The kit we bought, our current setups

[watchnerd]

I

The current condition of my otherwise foo-less all-purpose self-rising room...

View attachment 4074

 

[davkj]

Might as well take a whack at this...

Room:

Front wall is brick covered with wood panels, all other walls/ceiling are two layer drywall with GreenGlue.
Speakers are currently around 5.25' to front baffle off front wall and 2.5' off of the side walls.
Listening chair is centered and about 4' off back wall.

The "Shrine"

Gear:
Aerial Acoustics 7T Loudspeaker
Pass X250.5 Amplifier
Pass XP20 Preamp
Auralic Vega DAC
Caps V3.0 PC

Room Treatment/Power/Cables
GIK and custom room treatments
2 Dedicated 20 Amp Circuits
Torus Power TOT Isolation Transformer (used for front end equipment only)
Volex Power Cords / whatever came in the box
Mogami Neglex Cables (balanced)
Kimber 4TC Speaker Cable

Software
Roon
Acourate
HQ Player (upsamples to DSD128 and convolves Acourate filters)
Above runs on Caps v3.0 in listening room, files on server in basement running Roon Core

Audiophile Foo
VPI Traveller TT/Ortofon 3M Bronze Cart
Parasound JC3+ Phono Pre
LPS for Caps V3.0 (HDPlex)
Optical Nework before Caps V3.0
Cryo'd Hubble Outlets (2)
Rebar Chairs (cable lifts to keep signal cable away from power cable)

Measurements:
Since this is a science forum, here are the obligatory measurements:

Room FR with Acourate psychoacoustic smoothing:

I have not (yet) measured the actual response with the Acourate filters, but here is the predicted response:

Acourate has made the single largest improvement of anything I have ever done with the system. I only wish I had abandoned the "purist" route sooner and tried this earlier.
If I keep reading this forum, I might go crazy and try to get rid of the preamp and go full digital. Or add a couple of subwoofers, who knows!
For now, things are working well and sounding great. I'm going to sit back and enjoy the music for a while before I tear the whole thing down.

 

[Sal1950]

Nice rig, thanks for sharing
I really like your Caps PC. Have been poking around for something totally silent to replace my current tower some time in the future.
Cent' Anni

 

[davkj]

Thanks Sal.
The silent PCs are awesome. Until you experience it, you don't realize how noisy PCs really are...

 

[amirm]

Thanks Sal.
The silent PCs are awesome, until you experience it you don't realize how noisy PCs really are.

For sure. It is uncanny to boot a machine that starts to come alive with no sound at all! I am tempted to build one for my everyday workstation.

 

[Nightlord]

Some of the things that's been passed through...

First stack, cd-player was so new that it was an add-on to the rest that was sold as a kit.

1st speakers with any higher ambition, DIY Michelson/Voight-horn

Here's a plan on the inside horn winding:

Magnapan MG1.4

Canton Digital 1.1

Holfi Power 8, Metavox 201 amd the digital control box of the Cantons

 

[Nightlord]

Thanks Sal.
The silent PCs are awesome. Until you experience it, you don't realize how noisy PCs really are...

Nothing quite like when the power goes at the office and all comps shut down...

 

[amirm]

Nothing quite like when the power goes at the office and all comps shut down...

It is definitely a shocking experience. And at the same time, the power of the brain to tune it out when it is a constant background noise.

 

[Sal1950]

For sure. It is uncanny to boot a machine that starts to come alive with no sound at all! I am tempted to build one for my everyday workstation.

But ya got to have the mini speaker for the POST codes beep, without them would be sacrilegious.

 

[ripvw]

Ok, been listening to:
Benchmark DAC-1
AKG K 701
Marantz CD5001
Dynaudio Pro BM6A active studio monitors
Target stands
all purchased in 2007
via
1.5 meter DH Labs D-75 coax RCA/BNC (positive mention by John Marks in DAC-1 Stereophile review from 2004)
5 meter DH Labs BL-1 XLR/XLR interconnect

In Houston and later New Brunswick Canada the primary listening was through the BM6A's with the headphones only used in the late evening. In Houston I had the ideal setup of a dedicated room (ok, a spare bedroom) where I located the speakers about 3-feet from the back wall toed in to the listening position and the listening chair was a similar 3-feet away from the rear wall - almost the "rule of thirds" setup some swear by. Listening was via Redbook CD's and Toslink from the DirectTV box. Great setup only lacking in deep bass - never got around to a subwoofer in Houston. In Canada the ideal setup disappeared and it became the usual 2nd-spouse SAF-approved "put the speakers against the wall out of the way" setup.

