While some of my equipment tends to be older, However, most of it has been highly modified within the last two years improving the overall performance by night and day.
My goal has been to produce as realistic and palpable a sound as possible with a very high degree of resolution and definition.
I use this system to test our speaker creations and ultimately for my wife and I to enjoy our music. I maintain my home as a show room for clients, so that they may hear our creations in a real home environment and not a $50K sound room.
I presently run up to 32 bit 384kHz on CD's and I have a Q-Sonix computer based music server system for playing high resolution music files up to 24/192. We also enjoy vinyl on a Luxman PD-441 Turntable with a Premier arm and Grado Statement cartridge.
So far, I have not reached the level where the speakers fail to provide new levels of resolution, detail and realism, including a test system valued at $150K +.
A considerable amount of my equipment is custom designed and built by myself.
Many of my inter-connects are custom designs using solid Silver wire, Teflon insulation and UBT connectors with various winding geometries.
My speaker cables are also custom and consist of 3/8th inch wide ultra thin (.0015") OFC copper and Teflon PTFE jackets.
In addition, all my equipment racks and plinths are hand made from 2" to 4" thick old growth Maple and are hand rubbed with Tung Oil finishes, Following in the footsteps of Mapleshade Audio.
Finally, I also manufacture tube coolers and these are available in various sizes. If you will look at the picture of my monoblock DT200 amps you will see the tube coolers in action on Gold Lions famed KT88s.
We have added new products to our line-up as of late 2013 and early 2015. They are the upgraded TLS-2, The TLS-4 Walsh style Tweeter/Midrange unit with new magnet covers that are available for DIY folks and the new TLS-5 Full range Hybrid speaker system or stacked array, utilizing the New Tweeter/Mid unit and a Walsh style bass unit combined in a smaller tower system for those with limited space.
TLS-6 Walsh style Subs prototypes are almost complete with anticipation for mid 2015.
Though it is not my intent to act as advertisement here, I do offer these products for sale as well. For those that may be interested, You may contact me directly at [email protected]
We enjoy making new friends too. If your in the area of Parma Ohio, please stop in and visit us.
I offer here our modest system, for your enjoyment. Please post your comments and suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you.
Highly modified PV-11 with Phono and Line stages, utilizing Mundorf Silver/Gold and Teflon V-Caps. Ultrafast diodes, gold pin tubes, gold tube sockets,OFC copper Connectors, Dexa voltage regulators and fully revamped power supply. $3.5K total
Jolida Jolida JD100A
Highly modified unit, including Mundorf Silver/Oil caps and Teflon V-Caps.
Antique Sound Labs DT200 Hurricane
Fully modified DT200 Hurricane mono blocks. Mundorf Silver/Gold and Teflon V-Caps. Vishay and Mills resistors and Bias pots. Gold tube sockets, silver fuses and full compliment of Gold Lion KT88's, with HHR Exotics custom tube coolers. Available for $10 ea. for most tube sizes. Run about $7500 ea.
Sony TC-640 B
TC-640B Stereo Tape Deck fully rebuilt. Cost $3200.00 for rebuild and upgrade.
Luxman PD-441
Luxman PD441 absolutely mint, modified plinth, damping material added to platter, upgraded power supply and crystal oscillator. Silver interconnects. $1,500
Grado Statement Reference 1
Wood Body MC Cartridge, with .5mv output.
PS Audio Power plant
PS Audio Multi-wave 600. Used for all equipment except mono blocks.
Pangea AC14 and AC9
Pangea 1.5 meter AC14 and AC9 power cables. 6 pcs. Great cables for the price!
Maple Shade Triad Cable Lifts
Cable risers.
HHR Exotic Speakers TLS-I
Single piece Walsh style TLS-I drivers with recessed driver mounting and 61+ overall improvements. Full 2" thk Cabinetry based on Biased Marie Ply with 1" of GR Research Damping mat"l. 180lbs. ea.
HHR Exotics interconnects
.5 to 1 meter interconnects with 22 ga. pure silver conductors helix wound, Teflon insulation, woven sleeving and WBT Locking connectors. 1 Meter OFC Copper interconnects, as above.
HHR Exotics Speaker cable
Ultra thin ribbon cables. OFC Copper ribbon .375" wide x .002" with Teflon sleeving and WBT or Cardas connectors.
HHR Exotics Equipment Rack
5 shelf equipment rack made with 24" x 18" x 2" old growth air dried Maple. Light stain finished with 5 coats of hand rubbed high gloss Tung Oil. Uprights made from 1.25" stainless steel 54" long. Shelving infinately variable. Uprights finished with four very heavy 3-piece Gold tip toes. Weight 275 lbs.
HHR Exotics Equipment plinths
Solid 2-4" thick, old growth, air dried Maple for speakers and amps. Sizes from 14" x 18" to 24" x 24". All with four, 3 piece adjustable brass and gold tip toes @ 1 lb. ea.
HHR Exotics Tube Coolers
Custom finned tube coolers for various size tubes. (See picture of DT200 mono blocks) In this case KT88 Gold Dragons. Also made by me at HHR Exotics. Consist of high temp flat black color and aluminum stock. Custom order accepted. $10 ea. most sizes.
HHR Exotics Custom Room Damping
Custom wall damping materials. ALS tube traps.
