Incoming! The New Equipment Thread

Ghost said:
Alright. Where do I start on my thoughts for the Kinki Studios EX-M1?

Last night my wife and I spent a couple hours throwing on record after record. We started with Getz/Gilberto, went onto Bill Evans Sunday At The Village Vanguard, and ended our night peacefully dozing off to Miles’ In A Silent Way.

My impressions are: I’m very very pleased hahah. I feel like the NAD was acting as a bit of a dam on the other components, I could tell that the UD, Hana, Sutherland and Lintons had so much more to give but were being restrained by the weakest link in the system. Last night was an experience of what felt like sonic equilibrium. The Kinki is so good it made me fall more deeply in love with my Lintons, my Hana, my Insight and MoFi. Feels like I finally got to see what this little family of components was capable of.

We were just giddy and having so much fun hearing so many things that we didn’t before. I could actually hear persistent background conversations in Sunday At The Village Vanguard, before I had only noticed the clinking of the glasses and silverware which I already thought was impressive. In A Silent Way on my last system felt very crowded and presented like a wall. Last night it had incredible depth and width, I could enjoy the music and its layers, they stretched out over a vast plane, which helped me analyze it and piece it all together conceptually in a way I never understood it before. Stan Getz on Getz/Gilberto felt 10 feet tall, like he was wailing on his saxophone above our heads. I felt like I could actually hear the drummer trying to keep time as opposed to registering it before as surgically robotic drum noises? The cymbal decay was a thing to behold man, so beautiful, it would just cascade down over you like fairy dust 🤣

Everything sounds gorgeous.

I sound crazy but I’m so stoked. I finally feel like I reproduced that show room quality sound but in my awkwardly shaped living room. Anyways, starting the morning with:

• Sonny Rollins on Impulse

Then continuing my A-Z collection walkthrough with

• Stan Getz - Jazz Samba
• Stan Getz - Jazz Samba Encore!

And then on to a handful of Stanley Turrentine records.

Thank you to @mindhead1 for putting me down the Kinki Studios rabbit hole.
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:D Happy for you!
 
Ghost said:
Alright. Where do I start on my thoughts for the Kinki Studios EX-M1?

Last night my wife and I spent a couple hours throwing on record after record. We started with Getz/Gilberto, went onto Bill Evans Sunday At The Village Vanguard, and ended our night peacefully dozing off to Miles’ In A Silent Way.

My impressions are: I’m very very pleased hahah. I feel like the NAD was acting as a bit of a dam on the other components, I could tell that the UD, Hana, Sutherland and Lintons had so much more to give but were being restrained by the weakest link in the system. Last night was an experience of what felt like sonic equilibrium. The Kinki is so good it made me fall more deeply in love with my Lintons, my Hana, my Insight and MoFi. Feels like I finally got to see what this little family of components was capable of.

We were just giddy and having so much fun hearing so many things that we didn’t before. I could actually hear persistent background conversations in Sunday At The Village Vanguard, before I had only noticed the clinking of the glasses and silverware which I already thought was impressive. In A Silent Way on my last system felt very crowded and presented like a wall. Last night it had incredible depth and width, I could enjoy the music and its layers, they stretched out over a vast plane, which helped me analyze it and piece it all together conceptually in a way I never understood it before. Stan Getz on Getz/Gilberto felt 10 feet tall, like he was wailing on his saxophone above our heads. I felt like I could actually hear the drummer trying to keep time as opposed to registering it before as surgically robotic drum noises? The cymbal decay was a thing to behold man, so beautiful, it would just cascade down over you like fairy dust 🤣

Everything sounds gorgeous.

I sound crazy but I’m so stoked. I finally feel like I reproduced that show room quality sound but in my awkwardly shaped living room. Anyways, starting the morning with:

• Sonny Rollins on Impulse

Then continuing my A-Z collection walkthrough with

• Stan Getz - Jazz Samba
• Stan Getz - Jazz Samba Encore!

And then on to a handful of Stanley Turrentine records.

Thank you to @mindhead1 for putting me down the Kinki Studios rabbit hole.
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@Ghost so glad you’re liking the Kinki amp. I had the same experience when I added it to my system. It seemed to enhance everything I had attached to it. The power, detail, and smoothness is all on point.

Now you see why I am less inclined to hook up my Willsenton R8, which is also great. The Kinki delivers.

Enjoy!
 
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The Kinkster walked right through my front door and made herself nice and comfortable in my living room! 24 hours in and I’m officially selling a NAD C 316BEE, so you can say things are getting serious. All joking aside though, really love how elegant and minimal this thing is. I wanted some VU meters but now I’m obsessed with the simplicity of this little LED display.

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Ghost said:
The Kinkster walked right through my front door and made herself nice and comfortable in my living room! 24 hours in and I’m officially selling a NAD C 316BEE, so you can say things are getting serious. All joking aside though, really love how elegant and minimal this thing is. I wanted some VU meters but now I’m obsessed with the simplicity of this little LED display.

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Awesome view. Jersey?
 
Slimwhit33 said:
What did you all order? I ordered a Torii MKV. Have considered switching it to the Sara.
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I just checked I ordered a SE84UFO2.1 in October of 2022 and they are now working on orders from December of 2021.

While this wait time is a bit ridiculous it helps me time out my upgrades and gives me time to figure out which high sensitivity speakers I'd like to get. My short list as of now are Klipsch Forte IV, something from Zu Audio or something form Omega Speakers (Super 8s).
 
mindhead1 said:
That’s what I couldn’t make out. The view seemed similar to an apartment i had in Jersey City about 25 years ago.

I thought everyone in Brooklyn had Devore Fidelity speakers. 😂
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I mean, maybe I should look into some Devores hahaha. Very curious about those after hearing them at Common Wave in LA. Small but might those baby/os
 
For the last 12-18 months I've been making wholesale changes to my hi-fi setup including a new phono stage (twice), new cartridges, new turntable, new amplifier (three times), and an ongoing new speaker hunt (too many to count). Speaker auditioning has highlighted how much I want musical sound for hi-fi and entertainment sound for home theater, so I'm shifting my approach a little.

For some time I'd been using my DAC as a 2.0 setup for TV and movies. It's served me well enough but ultimately it's starting to become a little cumbersome. So I figured it'd be a good time to finally bite the bullet on a mini-HT setup.

I shopped some closeouts/B stock and snagged a Panasonic UBD420, Denon X1700H AVR and PSB Alpha C10 center. I plan to buy the PSB Alpha P3 to serve as temporary fronts in an apartment 3.0 setup (they're small and will eventually move to rears when I move...some day...).

I did have my eyes on the PSB T20 as they purportedly play BIG, but I can read between the lines that their low end probably booms in my room. I use a pair of PSB Image B6 for my stereo speakers right now and will continue using them for hi-fi, though I've got my eyes on the Revel M105. If I can snag the PSBs and Revels at sale prices, that's about $2k all in for a decent beginner/mid 3.0 apartment setup and an upgrade to the hi-fi speakers I've got now, all in for about what I paid for the JBL L82s that I recently sent back. Think I realistically can't do much better than this in an apartment, frankly. After that it's probably me done save for some room treatment so I can start shifting gears to maybe some day possibly potentiallly buying a house? (lol)
 
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