Welcome!

[Burke Strickland]

Welcome to "Club Integra"!

We have opened this area to focus discussion on the fabulous line of HT products offered by Integra and Integra Research. We hope it will be useful to those of us already enjoying this equipment, and helpful to those still "just looking". But it should be fun for all!

As some of you are already aware, I have been using the Integra Research RDC-7 pre/pro for about three months now, and as some have already noticed, I can't say enough good things about it. Well, now I'll be saying some of those things here. :>) I'll look forward to reading comments about this unit and others in the Integra/Integra Research product lines from the rest of you... let the games begin!!! :>)

Burke

[Andrew Pratt]

Burke how about telling the membership a little about who you are and why you're the man for this job

[Burke Strickland]

OK, Andrew. You asked for it; here it is...

Some of my earliest memories are of watching movies in commercial theaters (or drive ins) with other members of my family, and falling asleep in symphony concert halls. (I was maybe four.) :>) So I have watched and loved movies virtually all my life. And enjoyed music during that time too. As a kid who thought he wanted to be an architect (Frank Lloyd Wright was my childhood idol), I used to draw house plans that included a home theater. My friends laughed and said only millionaires could afford anything like that. But I knew that one day, there would be a movie theater in MY home. (This was before Home Theater was a widely known term.) :>) Meanwhile, I heard a lot of music both on phonograph records and in live performances. Believe me, there was no doubt back then which was the “absolute sound”. While high end “hifi” was exciting (and beyond reach for a kid) and what we had at home, shared by the whole family, was considered good for its day , it was obviously not “real”. I knew that someday even that gap would have to narrow.

My first hifi rig in high school was a turntable that I earned the money to buy, plugged into a stereo table radio my parents bought for my birthday my junior year in high school. I stepped up to better stuff in college through some careful shopping for quality at low-budget prices and then bargaining like I didn't have any money to spare (and that was actually true). When I got out into the world of work, I started the long spiral of upgrades that included early dalliance with surround (the passive Dynaco Hafler processor, later a surround ambiance synthesizer, and so forth. I got others involved in “stereo”. But I still listened to live music at every opportunity, and recognized that we had a long way to go in our home systems.

Meanwhile, I had “invented” home theater my senior year in college by plugging the earphone output of my 15” color portable TV into my stereo system. :>) Of course, I was limited to whatever was broadcast on TV, and that lasted sorry state of affairs lasted until I got my first VCR, a Beta HiFi unit. Needless to say a couple of years later I was forced to go VHS. And graduated to a 32 inch Sony XBR a few years after that. By then, sound reproduction was making great strides or at least, my income was catching up with what was available at more than just entry level, and in December of 1995 I took the big plunge with Definitive Technology BP-2000s and shortly thereafter added BP-20s and a CLR2000 for a full surround system. Overkill for Prologic I was told, but the BP-20 surrounds are still in use today whereas smaller less capable not-full-range surrounds would have been retired by now. I had to get an external Acurus amp to drive those front Def Techs, since my JVC receiver wasn’t quite up to the task , and then with the addition of a Yamaha DSP-A3090 (which I used as my front end for Dolby Digital until this summer) , I thought I was in sonic heaven.

But while I was listening to the soundtracks in all their glory, and sharing all this experience online on CompuServe’s audio and video interest groups, I was still watching my laser discs (an ever expanding collection that maxed out at 500 titles) on a 32 inch screen. When DVD came along, I decided to start shopping around for something, well, BIGGER. I wanted more impact. In early 1998 after a life threatening medical situation that required hospitalization, I decided that although I was fully recovered, it was a wake up call, that it wasn’t prudent to keep putting off things like the projector I wanted, so I ended up with a Sony VPL-W400Q. That and a 10 foot diagonal 16:9 screen turned what had just been a very nice TV with a killer sound system into a real theater for movies in my home.

I watched a LOT of movies. I added a Velodyne FSR-18 subwoofer to really punch up the LFE. I got more and more involved with another Forum, until they asked me to help moderate it. I won’t say which one, although most of you already know. But I got too busy with my real job (the one that pays the bills) :>) and had to bow out of that role, although I still participate there and elsewhere as a contributing poster. And along the way I bought WAYYY too many DVDs. (I’ve recently stopped at 650 DVD titles. Or is it 675?) :>)

Like I said earlier, I had always dreamed of having a home theater, even before it was something just anyone could have. I feel very lucky to actually have as nice a one as I do. But a little over a couple of years ago, I was looking around the room and lamented that I had not been able to listen to any of my vinyl LPs for over a decade, not having a working turntable. Meanwhile I had inherited a big collection of 78rpm shellacs, most of which had not been played in maybe four decades. So I set out to get a budget model turntable that could accommodate both. But a new well made one that can handle both and actually sound good is impossible to find these days. So I ended up getting two turntables -- a Rega Planar 3 with a Grado Reference Platinum cartridge for my LPs and a Rega 78 (a Planar 2 with the motor timed for 78 rpm) with the Rega 78 cartridge. Far more expensive than I had ever planned to go with this, but a very satisfying purchase, all things considered.

