System edited: Going back to 2ch when I move - anyone want some killer HT gear for cheap? :D

dmoffitt October 19, 2005 07:22

System edited: some decent changes (new pre/pro, new cabling, new power conditioner) - pics will follow when i clean the room it's all in ;)

dmoffitt March 27, 2005 20:21

icsi, it integrates perfectly, the system never ceases to amaze me... 2ch it's astounding, and movies are so much less fatiguing (i used to feel HT was bright / thin / brittle / had no depth. nope!!).

dmoffitt September 14, 2004 08:05

the panamax seems to make the background blacker - i'm really looking forward to having the 5500, in borrowing it, i found putting digital sources on the isolation transformer (and having no electrical links between everything, by using glass optical vs digi-coax) made a HUGE difference for 2ch D/A and also for surround processing.

surprisingly the biggest improvements were in video quality, but I guess since video is timed on our 60hz electrical signal... it makes sense. better black levels (rather, better separation of super-black and a few shades lighter) and better color rendition / separation, less noise (when you sat up close, aka 1-2 feet from the set, it used to have a bit of swimming green 'grain' in the luminance channel).

even the 5300 delivered about 85-90% of these improvements, but that isolation transformer makes all the difference (separating digital and analog stages).

dmoffitt September 01, 2004 23:26

System edited: replaced everything b&w with totem acoustic. the RSX-1055 is going to the house my parents are building, and is being replaced with a Bryston SP1.7 shortly. the panamax max 5300 is getting upgraded to a 5500. the hitachi plasma is also going to my folks, and i'm picking up a 52" HD-ILA from JVC. i'm considering picking up 2 more amp rails for the Krell and using it for the center and surrounds, and grabbing a bigger/better 2ch-only Krell for the front pair (since the bryston has such amazing 2ch capabilities) - the Forests are hungry, as is the Model 1 Sig Center, and the KAV-500 delivers, but I think it is at or near it's limits. quite a drastic change all at once, but even without proper break-in, cds and movies sound dramatic and wonderful!

dmoffitt September 01, 2004 08:45

undergoing some drastic changes shortly, almost everything but some interconnects and some speaker wires will have changed.

dmoffitt August 30, 2004 06:46

eclipse911t thanks for the compliments - to get to some of your comments / questions, i've been auditioning several DACs but now i've moved the music server to my 2ch rig in my bedroom so i kinda have to do it again to narrow things down. my current favorite is the Bel Canto DAC 2.

re: your system i would highly recommend checking out m-audio to replace the sound blaster card, while sound blaster (creative) advertises an extremely low noise floor (that was the basis of the whole 'live' and 'audigy' lines) the m-audio cards are much better performers - and i'd stay away from letting the computer / software upsample things, i think you may cause more problems with jitter, drop-outs etc that way rather than letting an upsampling DAC do it or just sending out 16/44.1 ;)

sub, i was waiting to get the 'right' one - i had an ASW-600 for a bit, tried the ASW-675, both great for the $ but my (old loft had 960+ sq feet in ONE ROOM and my) current place the 'room' is 25x18x14 ish off the top of my head, but is open to a huge 35-40 foot hall (same ceilings) and the kitchen which is probably another 12-15x25 if i had to guess, so standing waves, room modes, and just plain needing a stupid driver / amp in the sub kinda dwarfed the ASW-6xx series, but the DD-10 does quite respectably here.

lexhamfox - the PC is in a different room on a different circuit with it's own APC BackUPS 1000VA so I don't think there's any issue there (part of why I used optical / EIAJ Toslink - no electrical connection).

dmoffitt June 25, 2004 06:19

System edited: it is 'only' a home theater now but is very engaging and immersive - i wanted the speakers to not be point-source but to create a soundscape / environment and i feel that it's been pretty effective thus far - i find myself having to ask, was that a bird outside waking up or the dolby digital track accompanying the broadcast of Nature on WXXI PBS-HD at 4:30 am ;)

dmoffitt June 25, 2004 06:09

yeah mitch, it's a loft apt. in rochester ny.

love the concrete floors re: looks (and cleaning) but i'm fighting them tooth and nail re: sound).

dmoffitt March 23, 2004 08:40

System edited: update: changed dac (from Chan. Island to Cal Audio Sigma), moved some stuff around re: speaker placement, took pictures :)

dmoffitt March 21, 2004 23:35

thus far noise hasn't been a problem, by timing do you mean jitter or just a delay from hitting "play" on the system? since it's uncompressed off a VERY fast array, there's no delay, in fact, faster track seek than any cd player i've seen (non-linear stuff has a big advantage there). my biggest thing is finding a DAC i like because i was pretty happy with the one in my rdv-1060 (going analog 2ch using coral for music and digi-coax for home theater).

granted my whole system is perhaps one or two steps above 'entry level' but i am inclined to think it sounds pretty darned good, esp. for a film student (there of course are those "who needs to eat i need better interconnects" weeks... but hey, weight-loss thru the love of music).

dmoffitt December 07, 2003 10:22

lol yes, TB. typo at 5am. :)
It's a promise external 8-bay enclosure, 7x200gb western digital drives with an extra 200gb "hot spare" (running raid 5 so data-integrity and such isn't a big worry).

re: silencing a pc, i'm using a g5 for that reason, i often forget it's on unless i see the white power led. however, without having to get a whole new system there is quite a large lineup of products and techniques by which to slience an ordinary PC - check out www.frozencpu.com - they have dynamat products for PC, as well as water cooling (getting rid of fan noise does a TON, leaving only the noise of the physical disks, which is why my drives are outside the case in an already decently quiet enclosure, and then i've put up a barrier arround that hard-drive case of 2 layers of accoustic foam (leaving enough room so it doesn't overheat, approx 8-10in per side for fan circulation, and the top is open).

dmoffitt December 06, 2003 23:32