# Hotmetal's Classic



## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)




----------



## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

My little coffee corner. Just fits! Hey, it might be humble but it's not a bad start. The Classic was fully pimped by its previous owner on here. If I win the lottery I rather fancy something with lots of knobs, dials and chrome  like a Brewtus or Rocket but right now I wouldn't have the skills to justify it. Although already I'm tempted by a nice shiny black Mignon. I can tell this is going to get expensive!


----------



## DavidBondy (Aug 17, 2010)

Very nice corner. You'll just have to take that cupboard down then you'll have space for a lever!!!


----------



## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

Cosy set up Hotmetal.


----------



## froggystyle (Oct 30, 2013)

Looking good fella!


----------



## Thecatlinux (Mar 10, 2014)

Looks like you're up and running, with the right beans your taste buds are in for a treat.


----------



## DannyMontez (May 19, 2014)

Nice! Exactly the same as mine!


----------



## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Cheers guys. Pulled the best shot so far tonight now I've got my scales, though I did also tighten the grind a tad and raised three temp a degree or two. So much for only changing one thing at a time LOL but was noticeably less acidic so I've found something I want to replicate and improve from. Still got half a bag of Union's Foundation to go and then a bag of their Spirit. After that I think I'll pick one and stick with it for a while.

Talking of expensive my other vice is hifi. I've just spent the evening at a friend's house listening to his system. Sounded amazing but so it should for £250,000!!! (he is a HiFi manufacturer to be fair). My own system is the HiFi equivalent of my coffee kit probably!


----------



## Charliej (Feb 25, 2012)

hotmetal said:


> Cheers guys. Pulled the best shot so far tonight now I've got my scales, though I did also tighten the grind a tad and raised three temp a degree or two. So much for only changing one thing at a time LOL but was noticeably less acidic so I've found something I want to replicate and improve from. Still got half a bag of Union's Foundation to go and then a bag of their Spirit. After that I think I'll pick one and stick with it for a while.
> 
> Talking of expensive my other vice is hifi. I've just spent the evening at a friend's house listening to his system. Sounded amazing but so it should for £250,000!!! (he is a HiFi manufacturer to be fair). My own system is the HiFi equivalent of my coffee kit probably!


The problem is with Hi Fi that there are a lot of snake oil salesmen around that will try to sell you cables with all sorts of ridiculous claims made about them, for even more ridiculous sums of money e.g directional cables- even though music is an AC waveform and wouldn't actually pass down a unidirectional cable or even crazier IEC ( kettle style plug to most of you) mains leads costing £4k or more that can and will have zero discernible audible or measurable effects.

As long as you like the sound from your Hi Fi and the coffee from your setup who cares what it is.


----------



## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Yes indeed - I wholeheartedly agree. I do like the sound of my hi-fi, although it can't compare with what I heard last night, it's certainly pretty decent. I'm running a TW Acustic Raven 1 turntable with Zyx R50 cart through a TRON Electric preamp/phono into two restored 1950s Quad II valve amps with upgraded caps into a sweet little pair of AudioNote AX2s. It is to most hifis what a PIDded Classic is to a Nespresso Pixie (or even a cup of instant in some cases!) so I'm pretty happy.

The system I heard last night is just in a whole different league though - TW Raven Black Night with a Thales Simplicity arm, Ortofon Per Windfeld cart, two Tron Seven Mono phono stages into a Tron Seven Line stage, through a Tron 211-based power amp into Cessaro Liszt horns. Absolutely incredible sound, more resolution and dynamics than I've ever witnessed, a huge soundstage with amazing depth, stunning bass that was totally integrated into the whole and a naturalness that defied belief. But as this system cost considerably more than my house I'd certainly hope it would be something special!