Now listening to:
Topping DX7s
Sennheiser HD600
Marantz CD5001
Dynaudio Pro BM6A
new Pangea Audio DS400 stands from AudioAdvisor (Target stands stayed in Canada, too heavy to ship)
via
1-foot Belden 1694A RCA/RCA coax from Blue Jeans Cable
Topping USB cable
15-foot Canare Star Quad L-4E6S XLR/XLR balanced interconnects from Blue Jeans Cable

Listening room is once again a bedroom - but with a bed in it this time since I'm caring for my mom and back in California in her home on the central coast. Primary listening is headphones with the speakers rarely used. Primary sources include Redbook CD but now also Tidal HiFi using the desktop app running on an iMac 27" 5k 16GB 3.4mHz. First Mac I've ever owned - been using them for years - color me impressed. The 5k monitor is to die for and Tidal is just miles ahead of Apple Music which is miles ahead of Amazon's new Unlimited Music which is miles ahead of YouTube. IMHO of course...

Also have iPhone SE and 6th Gen iPad with Etymotic ER3SE earphones for traveling - hope to add Topping NX4 DSD to the traveling kit soon.

see my introductory review of the DX7s in this post:

#235

 

[cjfrbw]

Room: 19x14 feet, entryway dogleg adds about 15x5 feet, ceiling tapered in front from 10 feet to 16 feet at back.

SME 30/2 Turntable, Da Vinci Grandezza Tonearm, Benz MC-3 Cartridge, Allnic HT 3000 head amp, Allnic H-3000 Phono, Allnic L 5000 preamp, Accuphase F 25 analog active crossover four ways to front speakers, Analysis Audio Epsilon Speakers/ added foil tweeters (aka four way active crossover). Amplification for frequency bands: Sony TAN 8550 VFET amp (Manley Neo 300b preamp driver Svetlana 300b tubes)350-7000hz, Yamaha B-2 VFET amplifier 80-350hz , 300b SET tube amp 7000Hz to infinity Hz, Yamaha RX Z9 surround amplification plus Yamaha Aventage CX-A5000 preamp processor 9.4 surround sound. Various Apogee studio speakers and Centaurus Minors for surrounds Use USB sticks/Airplay Mac Mini for compressed music. About 2000 vinyl LPs. Pioneer DVD player for discs. Sony 4K projector to 120 inch screen.

Video is when I was still using Wavac for midrange, now Sony VFET TAN 8550.

 

[Sal1950]

Ok, been listening to:

Room: 19x14 feet, entryway dogleg adds about 15x5 feet, ceiling tapered in front from 10 feet to 16 feet at back.

Thanks guys for the contributions to the thread. Nice to know what the members are listening to and see a bit into their world..

 

[PierreB]

The room is 13’ large x 24’ long x 7.7’ high.
Turntable : Rega P3-24 + Exact2 + TT PSU
Amp and pre : Bryston 2B SST and BP-25
Cd : Simaudio Moon Néo 260D
Phono: Simaudio 310LP + 320S
Speakers :Elac Adante AF-61 gloss white.( 2weeks old )
Cables : all Bis Audio

 

[DonH56]

Guess I never posted my system... My beloved Magnepans were replaced by a full Revel speaker suite last year. I do not have good shots of everything but cross-shots of the front and rear of my nearly-current room are shown below. The perspective is a bit wonky; the left speaker looks a lot closer than it is to the MLP. Speaker pairs are symmetric to within about 1/4" to the MLP.

