I'll have to post pics of the room so that you guys can see the challenges of our space. Corner placement isn't an option. We have two potential options and this is why this decision is getting to be so tough. If I go for what we set out to do, the speakers will be placed about 10 feet from the seating area. The area in front of the speakers would account for 1/3 of the length of the room. That means that there is about 26-28 feet behind the speakers. At the widest point and in the listening area, the room is about 20 feet wide. Our ceilings are 11 ft. We are considering going with a smaller system that would be in the same area but with a different speaker placement. The speakers would be perpendicular to the original placement and the listening area would be approximately 15 feet wide by 20 deep. The speakers would end up being about 12-15 feet from the sweet spot. In this configuration there would be no wall on the right hand side as you look at the speakers. Obviously none of this is optimal. Knowing that doing this right with our original speaker placement, we may have to spend a lot more than we want to at this point in time. This is why we are considering the second option. With this option, we would opt to go for a higher efficiency speaker with a sub(s) and run a lower output class A integrated or Mono set up. The idea here is that we have a system that we can use for the BnB and move it to a bedroom when we can sink the cash into a proper large room system. Lots to think about. I'll try to get pics up tomorrow so that you can see what I'm talking about.
Finally stepping into the hobby after 30 years of watching from the sidelines
Ok, so I hope you are all ok with a longwinded post from a first time user of the forum. I have been obsessed with vinyl and tubes since my dad played records for me as a 5 year old. My wife and I are finally in a place that we can take the leap into the scene. We want to grow our system over time and may even create 2-3 systems along the way as we have a bed and breakfast where we want to make analog part of the theme.
We have made up our mind that our first speakers will be Vandersteen 2CE sigs. That is about as far as we have gotten. We definitely want to power them with tubes and have very little idea of where to start. Obviously the mainstream option would be a Mcintosh mc275 and our local HiFi salesman would LOVE to sell us a pair of those. However, we know that there are several cheeper/better options out there and would love some input from the board. We'd like to keep the first amp under $3,000, but we aren't locked into that. Keep in mind that we are ok starting with a single amp and then adding a second one along the way to mono them. Also, we would love some help with a table/arm/cartridge! One with an integrated phono stage is fine to start with and we would again be open to upgrading and adding a stand alone phono stage later on.
We will be doing some electrical work soon to run a 40 amp fuse to the BnBs espresso machine and would be open to setting up a dedicated line for our main system at that time so that we can have clean power. Has any one had any experience with this? Any ideas or recommendations that you may have would be a big help here!
Thank you all in advance, and we are really excited to finally be part of the scene!
We have made up our mind that our first speakers will be Vandersteen 2CE sigs. That is about as far as we have gotten. We definitely want to power them with tubes and have very little idea of where to start. Obviously the mainstream option would be a Mcintosh mc275 and our local HiFi salesman would LOVE to sell us a pair of those. However, we know that there are several cheeper/better options out there and would love some input from the board. We'd like to keep the first amp under $3,000, but we aren't locked into that. Keep in mind that we are ok starting with a single amp and then adding a second one along the way to mono them. Also, we would love some help with a table/arm/cartridge! One with an integrated phono stage is fine to start with and we would again be open to upgrading and adding a stand alone phono stage later on.
We will be doing some electrical work soon to run a 40 amp fuse to the BnBs espresso machine and would be open to setting up a dedicated line for our main system at that time so that we can have clean power. Has any one had any experience with this? Any ideas or recommendations that you may have would be a big help here!
Thank you all in advance, and we are really excited to finally be part of the scene!
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- 194 posts total
- 194 posts total