1st Post Intro & Ramblings


Hi all, I have been a member for about 10 years and never posted anything although I do read a lot. Figured at some point I would, 10+ years later......

 Profession, Audio Visual Tech 22 years. I mostly work in house corporate, conventions and trade shows. Spent some time building clubs, worked a few concerts and home audio has been more of a hobby for a very long time and I have designed and built a few very high end setups years ago. I always hated working professionally on home audio, the customers and sales people are either to cheap or knee deep in marketing and cannot take advice from professionals. My experience has led me to be more aware of the budget, a vast majority cannot spend $10-20k on a stereo and yet some of us spend that on a just 1 component. 
I think that will suffice as an introduction, next I will post some of what I have learned along the way. Keep in mind, most of my recommendations come with a budget mindset instead of $$$ all out performance $$$.
kreapin
An example of this is my present setup which is basic at the moment since I buy & sell. Denon X3500 and a Meridian 556 powering a pair of Gallo Reference 3.1 towers. My wife is slowly becoming an audiophile and we went to a friends house who spent a considerable amount of cash on a 11.2 SVS Prime speaker bundle and Yamaha receiver. On the way home, wifey started asking why I didn’t step in and fix the sound. I explained that I did what I could quickly but it is what it is. She replied our 5.2 kicks it in the ... and we spent half the money. 
A friend at work came over one day she wanted a stereo for her husband for his birthday, what can we do? So I got her requirements and room info, got everything together, brought it all over and set it up so when he came home it was a total surprise.

Next thing you know the guy is calling me up all excited. In his business he goes to a lot of homes, guys with systems are always showing them off to impress, and this sounds better than ANY of them including ones he knows cost a small fortune... so how much did the wife spend???

$2500.

"Really? I thought at least $5k for sure." He can't believe it. But its true. A little knowledge goes a long way. And yeah, it is gratifying.
That’s great. A little bit time and patience along with experience can take a system a long way. I purchased a complete Emotiva surround setup (Craigslist) with the ERT 8.3 and a 5 channel Emotiva amp. Sold within a week and made a few bucks. 6 months later I happened across the guy I sold it to, we chatted it up and of course we started equipment. I told him to dump the amp, he couldn’t understand why so I bet him $50 that my 25 year old Linn LK100 would make those ERT’s sound substantially better. I literally placed the Linn on top of the emotiva and went head to head with no tuning. His jaw dropped, 80x2 vs 400x2. Instead of taking his money, I sold him another amp.