Birmingham, Alabama here

[Bluewater34]

Hi everyone. Grew up in a house with CJ components that my sisters and I weren’t allowed to even look at, much less touch (of course we did, and he knew it). Now that I can, I’ve re-created that system sort of. I have a Marantz 2240b receiver, a CJ PV10BL, a CJ MF200, tied to Klipsch Heresy IVs. I’m restoring a pair of Bozak B300 Centuries (the speakers I grew up with). I mainly listen to digital via Bluesound Node 2i. I have stacks of CDs, but no player at the moment. Suggestions welcome. Lots of vinyl in the house, commandeered by my teenage daughter, along with my Thorens. She’s all in as well, running my old 1995 Denon and Hafler amp (she calls it her vintage gear, which is somehow insulting). Wife is happy with Alexa playing Journey in the kitchen and is baffled by audio dream chasers in general. Now you know it all. Thanks for having me.

[AnotherJohnson]

Great journey!

Great family!

Great music!

Great to have you!

[AnotherJohnson]

Oh yeah - Denon is now celebrating their 110th Anniversary.
A product they’ve released as part of the fest is a headshell which they claim has been in 110 years of continuous production … I’m suspicious, but as John Lovitz used to say (when claiming to be married to Morgan Fairchild) “It could happen.”

My wife listens via Heos (a Denon/Marantz product) on the Denon Home 350, but our daughters in law are firmly in the Alexis camp. The Home 350 can be addressed by Siri, but she just uses the Heos app on her phone.

[admin]

He Bluewater,
Great to have you with us here on CJO. Sounds like you had a good upbringing and continuing the tradition with the next generation... very cool.

I also use a Bluesound Node (latest version) for streaming. It's a good device at a reasonable price. Are you using an external DAC or the node 2i's?

Again, welcome and happy listening.

[Bluewater34]

Thanks to all for the welcome. I have a Schiit external DAC (hope I don’t get booted for cursing). Honestly, I can’t hear the difference between the Schiit and the internal Node DAC. So at the moment, I’ve “Schiit-canned” the external DAC. It also helps with plugs to use the Node’s internal DAC. The amps and receiver are drawing some big power, so I have power strips tucked up to the baseboards just to get off the same breaker for the Node and Schiit. Nobody talks about that much, but feeding these things can be a pain in a 1949 house like mine.

My two kids, they totally get it because I’ve been a freak about music quality their whole life. They’ve been indoctrinated properly and knew how to complain about recording quality since they were little. The wife is a lost cause unfortunately, which makes heavy purchases tough. Lots of “what’s wrong with the amp you already have, it works…..”. Again, she thinks her AirPods are hifi.

I’m pretty torn between vintage and modern, half wants to recreate my dads system and half only wants perfect musicality. I think the older but not antique CJ gear I have kind of solves both. Dad is running a PrimaLuna now and it sounds really nice. Funny that he’s got modern stuff and I have the older things now.

[admin]

Cool. No bad things to say about schiit. They offer really solid products for their (entry level) price points. Lots of bang for your buck. I used their Modius DAC for a little while until I upgraded to the Holo Audio May DAC KTE edition.