1-06-2024....A little over a year ago I picked up the Rockport Arrakis 2 speakers and CH Prcecision M1.1 Mono blocks. Also "newer" to my system is the Allnic L10000 preamp and Nordost Odin power cords, and I added some more acoustic treatments to the walls. The room is serviced by a dedicated Equitech sub panel with seven dedicated lines feeding the room with balanced power.
The recent addition of these little plug in wall conditioner/filters from Nordost and the Puron are very worthwhile tweaks.
8-19-2015....System totally rebuilt from ground up. Moved to a larger room in basement. Room is 18'x 31' with 10' ceilings with seven dedicated circuits feeding into a dedicated wall mounted Equi=Tech subpanel.
4-30-2019.... Finally added proper room treatments focussing mostly on diffusion. All products from GIK Acoustics.
Another consideration for bass management is RPG Modex. Modex is available in a variety of styles and colors. RPG provides data for its products so after you know what you need to achieve, they may have an attractive solution for you.
System edited: Moved everything downstairs a couple of years ago and completely rebuilt my system. Room is 18'x 31' with 10' ceilings. Playing around with acoustic treatments which I consider to be a long term project since the process seems to be half science, half trial and error, and half magic.
System edited: Separation Anxiety! I moved all two channel components to separate location and placed them on a four inch thick shelf Mapleshade rack. I added three new dedicated circuits. Purchased my first turntable. Garrard 301 with Steve Dobbins Plinth, copper Platter, Loricraft PSU 301 AR power supply, Reed 2P tonearm, and Allnic Puritas cartridge. I also finally got some curtains up and playing with home made acoustic panels for better sound. New speakers on the way also.
I got the Messenger used about a year ago here off Audigon so the price was right. I bought it mainly from it's great reputation and the fact that it was supposed to have a really great phono section.
There was a lot of buzz a few years back and it received best sound of show at CES 2004,2005,2006.
I like the design concept of keeping the circuitry as simple as possible. For instance, the designer has tried several times over the years to find a remote that wouldn't degrade the sound. He was never satisfied with the results, so a remote ha never been implemented.
Performance wise there is nothing lacking. It was a big upgrade from my Cary SLP-05 that it replaced.
My set up is currently 5.1, but I have the B&W SCMS for side surrounds which will go in after the curtains are up.
The HT/2 channel set up is not too bad. They are completely separate. My preamp is single ended only so I use RCA for music and XLR for home theater.I just plug in the correct connection to the monos depending on what we are doing.
See you up at the winery. We usually go to 5 or 6 shows a year up there seeing a wide variety of music from English Beat to bluegrass to YES-progressive rock to Jazz
Willow Glen is choice area to live. Nice home and really nice music system. Its always hard to combine HT and 2-channel stereo. Do you have a 3.1 or 5.1 HT?
He said get the curtains up and also think about hanging curtains behind the speakers. He suggested hanging a big blanket over the flatscreen TV when doing critical listening. The original house plans called for exposed wood beams configured in a large grid pattern on the ceiling, so we talked about installing sound absorption panels flush against the ceiling within the grid so as not to be noticeable. He basically said do as much treatment as possible, but be because of aesthetic limitations, I may never have a really optimal room. I have a 14'x 26'x 10' room in the basement which someday will be my music room. But during house construction it turned into a bedroom for my mother in law. At least I can dream.
I don't see much change since your 11/2009 posting as far as acoustic treatments go. What did the sound professional have to say? Great room by the way.
Thats a nice room and a sweet system. As far as treating that front wall goes, have you considered some carpet padding and covering it with a nice carpet like the all of the casinos and nice hotels use or even some nice thick drapes? Good luck!
Thanks Jerico. I just purchased a Messenger preamp and upgraded the center channel to a HTM1D. I will post pics soon. Sound treatment for the room is my biggest concern though, and we just had a designer over to help pick out curtain fabric, so we are finally taking some steps in the right direction to tame this very bright sounding room.
Mike, it would depend what you're using as "art". Canvas as a material isn't the best thing but you could use other more "transparent" material over a canvas stretcher and place some Auralex foam behind it. It would at least look decent in your nice space as well as providing some benefits from an acoustic dampening perspective. Let's see what the professional suggests and very interested in what you do at the end of it all. Good luck!
Thanks for the compliments on the room. Since we built our house from the ground up, we could decide for ourselves exactly the look we wanted. I had the foresight to put in two 30 amp dedicated circuits with 10 gauge solid core wire along with pre-wire for 7.1 system and two runs of CAT5 as well as optical, but I never thought about room acoustics while construction was going on. I wish I had done a little research before.
I've hired a room acoustics professional to come out this week for a consultation. I will report back with his feedback and obviously post updated pics as I figure this out.
"I was possibly thinking of cladding my entire back wall within the arched area around the TV with something like Owens Corning 703 and then covering the whole thing with this fabric like it was wall paper and thus disguising the whole acoustic treatment look."
Same reason I put this system in our main living area. My house has a full basement with a 18'x32'x10' rec. room with a second HT system which I just set up, but we don't utilize it that much.
The basement system consists of older Martin Logans that I had and and an Arcam AVR600 and it sounds better than my main living room system due to better room acoustics. This is the main reason for now being inspired to optimize room acoustics for the family room system
SFdude,
I wasn't aware that sound absorption panels BEHIND artwork would work. Are you sure about this? I figured the canvas/paint would not be acoustically transparent. I've ordered so samples of "acoustically transparent" fabric from Guildford of Maine to experiment with. I was possibly thinking of cladding my entire back wall within the arched area around the TV with something like Owens Corning 703 and then covering the whole thing with this fabric like it was wall paper and thus disguising the whole acoustic treatment look.
I look forward to following your progress with room treatments in a living area. I hope to build our family's dream house in a couple of years and to have a system open to the kitchen as yours is (we all gravitate toward the kitchen). I realize sonics may suffer, but I fear that a system would be underutilized by us if it was in a man cave.
