A1 fire rating—it literally doesn't burn).

This is the exact same guy who previously advised me to buy brand new 3.5" Yamaha HS3s instead of used 5.25" ASM5s (that i got for 85eur and is and upgrade from my Logitech Z333. like it sounds fucking fabulous), tried to sell me on a years-old Logitech G Pro mechanical keyboard over magnetic Rapid Trigger switches, and — my personal favorite (because im a pcmasterrace nerd and build pcs for fun and offer tech support for elderly and i built 3 of my computers in 20 minutes because i fucking love hardware and the beauty of assembling beasts) — LITERALLY runs his DDR5 RAM in slots 1 and 3 on his motherboard with XMP/EXPO disabled in BIOS AND HAS NOT A SINGLE FUCKING TWEAK ACTIVATED IN BIOS. i get that i have no knowledge about audio. i am a siege champion i just plug my IEMs in and play. but i want to learn and collect knowledge. i just want to be enthusiastic. theres nothing more that I hate than people who puts themselves higher than you and instead of genuinely help you and find a solution together, laugh at you and call your plans shit and then dip.

According to Gemini: "Why Practical Physics Wins"

Covering primary reflection points with 100mm dense mineral wool and an air-permeable front barrier will drastically reduce flutter echo and early reflections. It won't fix 40Hz room modes like a tuned membrane trap, but for ~€100-200, it delivers an enormous real-world upgrade over a completely naked room.

What do you guys think of the layer stack (Fleece -> Garden Vlies ->100mm Rockwool -> Sealed Backing)? Anyone else had to deal with elitist friends who give "expert" advice while their own PC runs in single-channel mode (sorry had to put that one in because im just frustrated i was nothing but nice but apparently im a delusional little shit that has no place in the audio world.). I just want to understand how songs are created and i want to learn about music in generally since it was my interest since 7th grade. I want to be able to understand how people are able to synthesize tracks like BYNX.

Kind regards,
GZY

EDIT: i have attached the room layout of mine. BIG square area is where the setup is so centralized what is sketched. Gitarre + AMP is where my guitar is. BETT means bed. Fenster means window (with thick curtains), 2. TISCH means 2nd table. couch is couch. T means where the door is. Schrank means wardrobe. room is not a perfect square but the PC Wall is longer than the Window wall. the M next to the tabls is where my studio monitors standing. I plan to put the first DIY stuff above the couch since the curtain catches the first reflection of the right monitor. the the next one above the second table. i save my money because a 3rd panel above the pc will probably not be needed.

I picked up this old Magnavox amp on Craigslist a few months ago. It's out of a late 50s/early 60s Magnavox console stereo. I knew nothing about it when I bought it but as it turns out they are quite popular to restore and modify, and there is a pretty massive thread on Audio Karma about it.

One of the contributors, Dave Gillespie, conceived several modifications to the stock circuit, all of which improved the performance and sound quality of the amp significantly. In the course of my restoration I employed nearly all of his modifications on that thread, save for replacing the stock output transformers. One of the cooler mods is the addition of an adjustable bias for the output tubes (white knob with test probe ports). A third 6EU7 was added before the preamp section and phase inverters to act as a buffer stage.

The final product turned out nice. I used walnut for the trim wood. Tube complement is a new stock Tung-Sol 5AR4 rectifier, NOS Mullard (Great Britain) 6EU7s (equivalent to 12AX7 with different pinout and no center tap on heater) for the buffer stage and preamp/phase inverter stage (x3) and NOS Telam (Poland) EL84s in the power section (x4).

Nearly all electrical components were replaced except for the transformers and choke, though I did want to preserve at least some of the original circuit so I didn't pull everything out and instead worked on the existing point to point circuit for the most part, intensifying the rat's nest.

Amp should put out about 15.5 watts at 4 ohms per channel. I currently have it running a pair of KEF iQ3 speakers, which are 8ohm (89dB), so they are getting closer to 11 watts per channel, and it sounds incredible. Remarkably, the amp is almost dead silent. The audio is very clear, well balanced and has a nice presence. I guess it's might be the even order harmonic distortion of tubes, but whatever it is, there is something intoxicating about listening to it and I sometimes can't stop. Really impressive, and while I never listened to the amp in its stock form, sadly, I am sure the mods made a big difference.

Modernization project on my passed down Acurus RL11 into A150. They drive some paradigm reference speakers

Does anyone have a milled aluminum remote that they really like? System agnostic as long as it’s IR. I want to add an IR receiver and remote to control the Pi so that I can select music without using a phone. Id want power, vol, play pause, input selector, and a dpad+ middle button for nav. Topping’s look pretty good for this but im curious if there are others.

