Tell us about your stereo!

[Squidbilly]

Rigged me up a patch cord to run from the headphone jack on my desktop to the aux on my system in the man cave,Sounds like a whole diffrent world better than the crappy dell speakers they give me with the computer
Used the plug in from a pair of junk earphones&cut the buds off,Found the 2 ground leads&the left&right leads by checking continuity.
Had 8ft of 4 lead magnetic shield 22awg wire&spliced it in to the earphone leads&wrote down the colors,soddered in the connections&checked for continuity,Still Good shape.
Spliced/Soddered that in to a double RCA patch cord so I can still run the DVD player into my system.
All still works&sounds Good,Only thing I gotta do is when I go to watch a movie I have to unplug the earphone jack from the computer or it'll cut down the sound from the DVD

 

[LG]

^^That's a novel approach Squidbilly....

Chalk one up to good old fashioned ingenuity.

 

[2LITTLETIME]

Rigged me up a patch cord to run from the headphone jack on my desktop to the aux on my system in the man cave,Sounds like a whole diffrent world better than the crappy dell speakers they give me with the computer
Used the plug in from a pair of junk earphones&cut the buds off,Found the 2 ground leads&the left&right leads by checking continuity.
Had 8ft of 4 lead magnetic shield 22awg wire&spliced it in to the earphone leads&wrote down the colors,soddered in the connections&checked for continuity,Still Good shape.
Spliced/Soddered that in to a double RCA patch cord so I can still run the DVD player into my system.
All still works&sounds Good,Only thing I gotta do is when I go to watch a movie I have to unplug the earphone jack from the computer or it'll cut down the sound from the DVD

You will now have to listen to your entire collection again with that gr8 new sound
Thats what im doing-It will only take me about 4yrs

 

[Squidbilly]

Had a few issues,Right channel kept snapping/popping then cutting out
Had the same problem when playing a movie or cd through the dvd,Checked my "Rig job"&all connections had continuity respectively.
Traced it down to the aux input RCA jacks on the stereo,Pulled the back cover off&got out my magnifying glass(I cant see for shit),Found that the pins coming off the RCA jack going into the board where loose&barely contacting the solder.
Good thing my solder iron has the pointed tip,Got her all back together&no more popping&crap.
Also been playing around with the Realtek HD audio manager,Got the Bass&Trebble in tune with the EQ on the head unit to where it sounds right

 

[Lynch]

Anyone else remember ROCKIN' out with this high-tech piece of equipment!?

 

[LG]

^^I remember those, love the tacky art deco design.

You know what it reminds me of Lynch...a dock for an i-pod...amazing we've come full circle.

 

[gcczep]

Anyone else remember ROCKIN' out with this high-tech piece of equipment!?

...never seen that one before. It looks like a robot from those 50's Sci-Fi flicks.

 

[canuckaudioguy]

Something interesting happened last week, I was perusing an audiophile site that specializes in really good equipment, not quite at the "Audiogon" level but close enough for me, and it's a Canadian site which makes it easy to buy and sell your equipment.

Someone in Edmonton posted an ad that he was looking for "IMF RSPM MK IV's", he already had a pair of the IMF TLS 50's, sold those when he found a pair of the TLS 80's and after finding he loved the sound of the transmission line speakers IMF specialized in decided to look for a pair of their top of the line models, the MK IV's which are the ones I own.

I answered his ad, if nothing else to give him the chance to listen to them in person considering he'd never done that and they are rare out here, down in Ontario you might find a few pairs at any one time available but not in Western Canada. Anyway he came over and was completely impressed, he made me an offer that was more than fair, in fact I had considered selling them last spring, mainly because I don't listen to them as much as I used to and certainly not at the volume level when I was young.

I've owned them since 1979 and still have my original receipt. I told him I would sleep on it and yesterday decided I would sell them to him. He will keep them for a long time, they simply don't make quality speakers like this anymore, certainly not for less than $10,000.00 It was his genuine enthusiasm for IMF's that decided it for me, more than the money I am glad to find a good home for them and hope he enjoys them as much as I have over the years.

It is like giving up part of yourself though, and was a lot harder to let them go than I ever imagined but I finally came to the conclusion that it's time to give them to someone like myself, who will treat them with TLC and enjoy them for another 20 years.

Sigh...going to miss them towering in the main room though, they are works of art as much as working speakers.

End of an era for me, but I'll get over the loss eventually and I wasn't sure I would be able to take them with me when I do move again anyway.

I'll post some pictures of them later, before I pack them up for the last time.

Well this is interesting! I was just googling for pictures of the IMF RSPM Mk IV Improved models to verify the tweeters and came across this post.

I am actually the gentleman who ended up purchasing these fine speakers from Lord Grendel.

Yes, I still have them.

It was a really interesting sequence of events, one that I'll never forget. There are so many things that happened that resulted in me gaining ownership of the RSPM's that even today I still don't have an explanation for it. At the end of the day though, I'm just ecstatic to have them. Everyday I walk into the room I still think to myself, "I cannot believe I own these speakers". And also, nary a day goes by where I don't listen to them.

