First update in a long time. Sorry about the rotated pictures, update coming. The system has moved from a dedicated room just for two channel, to a living room with HT and stereo combined. We enjoy having the great sound for movies but I don't get as much 2-channel time now. I hope to obtain a pair of monitors and a better sub in the future. As you can see in the pictures I have two systems but one pair of speakers, a switch at the speaker allows me to turn on the tube gear. I appreciate comments and suggestions.
Continually impressed with this speaker. The bass response in the new room is incredible. Fast, tight and deep.
McIntosh MC-275 reissue
Re-tubed with NOS tubes and Genelex Gold Lion KT88s.
Balanced Audio VK-3iX
Remote option only. This pre amp has taken this system to the next level. I love this thing!!
PS Audio UPC-200 HB
Humbuster unit.
WBT Top-Line Bananas
SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!! Its like having jewelry sticking out of my vons. The look alone was worth price.
Kimber 8pr
10 ft length. I terminated these with my gorgeous WBT top-line bananas. Will get Transparent speaker cables farther down the road.
Mapleshade Low Heavy Footers
Version 3. Big, beefy footers. Highly recommended. Without them my gear loses its luster, everything sounds flatter and more harsh.
Mapleshade Surefeet
Version 3. Not as substantial as the heavy footers but still yield a great sound.
Universal Remote Mx-500
My remote, couldnt live without it. I prefer hard button remotes so navigation in the dark is easy. Programmable to run up to ten devices.
PS Audio Power Port
Outlet. Great purchase, without it i think my Plus cable would pull itself out of an ordinary outlet.
Transparent Cable Plus MM tech. single ended
1m length. Have these bewtween digital source and pre. This cable is very revealing and seems to get out of the way of the music.
PS Audio Xstream Plus
(2) 2m and (1) 1m (1) 1.5m power cables. I was astounded by the size of these. After i plugged them in i was astounded by the improvements.
Vibrapod Footer
In use under the TT. Tightened up everything as well as adding bloom and blackening the background. Definetly worth demoing if you havent already.
Cambridge Audio 740c
I use this as my two channel CD player, as well as a DAC for my squeeze box for the two channel setup.
Transparent Cable Super MM tech. Balanced
1m. length. I use these beauties between my pre and amp. These cables let so much music through i cant even imagine my system without them.
Eighth Nerve Response Corners & Seams
I am using 3 seams and 2 corners, all of which are on the front wall. I am a true beleiver of this product and look forward to continuing tweaking with room treatments.
Correction: In that last post, near the end, where I say "Not that only the TOP part in the picture is the speaker!", the word "Not" was supposed to be "Note".
So, it was SUPPOSED to read like this:
"Note that only the TOP part in the picture is the speaker!"
Here's a cut and paste from my very long-winded review of them here on Audiogon:
Dimensions and weights, etc. (Rounded off): Speakers: 19 ½ x 13 ½ x 11 inches, gross shipping weight=84 lbs (each) with boxes Path Stands: 18 x 13 x 11 ¼ inches, gross shipping weight=92 lbs (each) with boxes, but without the sand poured in Overall, in our room (see photo with 4 foot yardstick): height is 43 ½ inches Distance from back wall is between 26 and 28 inches to the BACK of each speaker Room dimensions: 20 ft 10 in x 15 ½ ft x 9 ft (ceiling height) Speakers are parallel to the longer wall.
Not that only the TOP part in the picture is the speaker! The bottom part is the STAND, and the weight given above is when they are HOLLOW(!), without the sand poured into them. Mine do have sand poured into them, and the VERY bottom part is the granite surface plate.
Bill- Well thanks anyhoo, i am confused on what the next step should be, but gladly i dont need that next step to make me happy. I see now why you told J_Green that you can make almost any room sound good with tweaking the placement of the speakers. Those Intuitive Design speakers look heavy, whats the weight for those bad boys?
Justin, I'm not the best guy to ask about room treatments. Check out the photos on my review of the Intuitive Design Summit and you'll see why. Here's a link to one of them: Photo with the massive entertainment center
In my opinion, the system I own sounds so excellent (to me, at least) IN SPITE of the room, certainly not because of it.
