State of the Hi-Fi (and new additions!)

New additions!

I went to VCF Southwest in Dallas this weekend, and one of the folks selling stuff at their booth had two MiniDisc units! I got the combo, plus a bunch of MiniDiscs themselves, for $150 – I’m pretty happy with that deal.

Sony MZ-R37 portable MiniDisc player/recorder

Sony MZ-R37 on MiniDisc Wiki
The front of my MZ-R37
My MZ-R37 with its drive bay open
The top of my MZ-R37

Sony MDS-JE500 component MiniDisc player/recorder

Sony MDS-JE500 on MiniDisc Wiki
The front of my MDS-JE500, sitting on my Hi-Fi stack

The rest of the system

Of course, since I'm making this post a "state of the hi-fi" I should show the other components in my system.

Sony STR-DH190 stereo receiver

Sony STR-DH190 on HiFi Engine
The front of my STR-DH190

This is a perfectly adequate receiver and amp. There's nothing really special about it, but it can drive my speakers just about as loud as I want it to and has exactly the number of inputs I need. Maybe I'll end up with a better receiver or amp in the future.

JVC TD-W501 stereo double cassette deck

JVC TD-W501 on HiFi Engine
The front of my TD-W501

This thing is a bit of a piece of junk. The right deck (the playback one) has a non-functional left channel, and both channels sound kinda muffled. Sadly it still works better than my other deck, so until I either repair the other deck or find yet another I'm stuck with this one.

Sony CDP-CX153 compact disc player with 100-disc changer

Sony CDP-CX153 on HiFi Engine
The front of my CDP-CX153

I love this thing. It is incredibly overkill, especially since my CD listening consists of finding a disc in its jewel case from my collection and putting it in to play, but the spinny mechanism is so neat.

Audio Technica AT-LP60X turntable

Audio Technica AT-LP60X on Vinyl Engine
My AT-LP60X, as seen from the top

Another perfectly adequate component, this turntable functions fine and sounds good. There's nothing all that special about an AT-LP60X, other than that it's Good™. I like watching the automatic mechanism though.

Polk Audio T15 speakers

Polk Audio T15 on Polk Audio's website
One of my Polk T15s, as seen from the front

These speakers are gonna get a replacement at some point. They're fine, but I think I can do a lot better for a few hundred bucks. I'll be on the lookout in the Austin Audiophiles Facebook group!

Published 17 June 2024, updated 5 January 2025

Tags: audio, audiophile, cassette, cd, hi-fi, minidisc, retro tech, sony, vinyl

Originally published on the World Wide Web:

https://www.piperswe.me/2024/state-of-the-hi-fi-and-new-additions.html