I'll give you a hint.

McIntosh processors and amps - ALL modified. MC4000M, MC440M, MEN456, MEQ452, MEC459.
Dynaudio speakers.
Velodyne subwoofer- best of the best for SQ - soon to be modded.
Sony C90 head unit - modded. Further mods will be done.
Monster M series interconnects - 400 per pair on the more expensive ones - M1500 and M950i's.
Monster M series speaker wire

Alot of people will say their system is "top end" or "reference" class, including some "legends" of their time. With all the mods, it brings everything to a new level. Scott Buwalda has asked me for advice on modding his system - and he's going very carefully! But, he doesn't have all the tricks up his sleeve.

You could *almost* buy an IS3 with the gear and the mods that's been done.

Percy

 

percy Im surprised with all the equipment you have you choose a sony deck, now I know I dont know about these things as much as you do, but every person I talked to from comp. winners to your avrage kid down the street and they all told me that sony decks are not very good when it comes to SQ, they all told me if I want SQ I should go with a clarion or an Alpine or a nackamichi deck. I actually ended up with a pioneer DEH-P940MP just because I like the MP3 player and the 13 channel EQ it offers

 

Well if he has a McIntosh processor, then that makes the Sony deck a CD transport in which case it is doing nothing but extracting data from the disc, right? All you have to worry about then is a quality SPDIF with a calibrated word clock, bit clock, master clock, emphasis flag, etc...

 

oh my god, that is sick. So much audio equipment, and so much $$$$. Noting like a $30G system system sitting in your trunk. =]

 

Nothing wrong with Sony C90's! They're a basic offshoot of their reference system, the XESZ50, but with newer technology such as their variable coefficient filter. Unmodified, the C90 sounds not bad, and I'd rank it as a higher sound quality than even the F#1 Status Alpine model.

Modded....takes it to a whole new level. I've put it up against my old Krell kav300cd (also fully modded) and surprisingly, the C90 beat the pants off of it. It won't do it with the new home player I'm running, a modded SCD-1 SACD player.

Nak makes some nice stuff. 7th order butterworth filter...makes for quite a listening experience. I know some guys that were using these...and they're very happy with them. It's just too "rounded off" for my listening tastes though. But they're quite good.

Alpine. Had two of their head units and multiple changers. They're OK...not the greatest. TDA7554, TDA 7558, CHA604, CHA605 (digital outs...had lots of servo motor problems!), CHA1214, ERAG320. So, been there, done that, sold them all off for better stuff.

Pioneer...haven't messed with these.

Lex400sc,

Just mod out the clock and the op amps. You'd be surprised at the difference it makes. Most clocks are very sloppy when you look at them through the o-scope. If the base clock is sloppy, then the music is definitely affected. Even with a Mc MX4000 and outboard DAC, it still sounds sloppy due to the op amps. This goes for pretty much all car audio and most home audio gear. Wadia has started using a new discrete clock (audiocom) in their recent designs. And they sound better for it.

Percy

 

Percy, what is your opinion on Clarion headunits?

 

Lex400SC, I don't think Percy has an outboard DAC. unless that monster amp of his has a DAC, he's using the processor in his head unit. All the other stuff he has listed are the crossovers, the EQ, and the EQ controller.

Dang Percy, all your fault..(j/k).i got the same eq you have....but it's impossible to tune...i hate parametric EQs...definitely not the easiest thing to use...i end up going back and forth all these setting and not being able to decide what to use..cuz after just 20 minutes my ears get fatigued...

like you..i use the celine dion to tune sometimes...i still can't get rid nastiness of some of the high notes she reaches...when i hear them..i kinda cringe cuz it sorta hurts my ears..i'll try to find the exact track and time so you'll know what i mean...

 

***If you can tune out Celine, then everything else sounds awesome. ***

Percy

 

They're quite good! Especially the higher end units. They made their mark on the high end back when the DRX9255 was available some years ago. It had the same electronics as the McIntosh MX406 - and it basically was a Mc internally. The newer stuff (high end) is just as good, if not better.

