I built a modest size music room in the basement of my residence. To me that is the strongest feature of my system.

The floor of the room is a concrete slab. Room dimensions are 7 feet high by 11.25 feet wide by 16 feet long. The framing of the walls have a 2 x 6” bottom and top plates with vertical studs that are staggered so the inside wall is decoupled from the outside wall. Interior wall construction is made with two layers of 5/8" sheetrock screwed into resilient channels. The exterior wall is one layer of 5/8" sheetrock. There is Wall Damp material (ASC visco elastic polymer) between the resilient channel and the first layer of sheetrock and also between the first and second layer of sheetrock. All framing and sheetrock is secured with screws instead of nails. There are two solid core doors with Zero International door jam and saddle thresholds that reduces the amount of sound getting out of the room. Thick Berber carpet with felt padding covers the room floor.

Electricity is provided to the room by three separate 20 Amp circuits. One circuit for is dedicated for main sources, the second circuit is dedicated for the amplifier and the third circuit is dedicated for miscellaneous items (Lighting, cordless telephone, etc.). Each circuit has a straight run of 12 Gauge wire from the fuse box into a Hubell Cryo'd outlet. A three fixture Lightolier Halogen Track System connected to a Lutron wireless dimmer switch provides room lighting.

Construction was done in about six weekends back in Summer 1998. The only item I did not worked on the room was the installation of the carpet. Everything else, framing, sheetrock, painting, electrical, HVAC I did it myself.

The evolution of the system to its current configuration has been slow but every upgrade so far has paid in spades.

On the speaker department I started with B&W CDM-1 monitors that sounded good but with some limitations on the low frequencies. They were replaced by Green Mountain Continuum 1.5i in June 2003. The sound improved in the low frequencies but it also increased the amount of detail and the soundstage. Voices are reproduced extremely well and the music appears to be coming from a bigger size room than it actually is without appearing unrealistic.

Amplifier wise I started with a Parasound HCA-2003. It did a pretty good job for about four years until a good friend recommended me the fantastic McCormack DNA-125. There was a noticeable improvement from the Parasound, which was a solid amplifier. The lower frequencies in the stock DNA-125 sounded tighter and the soundstage was wider than before. In Summer 2004 the DNA-125 was sent to SMc Audio to get the Platinum upgrade followed by the Ultra Platinum upgrade in Spring 2007. The realism, dynamics and soundstage on my system were improved significantly after these upgrades. It would be very hard to reach the current performance of this amplifier without shelling out at least than two or three times its current price.

The original Preamplifier was a Parasound P/LD-2000. On the digital side it was very good but I struggled a bit with ground humming noise on the analog section. This problem was solved when I replaced it with the McCormack RLD-1 Preamplifier. I also sent the RLD-1 to SMc Audio to perform the Ultra Platinum upgrades. I am a very happy camper with this preamplifier on both the digital and the analog end. It also has the convenience of wireless remote.

On the digital side I started with a Parasound C/DP-1000, which was later augmented by adding a Parasound D/AC-1100HD D/A Converter with HDCD decoding and a Genesis Technologies Digital Lens. This combination works pretty well but I am a not a big fan of multiple boxes for digital playback due to the amount of power cables and interconnects used. I started using it as my second digital source after getting the McCormack UDP-1 Universal Player which wonderfully plays every silver disc out there.

The analog section was pretty solid with the stock Rega P25 and Exact cartridge. It was vastly improved with the addition of the Groovetracer upgrades. These are high quality works of art that improve the analog reproduction of my system. Highly recommended to anyone looking for an easy to install upgrade that really works. Frank is a very nice and knowledgeable guy that takes the time to answer all the questions you have on any of the Groovetracer upgrades.

The cable elevator was something that came into my mind after struggling with several other ways to raise the Audio Magic Clairvoyant cables from the carpeted floor. They are very stable and they get lost from your view. Plus they are substantially cheaper than most of the audiophile alternatives out there.

So far I have been pretty lucky in the reliability department with all my audio components. I have to say that in addition of the great products they design and make, Roy Johnson, Steve McCormack and Jerry Ramsey have been very generous with their time to answer any questions I had on their products before and after buying them. I have been extremely satisfied with their products and highly recommend them. The synergy between all the pieces on my system is amazing and I do not have any plans to replace any of the Audio Magic, Green Mountain Audio or McCormack items.