M2 Tech Young
The Young DAC is a 32 Bit/384kHz Processor that is highly versatile and can be used on USB as well as SPDIF, AES/EBU, and Toslink. This DAC will do the full spec on a Proprietary USB Driver and sounds fantastic. Highly rated by many sources including TAS and Stereophile.
Q-Sonix Model 110
New to my system is a Q-Sonix Music server. I have to admit this is a really fun system and it brings a whole new dimension to your music library management.
Thank you so much everyone for the great compliments and enthusiasm.
You are correct,...these speakers are MY offerings and are an outgrowth of the research I have done for the last 30 years on the original Lincoln Walsh designs and the A and F speakers from Ohm Acoustics.
Please let me ask a favor of all of you...
While I do re-manufacture old A's and F's for some clients, when they return they are no longer those older designs. They infact become Walsh "Style" speakers with a new name, i.e. the TLS-I and II series, incorporating as of now 46+ improvements.
Out of respect for Ohm Acoustics, whom I admire greatly, as well as any possible trademark infringement, Please refer to them as such. I do not wish to confuse or deceive any one into thinking that I am linked to Ohm Acoustics in any way, or that the Older products are being offered as they were.
Ohm still makes some wonderful products and they are quite affordable. However, it is my humble opinion that the new Ohm speakers can not produce the quality of sound that the true single piece Walsh concept is capable of generating.
There are things that mine can do that they can not and there are things that theirs can do and mine can not. Your individual taste in music and systems will dictate your choices.
Regarding the improvements, Please visit our site at www.hhr-exoticspeakers.com and go to the pages showing specs and improvements. They are just too numerous to list here. Our site is extensive and growing.
For your benefit, I hope to have a page up and running soon listing some of our clients and their comments, impressions, and living with the new TLS speakers.
Thank you Scott. Your PS Audio products, as well as your service are top notch and I am very proud to use them.
Wow! We're honored to be a part of your system Dale! Truly a fine looking set up! I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on the PerfectWave DAC, first getting a digital signal from your transport, then using the DAC server and streaming the digital signal over the network. The Network Bridge is coming out this spring, FYI.
Give me a call anytime and we'll get you set up with a technician to look at that P600.
Hi Dale, Beautiful set-up, in a small/mid sized room. All us Ohm A and F loving fans thank you for keeping these venerable Walsh designs alive. I"m currently running a super nice sounding pair of F"s in very presentable condition, also a Bill LeGall tweaked pr. of 3XO"s in near mint condition. Both sound Awesome in my 20x13x7 room.
So Dale, keep pushing the envolope on these designs, I for one love it. One day hope to order a brand new pair of your "New F Design"
Correct me if I'm wrong, Dale. But the speakers shown are your design and build, right? These aren't actually Ohms' but your version of the old F's and A's, right?
If so, can you give us any idea on improvements vs. the original design?
This the best OHM F I have seen! I belief the legendary F and ARE the best Ohm design period! I love OHM's and I acquire a number of ohm's the last several years. Of all the loudspeakers I collected from maggies, acoustat, eminent tech, the Ohm's are my favorite. I started out with bose 901's back in the 80's, back in the 70's and 80's, it was AR, DAHLQUIST,DCM'S,BOSE, KLIPSCH, INFINITY, POLK, BIC, OHM, MAGNEPAN, KLH, BEVERIDGE and ACOUSTAT were the prime contenders of mid grade and high end. The OHM's especially the A and F are just timeless! this system is impressive, mostly because of the OHM'S!
Thank you for the compliments. I really appreciate it. As always, it is an ever evolving work.
You are welcome to visit anytime. Just give me a call.
I really love my PV-11. Of course it is no longer stock, but it performs very well. Still, it is not an ART or a GAT, but $15K more is a big leap. BTW, there is very little difference between the PV-11 and the 12 stock units.
As for the damping, it is an attempt to control some room anomalies resulting from the speakers being relatively close to the walls. I am only 3 feet from the rear walls and some 2.5 feet from the sides. Not bad, but ideally they would throw a deeper stage if thy were a little farther away. Even so, the back and side walls disappear quite nicely.
My room is 14.5' x 18' w/ 7' ceiling. OK for the TLS-I, but too small for the TLS-II.
Fortunately, the Haas or Precedence Effect works to our benefit with true omni speakers and I do not have to worry about first reflections, or comb filtering., No toe-in or sweet spot either.
Unseen in the pics are ALS bass traps. The re-manufactured F's or TLS-I, (and the TLS-II for that matter) produce prodigious amounts of bass and my room has some suck-outs and peaks that I try to control.
A DSP room equalizer would be great, but not in the budget yet, LOL. So, I resort to RTA's and some old fashioned acoustic treatments.
The whole room acoustic thing needs to be redone and is next on my list. I probably could get along just fine without the wall damping and manipulate the bass traps to better advantage.
Wow! Nice pics, Dale. You're use of a C-J PV-11 really got my attention. I have a stock PV-11 I got here on Audiogon, run with a SS power amp into my new Ohm Walsh 2000s. I think I am getting pretty good synergy.
Another thing that caught my eye was the large amount of absorption panels on the side and back walls. Care to comment on how you arrived at that configuration, and the effect they have on the sound? Thanks!
Thanks for posting your system, Dale. I finally have a reference to show my wife what my long-term plans can look like. Or at least a close proximation...
Your Walsh drivers look like works of art, and I hope I can stop by sometime and hear them, once I'm on the East Coast again.
