I have been listening to music for several hours straight now and could not contain myself any longer - I needed to rave about my new system!
I've been using SB2 for a long time now, but due to convenience, had it plugged into a Bose Wave radio, and sometimes a Denon AVR-4800 with Klipsch KG4's. Howver, my true-love speakers were in my other apartment (Dynaudio Contour 1.3 MKII). They were being driven by my old college amp (Luxman L-430) which finally decided to give up the right channel. OK, time to ship those puppies home and set them up in my living room to create a proper system! With a dead amp, I was able to convince the wife that I had to buy a new amp. And my goal was a minimalist system which just sounded good. I finally chose the following: Amp - after a lot of research, I decided that I couldn't go wrong trying out the Portal Panache with its 60 day return policy. It got great reviews, seemed like it would love my Dyns, and the designer was a minimalist who bleieved in spending the momey on the parts and not on_any_fluff (no remote even). I called Joe at Portal to she what he thought of the match, and he told me that he happened to have a pair of the monoblocks in stock from a magazine review that he could let me have at considerable discount. Hmm...overbudget, but another great excuse to upgrade. Sold! Now I have these brawny yet subtle Portal Paladin Monoblocks, but needed a preamp to control the volume. Preamp - I read every thread on this site about using the SB2 to control the volume and finally Sean posted to a thread I started saying "please don't". Ok, I guess that sealed it. I looked into a lot of passive options (Endler Attenuators etc.) and finally decided on the Axiom passive pre (with cassock upgrade) made by Luminous Audio. Speakers arrived this morning and I put it all together and oh...my...god... I just didn't know this could all sound so good. And with the ease I can cue up any song I feel like listening too, I have not moved from the chair with my laptop browser controlling SS and a big stupid grin on my face. Just wanted to say that if anyone is interested in good value and high quality with no BS and people who are a pleasure to work with, check into the guys above (Portal and Luminous). http://portalaudio.com/paladin.html http://www.luminousaudio.com/axiom.html -- ob_kook ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ob_kook's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=1383 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=29587 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/audiophiles