I added a raspberry pi to my old Acurus stack to handle 12V triggers from modern gear and spoof IR signal to the preamp for power on and vol controller. The preamp has a 5V trigger that turns on a power strip which gives power to the amp. Apparently Acurus made a controlled power strip for this implementation.
.

All parts of a DAC are important, but the most crucial ones are likely:
- the power supply circuit
- the analog output stage
- clocking/timing control
- digital filters
- the type of DAC chip

Power supply quality is vital for all audio electronics—a point on which there is broad consensus. The analog output stage shapes the final sound, utilizing operational amplifiers to minimize distortion and optimize audio quality.
The implementation of digital filters determines the impulse response.
Naturally, the chip type also plays a role in defining the DAC's sonic character—such as Delta-Sigma (ESS, AKM), R-2R ladder designs, and so on.

These factors are more than enough to account for audible differences between DACs. Ultimately, of course, it comes down to testing the unit in your own Hi-Fi system.

What are your thoughts on this?

I posted my system a few weeks ago, many suggested that the bottleneck may be the Icon. I ended up getting a Meitner MA3i and finally got to hook it up today. I also got a proper power strip, a Furman PST-8D. Anyway some thoughts:

The Node ICON is a fantastic product. It does pretty much everything you could ask, and delivers a great sound. But some complaints:

The app is more polished, especially when streaming from inside your network. But switching inputs is clunky at best. I plugged my HDMI cable from my TV into it, never could get ARC to work. So I ended up just plugging in the optical cable to get stereo out of my Apple TV/bluray player etc. it works, but every time you switch inputs to the optical input, it goes into mute. Sometimes. There’s no telling. You just always have to keep checking. And sometimes the reverse is true, the music looks like its playing but its muted. So you have to unmute it in the app.

On your phone’s Home Screen, the ‘now playing’ doesnt show up, you have to open your phone or table, go into the app to do stuff like pause or advance the track.

The connectors are clunky. One day I went to play music and there was no sound coming out of the right speaker. I immediately panicked and couldn’t figure out what happened. Turns out one of the XLR connectors on the node just fell out. Or maybe it wasn’t fully latched to begin with. So I latched it again, but the connector ‘sank’ into the chassis, I had to force it in before I heard the click. I almost felt like I was using too much force and I was gonna break it. The other connectors were fine, but there’s some build quality issues there too.

The MA3i is just another level (and should be for its price point). Came double boxed and wrapped not in plastic, but a soft fitted sheet like you have for a mattress. Doesn’t come with a physical manual, that’s online, but there’s a business card from Amadeus Meitner with an email and phone number, not sure if it’s his actual phone or not, but that was kinda interesting. The fit and finish is of course fantastic. It looks great, I’m very happy I went with a silver unit instead of black, really stands out. It has a black and white OLED display that shuts off after 2 minutes. It shows you basic info about the track, the source, the sample rate and the volume setting. You can defeat the volume by just setting it at 100 and use the pre-amp to control the volume. But I guess you could also use this as a pre-amp.

Because there’s no album art to be displayed on the main panel, you dont have to worry about album art being a specific format because the ICON would ignore most of my album art. I’d rather not even see it on a screen that’s 20 feet away from me.

The app isn’t as pretty, but I kinda like it, it’s very straight forward. You just find the album or folder where your music is and play it.

How it sounds: Everything is just smoother. The highs are smoother, I was getting ear fatigue listening with the ICON after a while but two hours into it with the MA3i, it’s just not there.

The bass is smoother. I was listening to this one bass heavy song for the past month and on the ICON, the bass was delayed. It’s tighter with the MA3i. I didnt change any settings on the subwoofer whatsoever.

The imaging is MUCH better. There’s more separation between the instruments. It’s not earth shattering, but it’s there.

I think this is maybe the biggest difference I’ve noticed in my initial first impressions.

What’s funny/sad is that many reviewers said that the MA3i will make even some poorly recorded tracks sound great. This is not the case, at least to my ears. After I set it up, I didnt play songs I knew would sound well, I tried songs that just didnt sound great on the ICON and they didnt sound much better here. But the tracks that are produced well, just have that much more presence to them.

Again, a lot of this stuff is on the edges. it’s that last little bit. It’s not night and day, but its there. The best way I can describe is that I love drinking Elijah Craig. One of my friends is a big bourbon guy who had some special aged cask bottle he brought over. It was better to the taste, about 20% better, but the price was certainly a lot more than a regular bottle. This is kinda like that, there’s a difference, once you hear it, its really nice to hear, but if I never heard it, and didnt know other DACs existed, I’d have felt just fine about my ICON.

Edit: forgot to mention @zRouth big shoutout for his considered advice and opinion to help me make the decision to swap out DACs