Percy

 

Clarions are good units for sure. I can't wait till I get a separate DAC that comes with IDONE. Then I won't be consearned with which unit is good and which isn't.

 

Damn Percy, that's a crazy setup! Hehehe...no wonder why you're not impressed with the "Mark Levinson" system ...

Anyone have an opinion on Pioneer Amps (both the Premier amps and the "normal" ones...)? I know they're not a "high end" amp but they should be better than stock

 

Retro,

Is the IDONE even out yet?!?! They've been hyping about the piece since '98!

You'll still have to worry about the op amp/output analog section. NOBODY, and I mean nobody uses the absolute good stuff out of the box. Closest is the C90 from Sony (op275 analog devices) and that's barely acceptable. Not even the high end Alpine F#1 Status (using crappy 4558's) price at 8,000 USD will use the good stuff.

Plus the head unit that you use will have to get it's clock modded as well as the IDONE (if they come out with it). 99.999% of the companies will use a cheap crystal oscillator - it works, but it sure isn't the best thing. Digital signals are supposed to have nice and perfectly square rising and trailing edges. In real life it's completely different. Once when the edges get "rounded off" it gets kinda nasty. Sound will get less coherent and will smear, depending on how bad things are. Most ears won't notice this until they encounter a system with a modded clock and op amps. When you do listen to a system that has this work done it raises the bar that much further.

Percy

 

Alpine uses their old technology in the F1 Status as well as Pioneer with their P9 unit combo. Do you have a chance to play arounf with ID DAC? Try it out? You can even compare it to Apogee DAC or any home DAC if you want. Tell me what you come up with.
Now in IDONE they are going to use the newer technology which was not avaliable back in the day. The reason why IDONE is not out yet is that the demand for such units is fairly small. Pure business decisions there. One day I will own it

I can not tell you the source of the info I am providing though.

 

retro,

Actually the Alpine F#1 Status is pretty much state of the art. Multiple Motorola processors for the processor and I've seen the "guts" of the unit. Impressive. And it's by far one of THE most powerful processors, BAR NONE. Only thing they screwed up on are the output op amps. If they redid the clocking with Audiocom or another better clock AND switched out the op amps, I can pretty much guarantee that nothing else will touch the processor. But with the stuff they're using right now, it's a bit lacking. Well...to me anyways.

Processing power of the F#1 status will make the Z50, XDP4000X, Pioneer ODR, McIntosh processors and everything else on the market (including professional RANE RPM24V's and other pro audio pieces) look like crap. There's that much going on in there! About the only other thing that an audio company could do now is to incorporate SACD, DVD, DVD-A, HDCD and CD into the same box. You'd need a triple head array and the right digital filtering schemes. Especially for SACD - since you have to use Sony's filter set. HDCD can be emulated through the processors while DVD/DVD-A can be processed according to their own needs and own laser head. CD...easy - just use the standard laser and a good filter / analog output.

Apogee DAC. I saw a review on one of these and the thing is already outdated. The review was in Feb/mar '96 of Car Stereo Review...the one where it has the MC4000M on the cover. They're good DAC's, but they're not even close to state of the art. Now a highly overkill dac would be one from Audio Note, a very high end home equipment manufacturer. I forgot their website though! But, it's considered one of the best DACs out there. People have modded out the Audio Note dacs with incredible results. I just don't like the tubes for the analog out.

ID ONE. Is there any further info on these? I remember them being programmable with a Palm Pilot (tm) and having 30 band graphic eq's for each channel. The only complaint that I had about them was that they're not using parametric. But, it looks to be one VERY nice piece!

Percy

 

I am not a big fan of alpine processor. I definetely agree that putting SACD, DVD, DVD-A, HDCD,CD in one box is somewhat new. What did they come up with in terms of porcessing though? Had anyome done a independent review yet (not magazines)? Also for wat the unit will cost, I doubt there is anything out there to beat it.

Here is the IDONE specs:
http://www.imagedynamicsusa.com/html/digital.html