I'm not of the opinion that all cables sound identical whether cheap copper bell wire or large x-section silver single-strand. I have tried several speaker and interconnect cables blind and been quite amazed at what can be achieved with decent cable, but I think that some of the snake oil peddled in hifi takes credulousness to new levels, and some of the prices charged for cables defies belief. I picked up a Silent Wire catalogue at a show once just for giggles - there are cables in there costing 12,000 Euros a metre FFS! As for mains leads I just don't understand this - a super-duper gold-plated IEC with Unobtanium or whatever, surely that just conducts the same crappy noisy "240VAC" (if you're lucky) into your mega-high-end hifi kit just the same. (Unless you've got a complete mains regen unit and isolation transformers of course - but even "experts" agree that this, and certainly mains filters, can actually affect the sound in a negative way). There be dragons!

OMG this is SO far off topic! Sorry (although it is my thread LOL!)


----------



## Charliej (Feb 25, 2012)

I stopped chasing the hi fi dream a long long time ago, nothing I could ever buy was going to live up to the million pound plus pa systems I'm used to working with or the high end recording studio gear either. What does make me giggle a little is that none of these spend vast sums of money on the cables, even the studios and I can see little or no point in spending more on cables for a system than some people pay for a nice house when the original recording didn't use anything as pricy to achieve it's sound.

I think some people in the hi fi world can't see the wood for the trees and are actually more into listening to the system itself than the music they play on it. Personally I wouldn't want a "listening" room that just contained a sound system and a chair, to me music is part of my life and I don't want to have to go off into a separate room to listen to it.


----------



## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Charliej said:


> I can see little or no point in spending more on cables for a system than some people pay for a nice house when the original recording didn't use anything as pricy to achieve it's sound.


Haha! Totally!



Charliej said:


> I think some people in the hi fi world can't see the wood for the trees and are actually more into listening to the system itself than the music they play on it. Personally I wouldn't want a "listening" room that just contained a sound system and a chair, to me music is part of my life and I don't want to have to go off into a separate room to listen to it.


This is very true. I was even told once that one ought to be more selective about what one listens to once one's system reached a certain level (go figure). As if I'm not already bored to tears of noodle jazz from going round hifi shows where this myth that you have to listen to classical or jazz if your system cost more than 1k seems to be propagated.

I wouldn't mind a dedicated listening room. My house is unfeasibly small: the bedroom is also my office/studio, the downstairs is just living room and kitchen. So a separate music room would be a luxury! But conceptually I'm with you - I have music playing whichever room I'm in anyway.


----------



## charris (Feb 17, 2014)

hotmetal said:


> ]The system I heard last night is just in a whole different league though - TW Raven Black Night with a Thales Simplicity arm, Ortofon Per Windfeld cart, two Tron Seven Mono phono stages into a Tron Seven Line stage, through a Tron 211-based power amp into Cessaro Liszt horns. Absolutely incredible sound, more resolution and dynamics than I've ever witnessed, a huge soundstage with amazing depth, stunning bass that was totally integrated into the whole and a naturalness that defied belief. But as this system cost considerably more than my house I'd certainly hope it would be something special!


Very interesting! Hotmetal, have you ever had a chance to listen to a Steinway Lyngdorf system?


----------



## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

I haven't I'm afraid. I've only seen them but never had the opportunity to hear one. Aren't they Class D based? I've not been quite sure what to make of digital amps when I've heard them (Diavalet, TacT) but these are probably not in the same league as the Steinway, which looks fabulous


----------



## Charliej (Feb 25, 2012)

hotmetal said:


> I haven't I'm afraid. I've only seen them but never had the opportunity to hear one. Aren't they Class D based? I've not been quite sure what to make of digital amps when I've heard them (Diavalet, TacT) but these are probably not in the same league as the Steinway, which looks fabulous


Class D amplifiers being said to be a "digital" amplifier can be kind of a misnomer most of them are actually based on using a switch mode power supply rather than being digital in the true sense, a lot of them will have a digital input of some sort, usually for the consumer market something based around the spdif protocol either optical or coaxial rather than one of the various professional standards such as AES/EBU so they will have a d/a in them but no a/d conversion takes place on the output stage, this allows much much higher amp ratings from a smaller (current wise) power supply to the amp itself.


----------



## gman147 (Jul 7, 2012)

I've got a Marantz Amp and Monitor audio speakers that I can't use because I'm in shared accomodation. I think I'll cry if I have to sell them and It's looking very likely thats gonna happen soon


----------