Revel Salon2 L/R, Voice2 center, 2 x Rythmik F12 subwoofers (left one not visible);
Samsung 52 TV (now a 65" LG OLED C7 and lowered a bit), Sonos CONNECT, cable box, Oppo UDP-203;
Emotiva XMC-1 processor, XPA-2 and XPA-5 amplifiers.
Many absorbers on walls and ceiling (prefer it quiet and helps with some ugly room modes).
Room walls and ceiling are double 5/8" drywall, glued and sealed, floating on Kinetics Iso-Max clips.
Door is a thick and heavy solid-core exterior model with threshold and full weather (sound) seals.

Revel F206 side surrounds (not visible) and rears, 2 x Rythmik F12 subwoofers, part of the DVD/BD/CD collection.
The white thing on the wall at the upper left is a Fujitsu mini-Split to provide HVAC; no ducts to the rest of the house.
Various trumpets behind the couch since this is also my practice room.

Room is roughly 13' 3" wide x 17' 7" long x 8' 6" high; rear corner wall (not shown on right) is angled for aesthetics of the room on the other side (royally messed up acoustics so is covered by absorbers, natch). This room is too dead for most people though everyone who has heard it so far (very few) have seemed (pretended) to like it. Image is very precise and the room is small enough that listening is practically near-field especially for those big speakers. The attached PDF shows the ray diagrams I used to help determine absorber placements. It does not show all four subs, which are placed to reduce some doubled-up room modes.

All my old interesting gear is in storage. It includes a heavily modified ARC SP3a1 (sold my D-79 amplifier), AR TT with a Magnepan arm and Grace cart (I think), modified Hafler DH-200 bridged with a DIY control box to drive my custom servo subwoofer (uses an Infinity IRS driver), Yamaha T-2 tuner, Pioneer RT-707 reel-reel, old Eico EL34 amp, etc. I got rid of most of my old stereo gear or it lives in other systems around the house (and now in my sons' apartments). Also a few boxes of records, maybe 300 or so, down from the ~3000 I had in my youth.

Here are a couple of shots of the system with the Maggies in place (MG-IIIa L/R, CC3 center, MC-1 surrounds and rears):

 

[restorer-john]

I wouldn't know where to start.

 

[Sal1950]

The room is 13’ large x 24’ long x 7.7’ high.
Turntable : Rega P3-24 + Exact2 + TT PSU
Amp and pre : Bryston 2B SST and BP-25
Cd : Simaudio Moon Néo 260D
Phono: Simaudio 310LP + 320S
Speakers :Elac Adante AF-61 gloss white.( 2weeks old )
Cables : all Bis Audio

PierreB, Thanks so much for the post. I see you've been a member for over a year but this is your first addition so welcome to the forum anyhow! LOL Looks like a great solid rig, love the Bryston electronics. Also the ole Marantz reciever always makes me smile, a 2270 was my first piece of real quality Hi Fi back around 1975.

Guess I never posted my system...

Thanks for the photos DonH56, were the absorbers a DIY project, curious about them?
Room must have felt a bit cramped with the Maggies. I can only immagine how awesome it sounds with the new Revels.

 

[PierreB]

PierreB, Thanks so much for the post. I see you've been a member for over a year but this is your first addition so welcome to the forum anyhow! LOL Looks like a great solid rig, love the Bryston electronics. Also the ole Marantz reciever always makes me smile, a 2270 was my first piece of real quality Hi Fi back around 1975.

Hi, you know, english is not my language and it’s difficult for me to leave my impressions.
The Marantz is a tuner Model 140.
Thanks.

 

[DonH56]

Thanks for the photos DonH56, were the absorbers a DIY project, curious about them?
Room must have felt a bit cramped with the Maggies. I can only immagine how awesome it sounds with the new Revels.

The absorbers were kits from Ready Acoustics. Cost way more than DIY, but about half the cost of other commercial offerings, and look nice. I like the frames -- not ideal acoustically but aesthetically pleasing.

I've had my Maggies in all sorts of rooms so they didn't feel cramped to me... I was going to make some corny analogy to lovers are never crowded but realized it would never come across right and would be ultimately wrong anyway...

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

 

[Sal1950]

The Marantz is a tuner Model 140.

Thanks for the correction. How kool to have a vintage tuner in the system.