Do you have any recommendations on room treatments? Im sure my dedicated room will be a standard size bedroom. Or do you think the money will be better spent on getting somthing to replace the NAD? Like i say it will be down the road but i would like to start drooling now. thanks for the input. Justin
Just posting to say that im absolutely in love with my gear now. Thoughts of upgrading have dissappeared(for now). i hoping to move soon and am looking for a place that will have a good dedicated audio room. The thought of a real room is a very pleasant one, i know that when i get everything tweaked in the new room i will be astonished with the results. Im considering doing room treatments to the new room when finances allow, anyone have recommendations? ive heard good things about Echo Buster products.
Let me know what you find. I prefer no plate now so i wonder if we will be able to tune our gear with different materials. This is a very interesting tweak to me and would like to know more about it(scientifically speaking). keep me posted.
Justin, I'm glad that this tweak worked for you. Yesterday I picked up a Nylon leviton wall plate (44 cents) at the Hope Depot. I haven't had a time to do a serious comparison yet (original impressions: I preffer it over the stock plastic wall plate). I'll keep you updated.
I am astonished that removing the wall plate did anything but it did more than that for me. I dont know if my ears are playing tricks on me or what but i heard a significant difference between wall plate and no wall plate. with it removed my bass seemed lower and more pronounced while being tighter as well. the highs and mids sounded warmer(a trait i love) without any loss of detail. my soundstage was smoother and a bit wider as well. i cant see why a piece of plastic could alter the sound but for me it altered it for the worst. Tpaxadom-thanks for giving me the heads up on this. im still shaking my head at the difference. another benefit...my power port is now naked for all the world to see :^). thanks again for this free tweak.
That would be interesting to see whether you can hear the difference with wall plate removed. I'm sorry that you didn't get a chance to hear that speaker cable.
Last night i put the spikes in the vons. I was happy with my placement and decided to stop tweaking the placement and just enjoy. I forgot how much of a difference spiking the vons makes. I am very satisfied with my system now and am thinking im done upgrading for a while. I would like to get into vinyl next. Tpaxadom-i will try removing my outlet plate this weekend.
The power cables continue to get better and better. Before i moved my speakers i was noticing that the soundstage was opening up and imaging was a little more precise. Last night i did a set and repostioned the vons. I moved everyhting more towards the center and that allowed me to space the speaks another 8 inches apart. I was playing with toe in and found that now less toe in sounded way better than what i had. my soundstage is now a lot wider and smoother across the board. On saturday my dealer let me borrow a pair of PS Audio Xstream Statement speaker cables. i was excited to get them in but ran into a slight problem. These cables are just to damn BIG. I couldnt get the to flex the way i needed. That is why i moved eveything around, hoping to get enough room to plug these bad boys in. it was not to be :(. It probably is a good thing i couldnt demo them, because i cant want what i havent heard. but still it would of been nice to hear what $1000 speaker cables sounded like.
You bet its the right direction!! i have been getting so much more pleasure out of music now that it sounds close(i use this term loosely) to how it was intended. There is the battle between is it the music or the sonics? in my opinion it is the music that is the most important but with each upgrade the same piece of music pulls at my heart that much more. So the sonics make the music better. When i started to build my rig i watched more movies then listened to music. Now i have dvds that have been sitting out ready to be viewed for two weeks!!i never would of guessed how much i would enjoy "just sitting and listening" to music. but im not just sitting there, each album is like an experience for me. my friends ask how can you sit for three hours and listen? me reply: come over and youll hear why. As i have said before...Im addicted.
Im heading in the two channel only direction. i will most likely go with an integrated amp and then move on to seperates a couple years down the road(hopefully sooner). This is my inexperienced opinion on adding a center channel. if your speakers are as close together as mine(4'-6" apart) then i think it would be overwhelming and might cause imaging problems. I say this because i feel center channels are better used when your speakers are a good distance apart. If movies are more important then music it might do you good but i dont think so if your speakers are this close. i reiterate this is my UNEXPERIENCED opinion. I dont see any need for a center channel in my room even if i was going for a multi setup, i have a very focused center to my soundstage since my speakers are so close. I think the center channel would be adding center to my already very center sounding setup. Although i do have a decent soundstage considering. I hope this helps. let me know. I would say ask someone that has their room posted in the HT section of the virtual systems, they would know more than i do. thanks for looking and commenting
You mentioned the NAD T-753 will be eventually be replaced. Are you thinking of replacing it with a 2 channel or another multi-channel component? I am asking because my placement situation is very similar and I am not sure whether adding a center channel speaker is even worth it.
