Description

Fairly new to the hobby, and my first tube-based system.

With the ability to dedicate a small basement "man cave" in my home as a listening room, I tried my best to maximize system performance with my limited budget through a mixed allocation of new gear, used gear, and room treatment. Here's how it turned out.

Comments and suggestions on improvements, tweaks, tubes, and equipment are always more than welcome; I'm always open to learning something new.
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Components Toggle details

    • Shindo Laboratories Monbrison
    Shindo Monbrison Tube compliment: 2 x ECC82 2 x ECC83 2 x NOS Telefunken ECL94 2 x 6X4
    • Valve Amplification Company REN-3030 mkIII
    VAC Renaissance 30/30 MKIII-S (Signature circuit upgrade) Tube compliment: 4 x Sophia Electric SET Princess Carbon Plate 300B output tubes 2 x Russian military 1578 c.1978 NOS input/splitter tubes 2 x 6SN7WGTA 1966 NOS driver tubes
    • Verity Audio Finn
    Verity Audio Finn Satin Natural Makore finish
    • Doge Model 6
    Doge 6 Reference Tube CD Player with upgraded tube compliment: 4 x Tung Sol 12AX7 amp circuit 2 x JAN GE 12AT7 filter circuit
    • Rega P3
    Rega P3 with RB300 tonearm and Benz-Micro Wood Body SL moving coil cartridge
    • Rega RB-300
    Rega RB-300 Tonearm
    • Benz Micro Wood Body SL
    Benz-Micro Wood Body SL moving coil cartridge
    • Olive 4HD
    Olive 4HD Music Server
    • Panamax M5400-PM
    M5400-PM power conditioner w/ voltage regulation
    • Auditorium 23 A23
    Auditorium 23 A23 Speaker cable
    • Shindo Laboratories Shindo Silver
    PREAMP[greaterthansign]AMP: Shindo Silver interconnects. *black cables with green sticker below the termination in the pic
    • Siltech Classic Anniversary 220i
    CD PLAYER: Siltech – Classic Anniversary 220i [G6 silver-gold] (1 meter, RCA terminations) * chrome-tipped black/blue cables with chrome RF filter in pic
    • Harmonic Technology Precision Link
    Music Server: Harmonic Technology – Precision Link (1 meter, RCA terminations) *Matte silver-tipped black cables with red/black rubber shielding in pic
    • Sophia Electric SET Princess Carbon Plate 300B
    Sophia Electric SET Princess Carbon Plate 300B output tubes used in VAC amp
    • Russian military spec 1578
    Russian military 1578 c.1978 NOS input/splitter tubes used in VAC amp
    • JAN-spec. 6SN7WGTA
    6SN7WGTA 1966 NOS driver tubes used in VAC amp
    • Power components (Various)
    Power source: Dedicated power line/ground, Panamax-Furman MIW Power Pro PFP in-wall receptacle Power cable (AMP:) Ultimate Cables Silver Series C4, MARINCO terminations (5 ft.) Power cable (CDP): Ultimate Cables Silver Series C4, MARINCO terminations (5 ft.) Power cable (Music Srvr): Shunyata Research - Venom shielded power cable (5 ft.)
    • Grado Prestige Series SR325i Headphones
    Grado – Prestige Series SR325i headphones
    • VTI BLG Series 503
    Black pole/Black glass, extra shelf

Comments 10

Showing all comments by kevinzoe.

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Monte - your room is quite easy on the eyes. Nice use of that red accent colour and white rear wall behind the listening chairs.

Would you mind if I made some recommendations or passed some ideas along based on my basement 'man cave' experience?
* It appears that you're firing the speakers across the room's width and as such restricts the distance behind the speakers and the front wall, and also places your listening chair(s) too close to the rear wall to benefit from the diffusion. The consequence is a shallow soundstage depth and too much bass off the back wall right near your ears which ought to muddy up the sound and put the sound spectrum out of balance. SO, have you considered rotating your system 90 degrees clock-wise so speakers fire down the long wall (room length)?
* Your room has a LOT of mid-high frequency absorbing items like wall-to-wall carpet, big furniture, entire front wall etc. While a "live" or "dead" sounding room is your preference and no one elses, you might consider removing some of the mid-high freq absorbing items. For example make bass traps from the OC fibreglass that is currently on your front wall. When rotating your system 90 degrees you won't need any or much absorption on the side walls. I'd suggest you either go with reflective side walls or diffusion not more absorption. Unless your absorption is a minimum of 4" thick, anything thinner will throw your frequency spectrum off balance by attenuating the highs and not touching the bass and lower mids which is tantamount to turning down the tweeter volume.
* the RPG Skylines which look like the 7" version are good for your back wall but sit at least 4ft from them to properly work, OR put them on your ceiling's 1st reflection points to help raise the apparent ceiling height. The 7" well depths will only work effectively down to about 1KHz with is about half the 1KHz wavelength. So I would recommend either buying more of them for the back wall and put bass traps below them so as to balance the treatment across the entire frequency spectrum. If you can saw a piece of wood then I would highly recommend you consider a DIY Skyline project that will result in much better looking and much better functioning Skylines. I have 10.5" depth Skylines and soon will be building 18" depths for the side and rear walls while my 7" RPG Skylines are for the lowish 7ft ceiling I have. The deeper the cell depth the lower the frequency it works to. Try and make your Skylines work down to between 500-300Hz with is a typical transition zone frequency where bass traps would take care of the frequencies below this transition zone.

Net Net:
* fire speakers down room length
* build a DIY Skyline or get deep QRD diffusers for the back wall to work down to the room's transitional frequency of 300-500Hz (which is a range of only about 8-9 semi-tones)
* put bass traps in all 4 room corners from ceiling to floor and below the Skylines on rear wall
* remove as much mid-high freq absorbing items as possible; consider turning your current OC fibreglass front wall into bass traps
* make your front wall reflective or diffusive to make the musicians closer to you while bass traps in the front corners will help deepen soundstage depth.
* Be sure to know what kind of bass trap you buy or build as placement varies by kind of trap. A fibreglass resistive kind needs to be pulled out from the wall and is most effective at one-quarter the wavelength. So for the 500Hz transition zone frequency, that one-quarter wavelength is about 6.5" so start the edge of the bass trap out from the wall at 6.5" and continue the trap into the room as far as asthetics will allow.
* more your RPG Skylines to the ceiling to raise the apparent height or move them to the front wall.
* keep side walls reflective or experiment with diffusion or absorption at 1st reflection points. Reflection and diffusion will result in a wider apparent source width whereas absorption (4" minimum) will make the soundstage width more narrow -- personal preferences prevail.

Hope this helps.

kevinzoe