System pictures

Even though I'm blogging at length about the importance of musical enjoyment over equipment porn, just to set the context, here's some pictures of the equipment I'm using and the overall environment.

The listening room to start with:

As you can see, the sofa isn't actually facing the speakers. This is a choice based on the fact that there is a nice fire on the left outside of shot... if I were seriously listening to music or a system change, it would get rotated into position. The room is nevertheless filled with music!

A closeup of one of the speakers

It's a colour called 'Porsche Jade Green metallic' which I'm unlikely to have chosen if I had bought new but, now that I have it, I'm quite used to it! Blessed are those with the courage to buy one in Lamborghini Orange...!

Equipment is all tucked away in a cabinet I had made for me by Blok furniture, with the exception of the Discovery power amp which looks stylish and needs plenty of air.

The Lindemann D680 SACD player is a masterful unit and is usually hidden away because, alas, it is cursed with a blue LED; the separate power supply has one like a beacon of blueness. Ditto for the Dacmagic, although the smaller LEDS are less objectionable. They don't need to be seen and so remain tucked away unless I need to open the CD drawer.

Finally, the piece de resistance is the rather amazing Tron Discovery 300B power amp, with Emission Labs tubes, and the less stylish but possibly even more polished (sonically speaking) Comet preamp with Syren boards and circuit upgrades.

The Discovery is a SET with 8W of house-shaking power. The Comet/Syren has a fantastic phono stage I barely use due to the Sondek/Origami PU7 being out of sorts at present; of course, I'm busy evaluating digital equipment too.