Your Stereo Vs Helmet Vs ??

[bornannoying]

I recently threw out my 16 year old Marantz amp and Kef Coda speakers. I bought them with the proceeds of my first real job and 16 years is a long time, so despite them both being pretty much unusable, I got a little choked up when I had to dump them at the recycling yard. Anyway, I splashed out a little on some new stereo gear – nothing fancy, just decent – and set about running through some favourite music to see what's what.

So the level of detail, quality of sound-staging and general oomph of my new set-up puts my poor old Marantz etc. to shame, and I've been having a whale of a time rediscovering favourite music. What's disappointing, though – even though I knew this anyway – is that so many rock records, including most Helmet records, just don't sound very good. In fact, the only Helmet record that has any real depth and dynamics is Betty, and that's relatively limited.

What has impressed me is albums like Shiner's Lula…, Failure's Fantastic Planet, pretty much any of the last few NIN records, and Telefon Tel Aviv's Map of What is Effortless.

Anyway... do you give a shit about audio reproduction? What gear you got? What music sounds great on your stereo? What sounds shit, and makes you wish it didn't?

[btizubayer]

I am stereoless at the moment.

I have been doing some searching but unless I knew what I was looking for, most the stuff I could find only seem to be home theatre systems.

Sound quality...range, dynamics all matter... it's really hard to appreciate any recording that I've heard sound better.
doubt that's just me, but I still find myself burning the crap out of discs instead of ruining the original.

[bornannoying]

I have been doing some searching but unless I knew what I was looking for, most the stuff I could find only seem to be home theatre systems.

Seriously? I get the impression the US hi-fi market is quite different from the UK's, but there's a surprising amount of really decent stuff for sensible money here.