Thanks guys. Yes, probably not worth experimenting with steel on the minis. Something with an 8 inch bass driver is more suitable for my needs.

Thanks for info re. JPW P1s. I also have a pair of JPW Monitor Gold speakers pressed into emergency TV duties that I could perhaps experiment on re. steel and wadding. Overall their tonal balance is on the shouty and bright side. IIRC, they have a very simple crossover with the bass driver running f...

Plenty of HDD space! I've considered an Audioquest Dragonfly Red plus Jitterbug recently and may go down that route when we sell the house. Right now, speakers are my number one concern! The Dragonfly Red certainly seems to be well regarded on one of the computer audiophile sites (Jonny Darko?).

Yes, black magic indeed. But they work and have done on every system I've heard them on. Mind you, a friend who's system consists of Naim / Linn / Audiovector kit didn't like them. He seemed to prefer the soundstage being stuck between the speakers two or three feet off the ground.

I've run pair of ScanDyna A30 speakers for a year or so now. I've replaced the tweeters and updated the crossovers, but at the end of the day they are pretty ugly and have the aperiodic port at the top so the tweeters are stupidly low, even on 40cm stands. That said, they have the huge benefit of ru...

I haven't a clue how the tuning sticks work, but the general effect is to improve on the rendering of micro level detail and particularly on the soundstage. With my computer based audio system, the effect of the USB stick was to enlarge the soundstage, both vertically and horizontally. My Scandynas ...

I should add that I rip CDs using DBPowerAmp. A free alternative is EAC (Exact Audio Copy).

Hello. I've just joined the group and have used computer based audio pretty well exclusively for the last six or seven years. I have an old Thinkpad which holds my ripped CDs (ripped as WAV files) running JRiver Media Centre. The PC also runs Fidelizer (free version), which optimises the PC a bit. I...

New member here, very much attracted by the Doc's postings on speaker doping etc. I listen to pretty well most genres of music except opera and jazz. The system, when in full setup mode comprises an Icon Audio 40 amp fed by a laptop running JRiver Media Centre (plus Fidelizer optimisation) into a Mu...