Anyway, I had to sign up and post because I thought it was really interesting to find your post, Lord Grendel, about the experience. If you ever happen to find that receipt let me know

Now of course, since this is a thread about stereos, here is a shot of the set-up:

The gear there is:

IMF RSPM Mk IV
IMF Super Compacts (the little ones)
Carver M1.5 power amplifier
Carver C-1 pre-amplifier
Musical Paradise MP-D1 tubed DAC
Luxman PD-264 TT w/ Audio Technica AT13ea cartridge

You can see the RSPM's behind the little IMF's, there. As you can tell I am a bit of an IMF nut, I actually have two pairs of the little IMF's, as well as the RSPM's. My plan is, when I move into a house, to run a full home theatre set-up with all IMF speakers. I'm also actively seeking out their Ambisonics decoder because I want to give that a try too. IMF speakers were the first real hi-fi speaker I ever laid ears on, starting with the IMF TLS 50 II's, then acquiring the IMF TLS 80 II's, and eventually getting the RSPM Mk IV's, the big, top dogs, from Lord Grendel. It's been quite an adventure, I gotta say! And all in the name of good sound.

And to complete the other side of the story, here's a thread I made when I picked up the RSPM's from Lord Grendel:

It isn't every day you get to make a thread like this.. - AudioKarma.org Home Audio Stereo Discussion Forums

One last thing I wanted to clarify - someone had mentioned in response to Lord Grendel's post that I was planning to "tweak" the RSPMs, taking away their originality. Actually, that is not so. I simply replaced the capacitors on the crossover boards with capacitors made by the same manufacturer as the capacitors that were original to the boards. Truthfully, capacitors age and, they need to be replaced after 25-30 years. It resulted in a massive sonic improvement, that's for sure.

I want to thank Lord Grendel once again for letting me buy the RSPM's from him. Like he said, IMF's are not just your everyday speaker and truthfully you would have to spend upwards of $10,000 to equal or better the RSPM's. They are a rare bird over here, and I'm very grateful to have them.

Jeffrey

 

[gcczep]

LG & Jeffrey...

Wow. Those are big mothers. I would say the "little" ones are the biggest bookshelves I've ever seen. Carvers? You don't come across those too often. Vintage...

Some call it "tweaking"...a more appropo term is "modding" I'd say. Nice setup!

 

[LG]

Well this is interesting! I was just googling for pictures of the IMF RSPM Mk IV Improved models to verify the tweeters and came across this post.

I am actually the gentleman who ended up purchasing these fine speakers from Lord Grendel.

Yes, I still have them.

It was a really interesting sequence of events, one that I'll never forget. There are so many things that happened that resulted in me gaining ownership of the RSPM's that even today I still don't have an explanation for it. At the end of the day though, I'm just ecstatic to have them. Everyday I walk into the room I still think to myself, "I cannot believe I own these speakers". And also, nary a day goes by where I don't listen to them.

Anyway, I had to sign up and post because I thought it was really interesting to find your post, Lord Grendel, about the experience. If you ever happen to find that receipt let me know

Now of course, since this is a thread about stereos, here is a shot of the set-up:

The gear there is:

IMF RSPM Mk IV
IMF Super Compacts (the little ones)
Carver M1.5 power amplifier
Carver C-1 pre-amplifier
Musical Paradise MP-D1 tubed DAC
Luxman PD-264 TT w/ Audio Technica AT13ea cartridge

You can see the RSPM's behind the little IMF's, there. As you can tell I am a bit of an IMF nut, I actually have two pairs of the little IMF's, as well as the RSPM's. My plan is, when I move into a house, to run a full home theatre set-up with all IMF speakers. I'm also actively seeking out their Ambisonics decoder because I want to give that a try too. IMF speakers were the first real hi-fi speaker I ever laid ears on, starting with the IMF TLS 50 II's, then acquiring the IMF TLS 80 II's, and eventually getting the RSPM Mk IV's, the big, top dogs, from Lord Grendel. It's been quite an adventure, I gotta say! And all in the name of good sound.

And to complete the other side of the story, here's a thread I made when I picked up the RSPM's from Lord Grendel:

It isn't every day you get to make a thread like this.. - AudioKarma.org Home Audio Stereo Discussion Forums

One last thing I wanted to clarify - someone had mentioned in response to Lord Grendel's post that I was planning to "tweak" the RSPMs, taking away their originality. Actually, that is not so. I simply replaced the capacitors on the crossover boards with capacitors made by the same manufacturer as the capacitors that were original to the boards. Truthfully, capacitors age and, they need to be replaced after 25-30 years. It resulted in a massive sonic improvement, that's for sure.

I want to thank Lord Grendel once again for letting me buy the RSPM's from him. Like he said, IMF's are not just your everyday speaker and truthfully you would have to spend upwards of $10,000 to equal or better the RSPM's. They are a rare bird over here, and I'm very grateful to have them.

Jeffrey

Nice to see you again Jeffrey, and they look great. I have a Carver pre-amp myself but it's packed away right now, very flexible and well built piece of gear.

You are lucky I visited CAM that particular day, otherwise I would have missed your post completely. Come to think of it I haven't looked at CAM for months, guess I should before listing some of the old gear I'll be putting on the market soon.