Scott Dolan

Agreed, I can't manage without my mono switch. At least a third of my LPs are mono and so are most of my 78s. Lack of mono switches and money have prevented me upgrading my amplifier. Your set up looks cool. How does it sound? It sounds very clean and powerful. The X12's strength is in handling vocals. Unlike my old Polks which made a singer sound kinda muffled and jumbled in with the rest of the music, the X12's truly separate the vocalist and bring them out front and center. And they throw an outrageously wide and deep sound stage. Classical music sounded vertical and flat on my Polks, but with these it has a much more horizontal presentation with individual groupings of instruments far more pinpointed and accurately placed. My wife loves her angry stuff and wanted to listen to a Linkin Park tune during our four hour marathon listening session last night. So I played By Myself, which is really just a jumbled mess of shit, sonically. The X12's presented that tune with such disarming clarity that I was actually floored. No distortion during the loudest moments, no jumbled mass of sonic shit, just a clear and powerful reproduction. Really amazing. All I can say at this point is that this rig is serious business. Even listening at a moderate listening level last night which registered around 70dB on my handheld meter (my personal sweet spot), the power and clarity borders on intimidating.

I think Emotiva stopped including those a year or two ago. Trust me, it's not as clean as it looks... My wife asked about doing that, so we're going to experiment with it later today. I read a professional review that stated the X12's were actually one of the few speakers he had ever reviewed that sounded better facing straight on, so who knows? I'll let you know how it works out.

I don't have the best photography skills, so please forgive the blurry and general crappy aspects of these pics.

Thanks, Peter. I received my speakers yesterday, and so far I'm truly blown away. The depth of the soundstage, clarity, and the way they handle vocals is just wonderful.

A premature happy B-Day, but one well-earned! Now, about the scouting report on those LS50's.

Oh, really?! Remember that pseudo outrage? BTW, Teri Nunn still looks fantastic.

Not a good combo.

Yeah, but you're easy.

After starting the first 44 days this year with 19 days in single digits, or teens, and 6 below zero, 2 of which were in double digits...we've finally gotten a reprieve. It's currently 65 and sunny outside. Which for this time of the year is an almost oppressing heat! House is up to 71 degrees. Gonna have to crack a few windows... That snow on your roof has my left eye twitching. A couple of years ago when we had nearly 20 inches overnight, things warmed up not too much later and we ended up with ice dams to beat the band. Had drywall damage in a couple of spots, and it was practically raining between our storm door and backdoor. Though this year has been worse. Since the "polar vortex" last month we've had two pipes burst and flood our basement. The first time I was able to do most of the repair work myself, but this last one saw a professional carpet crew extract 200 gallons from our basement carpet. And it took 10 floor driers and a huge humidifier 4 days to dry everything out. I like the cold, and love snow, but this winter has been ridiculous.

You'd make a horrible salesman.

And it's my second favorite Jazz album of all time. Still can't see bothering...

The more I consider this, the harder time I'm having convincing myself to get it. The one thing I've noticed over the years is that the "extended/complete/deluxe" editions of releases that are mostly padded with alt. takes/false starts/breakdowns get very little play in my house after the initial listen. This should be a no brainer, especially considering I love his music so much that my sons middle name is Coltrane, but I just ain't feeling it.

Ah, which likely explains the price drop.

As micro brews rose in popular culture, folks finally figured out how fucking nasty Budweiser really is. No surprise, IMO.

Just like John Coltrane will always be known as Miles' tenor saxophonist.

Have you done any homework on either? $16.79 is hard to pass up if there isn't a huge difference between the two.

Jesus... I just did the math as to how much I have wrapped up in this main system. Made me turn green... It's funny how quickly that stuff can add up. Good thing at least half of it was spread out over many years... "Budget" my ass!

Me either.

Welp, as it usually goes with me, my final choice kinda came out of left field (somewhat). I had been looking at Dynaudio speakers previously, but was looking at the Excite X14. Which I incorrectly listed as X16 in a previous post. But, after reading so many glowing reviews of the older X12, such as the Stereophile review that concluded, "With the Dynaudio Excite X12, there are no tradeoffs. It sets a high standard of excellence in every meaningful sonic parameter, whether in absolute terms or with respect to its price and size. Having heard so many excellent speakers in recent years, I thought it would be hard to find an affordable bookshelf model that would stand out from the pack. I was wrong. The Dynaudio Excite X12 has become my new benchmark for loudspeakers costing under $2000/pair." Or the fact that GoodSound named it loudspeaker of the year in 2009. Or that it won Stereophile's Budget Component Of The Year in 2010. Or most impressively, the fact that it was a runner up for Stereophile's Loudspeaker Of The Year award. Check out the company it was in. http://www.stereophile.com/content/istereophileis-products-2010-loudspeaker-year So, the trigger has officially been pulled, and I should have my Dynaudio Excite X12's by next weekend. Went with piano black. As for the stands, I went with the glass and steel Transdeco 24" stands. Very happy, very excited! Can't wait to get my new toys. This has been a really fun build. First one I've done in well over a decade. Almost kinda sad to see it come to an end, but at least my wallet will get a chance to cool off. And thanks again, very much, for all of the suggestions and opinions. They all really helped me out.

I think I see the problem now. I meant strictly concerning the tight, clean, powerful bass. Not the system as a whole. I'm deleting that post because that did NOT come across the way I meant for it to. My apologies. You know, I've been reading a ton of Focal reviews since seeing your post this morning, and those 807V's are looking incredibly attractive for the absurd sales price they have on them right now.

All except for the mains at this point. And that's not to trash my Polks, as they are actually a decent quality speaker. BTW, the key to putting together a great sub/sat is setting your crossovers manually. I couldn't do that with my previous receiver. But my Emotiva pre-amp allows me to manually set all of my crossovers. So I found an old graph for my Polk R50's and found out they started rolling off at 60Hz. So I set the low pass on the back of my Velodyne all the way up (which I believe is 120Hz), then I set the crossovers for both mains and sub on the pre-amp at 60Hz. The integration was absolutely mind-blowing. Now the muddiness from those little 6" woofers on the Polks trying to replicate anything below 60Hz is completely removed from the soundstage. And the sub gets to do what it does best without any competition. They truly sound like two large floorstanders. You wanna talk about a clean and fast double bass punch? Oh brother!

I haven't, but one of their floorstanders was in the speaker of the year discussion from the cats that do the AVForums podcast. They even hipped me to the fact that most people pronounce the name fo-kull, but that it's actually pronounced fo-call.

Wow. Mark, I have to admit I've never even heard of that company. Thanks for hipping me to them. Will do some research.

Please do. I swear I read it in the Miles auto. Then again, like you and everyone else, I've heard so many things from so many sources. Hard to keep them straight. I recall reading it before. Not where. Good! I'm glad I'm not alone in this. And if we both recall it, there has to be something there.