I was now rediscovering music. Not that I hadn’t been buying and listening to CDs all this time, having been an early adopter , but movies had clearly been my focus. And it was a movie soundtrack in a demo of Martin Logan Requests (and other models) in a surround system at a dealer that got me started on the upgrade path again for speakers. But upon listening to a variety of speakers, I decided that my main interest was in optimizing two channel music, since I still had a killer surround system for movies already. One day when I was at the dealer, waiting for a Rega demo, I spent the waiting time listening to Magnepan speakers. First they had the MG 1.6s set up. I had read a lot of good press on these, and with my demo CDs, they sounded really good. Then the dealer needed to “borrow the room” to audition a pair of tiny monitor speakers for a high roller from out of town and disconnected the Maggies. When Mr. “I can evaluate these speakers with twenty or so 5 second sound bites” left, the dealer asked me which Maggies I wanted to have connected, and I went for the 3.6s to check out the difference. He positioned them in the best spot and hooked them up, then put on a CD. Viva la difference! While I had enjoyed the 1.6s, these 3.6s absolutely made my jaw drop. I could close my eyes and sense that the performers were in the room. There was a palpable sense of space that transcended the planes of the speakers and presented a holographic sound image that I knew was superior to any I had experienced with other speakers.

I came back another day with a larger stack of demo material when I was getting the cartridge installed in the Rega and was joined by several others who also had their own demo material and were very serious about the Maggies. It didn’t take much more listening to convince myself these were “it”. But the bad news was that the wait on these was 14 weeks. Yikes! But I discovered that the dealer had a pair in their shipping area that had been delivered in the wrong finish for another customer and were to be returned to the factory. I would have ordered that exact finish, and so I asked if I could buy them instead. So I waited just a few days until they could arrange delivery to my home and setup by their staff. And after we had set them up in a totally separate system from my movie sound system (but collocated in the same room) and played a few demo tracks, the dealer suggested that at some point I should try the Maggies with a movie as well as enjoy them for music.

I did that and decided to merge my equipment into one unified system again. But I realized that even the best of my electronics, while not shabby, were not in the same league as the Maggies. So a year later I moved the Acurus to surround duty and stepped up to the incomparable BEL (Brown Electronics Lab) 1001 Mk V power amplifier. It is the perfect match for the Maggies. While I have never been a big “wire” guy, I also ponied up for the BEL “The Wire” speaker cables that were designed to work in unison with my amp for tighter control of bass, etcetera. The wire was expensive compared to the Home Depot/Monster bulk roll stuff I had been using, but a comparative bargain among “high end” cables.

But last and certainly not least, I finally decided it was time to get better resolution and detail from my preamp, and add DTS to my surround processor’s capabilities. I had first toyed with just getting a dedicated high end two channel preamp but figured as many boxes as I already have on the racks (two Bell’Ogetti towers) that I would be better served by a high quality pre/pro that “does both”. I looked at B&K, Theta, Meridian, Bryston, Lexicon, Meridian, Sonic Frontiers/Anthem and (on paper) Tag McLaren, but as you all know by now, settled on the incomparable (at least at its incredible price) Integra Research RDC-7. I’ve reported my experiences with it (and with the other unit I tried in my home system for a week that pushed me to bite the bullet and get “the real thing”) :>) several other places, which caught the attention of certain folks who set up and run Forums on this site, so with my prior history and current interest, they asked me to Moderate here. It is an honor and a pleasure to be able to do so.

And someday, I may share the LONG version of all this. :>) Any questions?

Burke

[Andrew Pratt]

Yikes Burke if this post is any indication of what's to come from you we're going to need to beef up the servers

Welcome to the guide....its nice to see a fellow maggie fan

[Trevor Schell]

Nice Story Burke
Looking forward to reading more on your experiences and knowledge of Hometheater.
Welcome to the HTG!!!




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Lex]

Nice post Burke!

Lex

[Lex]

Welcome again to the new folks. Noticed your coming in at a rather nice rate for Club Integra. Remember, the club is as good as you guys make it. If I know anything about Burke at all from beginning to notice his posts places, he will be an excellent host, and be good encouragement for the Club.

[Lex]

I just wanted to pop in and say what a nice job you guys are doing making Club Integra go! Excellent job moderating as well Burke. But remember, let me know if you need a fire extinguisher to put out flames.

Keep up the good work folks,

Lex