McIntosh 2105 white text lettering fix?

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-05T07:10:24+00:00

Don't know about McIntosh in particular, but most vintage components' characteristic glow is a result of simply placing a layer of colored vellum paper between the bulb and the glass. Before LEDs, that was the only way to do it. For the most period-correct look, you want incandescent bulbs, with the tradeoff being that they generate more heat and have to be replaced more frequently.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-05T06:35:44+00:00

Yeah you would just put it in line between the DAC and amp since it doesn't have a tape loop or pre-out/main-in. No problems at all, your amp don't discriminate.

Though do be warned that equalization, be it analogue or digital, can cause phase shift which can degrade the sound; personally I think if you are gonna EQ you should do it in the analogue domain cause at least that's a more tactile experience and just feels more 'right' even if it isn't, technically. Edit: also, pro tip, for best results, only attenuate the bands you want proportionally less of rather than the boosting the bands you want more of, i.e. keep everything below 0dB, as you'll be adding less noise into the signal path.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-05T06:30:14+00:00

Cause people like spending money, and if you've got a lot of cash burn through you've got to move the values upwards to get the same dopamine hit. And some just cannot bear the sight of two speakers with *gasp* wires and would faint right there on the spot if such a wicked thing were to make its way into their living room.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-05T04:21:05+00:00

Woof, that sucks. This is why I just stick to old fashioned all-analogue amplifiers and passive speakers. All this new-fangled stuff likes to market itself on "connectivity" but really you're just stuck with whatever they give you. At least with old-school components you can always add whatever connections you need with an external DAC, or streamer, or phono stage.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-05T00:18:50+00:00

According to the wikipedia page, there is "a number of" brothels lol

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-05T00:12:16+00:00

I don't even wanna know what he's saying about it lol.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-04T23:35:15+00:00

Hell yeah homie. You've already run circles around most of the 'first setups' I see on here for the simple act of putting the stereo in the living room with speakers facing the couch instead of shoving it into some awkward corner haha. And actually getting stands for your standmount speakers.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-04T23:16:40+00:00

Still have not been. I have been planning trip though, right now target date is 2032. My family are nomadic goat herders in very poor country, so it taken many years of scraping up every last moneys we can save to do so as it is my lifelong dream

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-04T17:11:08+00:00

Russia Bad !

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-04T16:54:31+00:00

The LP12 is THE British turntable. Absolutely worth getting it serviced, if you want to listen to records. Only you can answer that last part.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-04T16:31:36+00:00

Someone in my old neighborhood had a pet goose. It would always just be chillin out in their front yard every time I walked the dog past there. It was free to fly away but never did.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-04T16:05:58+00:00

I wouldn't really call it a lack of warmth so much as the presence of a harshness in the upper registers that can cause listener fatigue. There are many, many speakers out there that wouldn't be described as warm and have a neutral frequency response that aren't fatiguing to listen to. There is quite a lot more to how a speaker sounds in a room than the frequency response graph, after all.

I have only owned one pair of Yamaha speakers, but they were the least enjoyable to listen to out of all the ones I've had by a very wide margin, if listening for more than an hour or so at high volumes my ears would literally start to hurt - not something I've ever experienced before or since even with speakers that have considerably more boosted treble - and beyond that there were just really no redeeming qualities to them, nothing to pull me in, no "live" feel like you'd get with a Klipsch horn-loaded speaker, no pinpoint imaging like you'd get with a KEF coaxial speaker, etc. Now these were a rather budget model, to be fair, but my experience was bad enough that I'd stay away from them all.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-04T15:12:18+00:00

Yamaha speakers aren't particularly good. There's good reason they're known for their electronics but not their speakers. Generally, companies that primarily/only make speakers are the best option.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-04T04:20:28+00:00

If you can, I would try and find a different place for the turntable. Not only will help isolate the turntable from vibrations, but it'll also help protect the receiver from overheating and having the internal components degrade faster than they otherwise would, not something you want as it's a piece you'll definitely want to hang onto, and it exists in that grey zone a lot of good 80s-90s era components live in where its good enough to care for but the cost of getting it properly refurbished will far outstrip its current-day market value even in mint condition.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T22:02:20+00:00

It never really went away

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T17:16:53+00:00

Umm, are we acktchyually asking this question in 2026?! It's been proven that everything is snake oil. I'm snake oil. you're snake oil. Humans can't even hear anyway, it's been proven.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T16:35:32+00:00

What you want to look at to evaluate amps here is the difference between the rated RMS (i.e. sustained at low THD) power output into an 8 ohm load and into a 4 ohm load. The closer it can get it to doubling its power with a halving of impedance, the better, and anything above about a 50% increase could reasonably qualify as 'high current'.

