Finally after many years, have moved into a house and have a my own "man-cave"

 

Room measures just about 4.2m wide and 3.8m long with a ceiling of 2.8m, so not an ideal shape, another meter deep would have been nice. Still not too bad, with carpeted floors and semi open down one side.

 

Speakers used to be Usher BE718DMD which sounded great at my old house which had a oddly shaped (wide but shallow) lounge room. http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/index.php?/topic/13407-newish-simple-stereo-setup/?hl=%2Bmonitor+%2Baudio+%2Bgs20 Great bass reponse from a reasonable sized speaker and excellent treble and mid range - mucher better than the Monitor Audio GS20s they replaced. 

 

In the new room, i decided to replace them with the bigger Usher Mini-dancer 1, I wanted a bit more bass reponse but decided against the Mini-dancer 2 as being too big for the room. A local hifi shop agreed to do a trade in and they were duly delivered. Packaging as per the build quality of the Ushers is very good. Ably assisted in unpacking them by the long suffering one

 

And duly installed, about 2.5m apart and 65cm from the back of the speaker to the rear wall. 

 

Electronics consist of

Rega Planar 3 I have owned since 1990 witha Elyse cartridge, recently with Groove Tracer upgrades

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/index.php?/topic/51733-where-to-buy-groove-tracer-plattersub-platter-in-oz/

 

Marantz SA11S2 SACD player (replaced a Oppo 95 which has moved to the movie room), bought this recently from SNA.Works well (now) and sounds pretty darn good.

 

Technics BX828 cassette Deck, another item owned since the 90's, good 3 head deck in the day, included for playing a few rare and odd factory produced tapes I stil own.

 

LSA Standard hybrid Solid state/valve integrated amplifier , bought a couple of years ago, great sound good controlled bass but with nice smooth sounding mid and treble.Well built and heavy at 38kg

 

Also bought a PS Audio UPC-200HB recently from a SNA member. 

 

Cables are a mixture Transparent Audio Musicwave Plus interconnects and Musicwave speaker cable and Kimber cable for the power cords. Racks are by Lovan with additional MDF shelving under the Rega and PS Audio power conditioner.

 

Oh and music to feed the machine

Edited June 26, 201312 yr by cafe67

Nice man cave. Thanks for showing the pics, those ushers sure do shine nicely.

Very nice, very nice indeed, the Ushers look great in situ, whole system is very tidy WD!

 

 

 

*And....(I don't quite believe it) a very lovely smiling helpful Handbrake!! Where the hell did you get one of those? Rare as rocking horse poo you know. She's a keeper! :lol:

Gtg should be on the cards to show off

Simply Nice!

Well done Caf, it all looks really good.

 

How's the Marantz SA11S2 SACD player compare to the Oppo? I have the Oppo 105 and find it brilliant.

Very nice, very nice indeed, the Ushers look great in situ, whole system is very tidy WD!

 

 

 

*And....(I don't quite believe it) a very lovely smiling helpful Handbrake!! Where the hell did you get one of those? Rare as rocking horse poo you know. She's a keeper! :lol:

Lol, she laughed when I showed her that. She puts up with me and helps out with stuff, she did look at me quizzically when I made her put on rubber gloves when we unpacked the ushers:-)

Well done Caf, it all looks really good.

How's the Marantz SA11S2 SACD player compare to the Oppo? I have the Oppo 105 and find it brilliant.

I had a oppo 83se which sounded better than my previous denon 3910. The oppo 95 sounded noticeably better to me than the 83se. And I still think it is a great unit. The sa11s2 was a buy I deliberated on for a while with choices being keep the oppo 95, get a 105 or the sa11.

Its hard call, but the sa11 sounds that bit more warm or organic?? Compared the the oppo 95. While still sounding detailed. Bass is still deep and controlled while the mids and treble are clear but not bright. To me the system sounds "right/balanced".to my ears of course.

:-)

Edited June 27, 201312 yr by cafe67

Excellent!

Nice setup.  Where'd you get the CD err... case/rack/shelving unit from?

I made her put on rubber gloves...

 

 

Nope. Not going there.   Lol.

Nice system, how do you find the new Usher vs the old, is the new tweeter a noticeable upgrade ?

Cheers,

Ray

Edited June 27, 201312 yr by Raeyz

Nice setup.  Where'd you get the CD err... case/rack/shelving unit from?

From here ...very well made in China, all parts well cut and veneered and clear instructions

http://www.selby.com.au/stands-racks/dvd-cd-storage/1080cd-504dvd-oskar-white-38435418w.html

Nice system, how do you find the new Usher vs the old, is the new tweeter a noticeable upgrade ?

Cheers,

Ray

The be718 I had were the DMD version, the mini-dancers are also the same tweeter and mid/bass unit in the much bigger cabinet. Which is why I went for it. When I compared the be718 to my monitor audio gs20, the treble and mid of the usher was immediately apparent. The bass of the md-1 is abit deeper but seems more controlled, although the be718 did sound better in the newer room.

$109 for the storage unit, can't complain about the price can you, cheap as chips.

arrived flat packed, starts off a bit flimsy as you build it, but by the time all shelves are in place and the whole thing is bolted togather, its very soild. excellent product for the price.

New turntable (rega rp6) plugged in and reshuffle of the shelving and components.

the sa11s2 has gone and i put the oppo95 back in which sounds fine to me plus the ability to play whatever i feed it including files off a thumbdrive make it that bit more flexible, still wondering about the oppo105.

System sounds good, looks good, i'm happy........,now what's the next upgrade? :-)

Edited December 16, 201312 yr by cafe67

Cables!

Lovely system Cafe,

Really love the simplicity of it. Congrats on new TT.

Cheers

Tricky

Looks like a really well thought out system.. Just shows what you can get if you buy used. Well done.

Question, how do you play files on the oppo? Does it have an iPad app? Can it do dlna? Thx

Nice write up and photography Cafe! You have a very nice room. I think the Ushers MD1's are a good choice for your room size & clearly have good waf!  :lol: Btw I used to own a Technics RS-BX626 tape deck which is the next model up or down (I can't recall). Those DD decks were quite exceptional at that time (late 90's) as Nakamichi were no longer producing great decks like the CR-7a. Good show

 

Cheers,

Bodhi

Thank you Boghi

Yes I'm very happy with the sounds and sound of the system, detailed but not too bright, bass is good and not too boomy despite the size if the room. There seems to be a balance in the system.

New turntable (rega rp6) plugged in and reshuffle of the shelving and components.

the sa11s2 has gone and i put the oppo95 back in which sounds fine to me plus the ability to play whatever i feed it including files off a thumbdrive make it that bit more flexible, still wondering about the oppo105.

System sounds good, looks good, i'm happy........,now what's the next upgrade? :-)

Very nice mate, when's the GTG?? 

Lol soon