Best system for opera lover at $30,000

PS Garfish, you won't learn about real music systems just from reading magazines & books! You're better off not quoting them if you want to be taken seriously. rgds, david k.

Gentlemen, how many live operas have you attended? How many recorded operas have you listened to recently?

I wholeheartedly agree with Fieldman. Whether or not "Snoopdog" is actually the Snoopdog of rap that we might have heard of, I must take issue with him. Regarding vinyl, read my arguments in the thread "CD-vs.-SACD-LP-vs.-DVD". Yes, I love vinyl, and my turntable's platter weighs more than your house, and is made from extra terrestrial technology, using a micro sized black hole suspended in a stasis field around the spindle, for mass loading! The gravity well is murder on the antiskate, though! As for me, I'm happy with my CD player (mostly because it's better than any you've had!), and as long as I don't listen to both formats in the same night, I'm content. You can't possibly expect someone brand new to the highend to become an avid vinyl enthusiast from the getgo, over night. Many out there just aren't suited for the kind of attention to detail and rabid enthusiasm required. It would be like getting a 4 foot tall young woman to loose her virginity to a sasquatch!!!!! I just want to give a shout out to all my homies out there...you da bomb, see ya later. Gots to go turn some of my bitches out...gots to make some mo cash, to purchase some mo solid silver 400 amp power transformers for my estates....

Speakers-B&W 802. Amp- Mark Levinson 335. Preamp- Mark Levinson 380. CD- Mark Levinson #39. Cables- Mogabi

IMHO the Levinson electronics will leave them disappointed. If your friends love opera they would enjoy a trip to the Met in NYC or to San Francisco to hear a live performance or two. With their ears freshened up they could then visit the high end dealers in either city and listen to the stuff suggested above. If they come to the Bay Area I would be happy to show them around. I spent this morning listening to some operas on both vinyl and CD. The majority of the modern recordings of the opera repertoire are on EMI or Decca. Therefore, your listening experience is gated by the preexisting recordings (pace DVD or LD). Each company has a house sound which is very different from each other. Some of the digital remasters are awful. MANY are worse than the vinyl. But, often the vinyl pressings are terrible and the digital remasters good. Keeping your turntable/arm/cartridge/vinyl tweeked is a lot more hassle than replacing tubes. So they should bring their favorite recordings because for opera lovers the performance is usually paramount. Re Feldman45 comments on Sonus Fabers and the lack of importance low bass in opera. NOT if you like Strauss and Wagner. I checked the scores this morning and many of the important themes have fundamentals in the last octave Eflat (38.8 Hz) to G(489). I played the recordings and the Decca CD remasters clearly have these notes. They are on most of the vinyl too. If I was a “Perfect Wagnerite” and dropped $30K but couldn’t get goose bumps off the Wotan Spear motif I’d be REALLY ticked. I choked a pair of Amati Homage’s at my dealer on the Prelude to Act III of Siegfried (Decca, Solti). You should have seen the look on his face when we played the same passage on the Revel’s and Dunlavy’s. If I wanted to listen to Marriage of Figaro in an apartment, Sonus Faber would be fine but way too expensive. I'd get a pair of InnerSound electrostats and a used tube amp. The Flower Song (Dessay on EMI DDD) would leave you speechless and you would have a lot of cash left over. I would stongly recommend at least a tube preamp to help prevent listening fatigue. A tube poweramp would be good too since your friends will want to enjoy 3-6 hour of music and not just contemplate the psychoacoustics of glare. I like ARC and Melos but others swear by CJ. The size of the room and their preferences in opera will most strongly influence their speaker choices. Bottom line, without more info on your friends’ opera listening habits, the SPECIFIC recommendations from all of the lunatics on this thread (including myself) are not actionable. However, the issues discussed by all are real. Remind your friends that $30K (invested at a reasonable rate of return) is about 2 LIVE opera performances a month for five years, for a couple with the best seats in the house.