Jana Dagdagan

Jana's Personal Escape

Jana Dagdagan  |  Apr 10, 2017

In this 1 Minute Audiophile Escape we visit my personal system.

I switch back and forth between a Fisher 800-C receiver and a Sherwood S-5500 II amplifier. My sources are: a KAB-modified Technics SL-1200 Mk. 2 with an Audio Technica AT440MLa cartridge on a Technics headshell, and an iPhone 6 or MacBook Pro through an AudioQuest Golden Gate interconnect (RCA to 3.5mm). These connect to Rogers LS3/5A speakers atop Skylan speaker stands via AudioQuest Type 4 speaker cables.

COMMENTS
es347's picture
Submitted by es347 on April 10, 2017 - 11:01am

..nothing like legacy gear to warm the heart. Well done madam..

donlin's picture
Submitted by donlin on April 15, 2017 - 10:21am

It's really fun to be able to see a system like this. Way more interesting than massive six figure speakers and mono block amps. Please do more videos like this.

dalethorn's picture
Submitted by dalethorn on April 10, 2017 - 11:18am

Hi - do you ever take your amps etc. to people who can check their current (as in current time) performance? When I bought components from AudioCraft in Cleveland some years ago, they offered occasional free checkups, which seems like a good idea for tubes, and probably for turntable/tonearm/pickups too.

Jana Dagdagan's picture
Submitted by Jana Dagdagan on April 11, 2017 - 11:48am

Hey Dalethorn - Thanks for the reminder! They're both from eBay so unfortunately no free checkups here, but I really should be better about that. I did get them checked up and tweaked when they first arrived but not since then...

pbarach's picture
Submitted by pbarach on April 11, 2017 - 3:25pm

Unfortunately they in essence went out of business as a retail operation a couple of years ago.

bengl3rt's picture
Submitted by bengl3rt on April 10, 2017 - 1:13pm

I just retired a Schiit Wyrd + Audioquest Forest USB + Schiit Modi 2 stack from my main headphone rig. Did a great job of getting good SQ out of my phone with the Camera Connection Kit. Seems like it would fit into your system well, do you want it?

malosuerte's picture
Submitted by malosuerte on April 10, 2017 - 2:25pm

I was pleased to see your cartridge. I am a big fan of the 440mla.

Lovely system!

dmineard HT's picture
Submitted by dmineard HT on April 10, 2017 - 6:10pm

Thank you for sharing your system with us. Nice warm system. Some of it may not look "cool" but that is just appearance. Very nice.

JoeinNC's picture
Submitted by JoeinNC on April 11, 2017 - 4:35am

"Some of it may not look 'cool' but that is just appearance."

Dunno. Looks pretty cool to me. :)

jhanken's picture
Submitted by jhanken on April 10, 2017 - 11:13pm

Just this evening, a musician friend found an adjacent model in his garage and plugged it and, wa-la! Excellent stereo!

prerich45's picture
Submitted by prerich45 on April 11, 2017 - 7:42am

Excellent....I'll just leave that right here :)

Anton's picture
Submitted by Anton on April 11, 2017 - 8:16am

I've been pondering and supposing and just don't know....what record is on the turntable?

It's not a Joy Fagnani record.

Jana Dagdagan's picture
Submitted by Jana Dagdagan on April 11, 2017 - 8:54am

It's a reissue of Fahrenheit Fair Enough by Telefon Tel Aviv. Thought it would be nice to add some color in!

Anton's picture
Submitted by Anton on April 11, 2017 - 9:11am

I am a fellow lover of colored vinyl and thought I knew them all. Obviously not!

I appreciate you telling me, I was driving myself crazy.

I will now ruin your life with this link:

http://coloredvinylrecords.com/

Cheers!

Jana Dagdagan's picture
Submitted by Jana Dagdagan on April 11, 2017 - 11:26am

I want all of them!

volvic's picture
Submitted by volvic on April 11, 2017 - 9:24pm

Have one and after purchasing a new platter it still has a slight platter wobble, yours looks spot on with no apparent up and down, how did you get it to be so true? If I spin mine by hand with hrs clamp on platter I can see the slight up and down motion. Love the video, perhaps all stereophile subscribers should be challenged to do likewise.

Wavelength's picture
Submitted by Wavelength on April 12, 2017 - 1:14pm

Jana,

Love the system, but what no DragonFly Red in between those Apple Products? :)

I had modified Fisher & Dynaco stuff with a modified Yamaha YP450 table back in college. I think by my senior year I had 5 full stereo's in our house.

Gordon

Golden Ears's picture
Submitted by Golden Ears on April 13, 2017 - 11:10am

Nice system . I also own the Sherwood and found by careful setting of the loudness contour you can get very life like sound tonally even from smaller speakers. Yes it is less than life like levels, but with the contour knob used properly it can seem "almost live volume wise" without sounding lean... for jazz ensembles. The La Voce DAC by Aqua Acoustic Quality is an excellent pairing with that amp. I use Chapman T-8 speakers to great effect with this set up since the speakers have a benign 6 ohm impedance curve and their resonance point is below 20Hz which allows me to use a low power tube amp. The coupling gives the impact of a 200 watt solid state amp.

avanti1960's picture
Submitted by avanti1960 on April 13, 2017 - 5:05pm

.......if we could have heard the actual system playing along with some brief commentary about why you like it.
Instead we get a nicely made video with a generic overdub soundtrack and never heard the actual system playing.
Since the primary reason for a HiFi system to exist is to play music, not being able to hear it in the interlude is disappointing and puzzling. Maybe next time?

Bill Leebens's picture
Submitted by Bill Leebens on April 14, 2017 - 2:10pm

I'm sure he'd check out your tube gear....

Hugo450r's picture
Submitted by Hugo450r on April 14, 2017 - 10:12pm

Sounds great

Jana Dagdagan's picture
Submitted by Jana Dagdagan on April 15, 2017 - 2:35pm

It's a track called "Orange" by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena, provided by YouTube's royalty free library.

c1ferrari's picture
Submitted by c1ferrari on June 14, 2017 - 9:57am

15 ohms iteration, circa 1978, purchased new...still have 'em!
Actually, I think my older brother appropriated them -- :-)

Used Micahelson & Austin amplification -- good match with the Rogers for sound, but irascible (had cap box modification).

Do friends come over and listen to music?

Thanks for sharing your system.

-Sam

High Water Sound's picture
Submitted by High Water Sound on June 26, 2017 - 1:02pm

HI Jana, Love the 800C with Rogers LS3/5As, heavenly. Also, Sherwood has always been a fave of mine. Herb didn't mention but, I also had vintage Sherwood amps and a pair of Rogers Studio 1As. We definitely are connecting on a parallel plane. Totally, great Karma!

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