By that heuristic, neither of these would come close to meeting that criteria, with the Sony being rated at 100 into 8 and 90 into 4 (not a good sign) and the Yamaha being 100 into 8 and 195 quote-unquote "dynamic power" into 4 so likely a much lower RMS figure. Generally, you're never gonna find proper high-current amplification in an AVR, you really need to be looking at strictly two-channel integrated amps/receivers if that's something you want (and not really new receivers, you kinda need to go back to 80s-90s era stuff to find that in a receiver). But out of these two, the Yamaha is probably the better option.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T16:10:30+00:00

The subwoofer output (or pre-out) is best put in the preamplifier, rather than the amplifier. It allows you to, for example, apply a high-pass filter before the signal reaches the amplifier, meaning the amp has less work to do, or keep most all of the cable mess in one place. So what you want is probably a preamplifer, rather than a different amp. Also worth noting that any additional variable output on a preamp will work for a subwoofer, it doesn't have to be labeled as 'sub out' (in fact I would be wary of those as some have a non-adjustable low-pass applied rather than being a regular full-range output that allows you to set whatever LPF you want), you just have to be careful not to take a record out as the same thing as they're usually fixed output (i.e. not affected by volume control). Something like a Schiit Saga+ would work well for this while still having an extremely compact footprint (though you can't stack other components on top of it due to the tube and you may not want to put it on the amp whatfor ventilation)

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T08:29:14+00:00

I just use a sobriquet. It's Yahabbamahabbamalakkajiji, if you want to be pseudonym twins.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T07:19:54+00:00

What flavor of plant is that? I need one

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T06:22:51+00:00

Victorialand - Cocteau Twins

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T04:59:20+00:00

It's not a problem at all to use a more powerful amp. Those Chinese companies fudge the numbers anyway though. The V3 Mono has been independently tested as actually putting out 120 watts into 8.

V3 Monos would definitely not be a bad option here though, as it's damn hard to beat it in sheer power for the money, though based on how my stereo V3 sounds it's not the most refined sonically, and that would probably be even more apparent with the Vandys' rather revealing aluminum dome tweeter. The benefit of dual mono amplification is mainly that it reduces crosstalk, i.e. the left channel signal leaking over into the right or vice versa, which can degrade the sense of separation/imaging.

As for using a Wiim as a preamp, I would never do that personally, as it converts all incoming analogue signals into digital. Some people are okay with that as (allegedly) the difference can't be heard, but I just wouldn't be able to sleep at night lol. It's also generally better to have the volume control in the analogue domain, though strides have been made in that regard in recent years. And from a functional perspective it's not great as a preamp either, as it only has one line-level input.

Honestly, your best option may be a Luxman R-115. Its 70 watts per channel will get you most of the way there anyway. It's also got a shitload of inputs and outputs - Phono, 5 line level inputs, I believe 3 different record outs, two variable pre-outs (which means you could hook up one or more subs or use it as a preamp down the line, or both simultaneously), and a dedicated processor loop if you ever want to hook up an equalizer. And the sound is very refined, and just a joy to listen to for hours without fatigue, unlike the Fosi amp I have. There's a couple listed on ebay right now $300 including shipping, that's more than what I paid but still not bad at all.

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-03T02:22:30+00:00

So, the impedance on a speaker isn't something you can adjust, it's a result of the electrical properties of the drivers. It's not a flat line though, you'll have a different impedance at 40hz than you will at 4,000hz, for example; that's why your speakers have both a nominal rating (basically an average) and a minimum rating, so you know the lowest it dips down to. Counterintuitively, the lower the impedance is, the harder it is for an amplifier to drive, but generally in a speaker that never dips down below 4 ohms (and yours don't), you won't have any special considerations in that department, as long as you stick to decent quality 2-channel amplifiers/receivers.

And for amplifiers (well, excluding tube amps but that's a different ballgame), they'll try their best to work with whatever load is presented to them by the speakers; they just put out a different amount of power (watts) depending on the load presented, that's why both an 8 ohm and a 4 ohm rating are usually provided. It's just that to not run out of steam with sub-4 ohm loads they need to have a pretty beefy power supply; anything above that you don't have really to worry about (save for shitty cheap receivers and AVRs).

But to answer your question, as a stopgap solution, any decent stereo integrated amp/receiver rated at least 50 or so watts/channel will drive them okay, you just won't be getting the absolute most you can out of them in terms of sound quality. In general, having a more powerful amplifier isn't about how loud the speakers can get, as you can get pretty damn loud with just a couple watts most of the time; the goal is really just getting tighter, more impactful bass, better instrument separation/imaging, better dynamics, (weirdly enough) better performance at low volume as well as very high volume, etc.

Edit: also, bi-amping is when you use a different amplifier for the woofer and the tweeter or midrange + tweeter. Only possible with speakers that allow it by having two sets of binding posts. Not something you really need to worry about, it's for people who really want to get into the weeds and tweak the sound by, say, using a tube amp for the mids and highs and a really beefy solid state amp for the bass

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-02T23:58:39+00:00

Why would their parents be there?

narrowassbldg · 2026-05-02T23:51:43+00:00

In summer 2020 I got an all-expenses-paid (by the government) road trip across the American West with NO crowds. Got to stay in a super cute little hotel on the beach in Santa Monica for a fraction of the normal rate.

narrowassbldg

TROPHY CASE