Before i go the new cables i was playing with more toe in. If i toed them in more i got sweet imaging and soundstaging but weak bass. i have them not as toed in now because i was wanting a fuller sound over a better soundstage. but now my bass is unbeleivable so i will probaly toe them in more when i do a set again. im waiting to do a set until my cables are more broken in then they are now. My room is my bedroom and audio room so i have virtualy zero space to play with. If you look to the right side of the alternate angle pic you can see the door, so i cant go any farther right or out from the back wall. to the left is my bed so im restricted there. My speaks are about 4'-6" apart, and my chair is in an equilateral triangle with the speaks. far too close but im kind of stuck. if you have any suggestions let me hear them. that red thing is my chair. when i get a dedicated room im sure i will be blown away. but i am happy with what im hearing now. i cant say enough about the diffeence those cables made!!! im in heaven!! probably in a week or so i will repostion the speaks and then try removing the plate.
I'll be curious to hear your thoughts on the wall plate replacement. BTW have you tried to toe-in your speakers or/and seperate them a bit further? It's hard to predict the size of your room from your pictures. If that red thing is your listening chair then you sit in the near field.
I only took them off. The difference isn't subtle. I think about getting Oyaide receptacle in the near future. I'll doubt that I'm going to spend $200 for their cover...
I expect that it will take atleast that long for them to break in. I listened again today and they did sound a little more open, but then again they are still new to me so it might be the excitment that is making them sound better. I havent tried tweaking the outlet plate yet. I want to get familiar with what im hearing and then try it. Did you just remove yours or did you buy metal ones and experiment like the guys on the forum did? It was funny reading those posts, on guy swears it helps the other says no way. Dont tell me what worked best for you i just want to know what you were comparing.
Great news! Congradulations. Complete burn in of my power cables took about a month. The imaging and focus were improved once they got burned in. Also the frequency response stopped jumping around after about 2-3 weeks. So don't be surprise if you system today sounds different.
System edited: PS Audio Xstream Plus power cables installed. Where do i start? I first added one cable from my UPC to the wall....Drooling. After falling in love i added the second from the UPC to the Denon.....Double drooling. After about one song my nerves got the best of me and i plugged in the third from the UPC to the NAD. I wanted to wait a good half hour in between each addition, but i couldnt resist. Now i dont know if this was the final piece of the puzzle in really opening up my system or the cables all the way but i wasnt listening to the same gear. After the third one was in I just sat there listening to Tool with my mouth open. Of course i had a boost in detail and bass, that was to be expected. But waht i heard was bass that to me was, atleast respectable in terms of true bass. Way deeper and tighter than i have heard with this gear, even when placing speaks to improve the low end i hadnt heard this before. Not even close!! As i listened further and focused on pieces of the music i noticed that every sound had a texture to it. I thought my micro detail was good before, but it wasnt anything like what i have now. I dont know how to explain this texture in words but voices had all these tones and variation that i had never heard before, notes seemed to hang in the air longer, guitars oh man guitars!! its like i could hear the strings reverbing right in front of my face. Thats how clear and defined everything was. These cables made everything click and are by far the most effective upgrade i have made. The down side to what im hearing is a restrained soundstage and not as precise imaging. Breaking them in will cures these problems and then more tweaking with speak placement and i will be in yet another realm. Even if the cables dont "break" in and stay this way i will have no regrets. Enough of this! i got music to listen too! i will comment as the cables progress. later Justin
I haven't done any serious research on line conditioners yet. I don't have any local dealers for Hydra product :o(. You might think I'm crazy, but I read about effect of the wall plate (receptacle cover)yesterday and tried it in my system forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.... . It does make a difference! You should try it. Just take it off and see if you can hear any difference.
