New digs, rental house, so I did what I could to make a version 2 of my system here. The room is deeper and taller so the sound has much less nasty room modes and sounds better overall than the last room.
Ran a dedicated 12 gauge line.
I have to double up on duties here so the HT gear is residing next to the 2 channel gear. I actually unplug the speaker cables from the 2 channel amps and reconnect to the HT amp.
Many tweaks I am playing with right now - lots of QRT, PEA, Audio Magic stuff. Have all Silversmith IC's and SC's. Very holographic sound after an hour of warm-up.
The "transformer" is an inductor coil experiment for noise.
The amps are great and so well-behaved, much like the Samsons were.
From Novemeber:
"Thanks. I tried to find a veneer that was different or worthy but just came up with the same boring results. One day when I was agonizing over the finish I spouted out that I really wanted copper....and that was it! I grew up in a copper family - my dad was a 40 year Revere Copper & Brass R&D employee, we had copper everywhere. Grew up standing on roofs installing copper snow flashing with my dad, learned to solder and braze at 10 years. My grandfather, who I never met, made copper stills on the side for extra cash in the 30's. So why the heck not.
My original paint idea was black as I thought it was the perfect match. But I have always wanted white and a more modern look, so my wife, who has a styling eye, encouraged me to go white.
Looked at every automotive paint in any shade of white there was and finally we chose by process of elimination in both indoor and outdoor lighting, a Hyundai tri-coat metallic white. Not too white and not too yellow or gray.
Found anniversary edition WBT's in white.
Provided copper colored cable sleeving.
Bought solid copper balls for the feet. Drilled them, tapped them, inserted stainless set screws, and polished, polished, and polished some more. Then sealed them in clear. (good excuse to buy that new bench grinder)
Base-plates are 3/8" hot rolled steel. Had them plasma cut. Drilled and tapped them (not easy with hot rolled), sanded them, primed them, and painted them - twice. The steel plates alone are over 20 lbs. each before copper.
The team also made me grills which I was not expecting. They also made me white standard plinths for back-ups. My crates fit perfectly and provided 100% assurance no damage would occur during that 3 hour drive and handling.
The system is getting overhauled and 1/2 of it has begun - new amps, speaker cables, power conditioner. Can't wait for everything to come together this week."
"I wanted Class A and my RMAF searching led me to tubed amps first, but finally I zeroed in on solid state (for many technical reasons). My two top contenders were Pass XA30.8 and Electrocompaniet anything. I ended up with EC AW180 mono blocks. Should be plenty of power for 92 db upper cabinets.
Bought some Acoustic Zen Hologram 6 foot SC's in great condition - highly rated.
Looked for a Velocitor at my price but could not make the deal so I went with an Acoustic Revive RTP-4. That should be here Wednesday.
Am reworking my outlet box with Maestros and Furutechs and some tourmaline crystals to try and keep up with the RTP-4.
And for kicks I made matching copper sleeved power cables for the bass modules.
In 2015 I am looking at dacs and preamps and if the AZ cables show promise then either more AZ IC's or perhaps High Fidelity IC's."
"Hey BRM,
Would you mind sharing your thoughts on the need or desire to have the tweeter/midrange in separate cabinets. When I read that you were planning on doing this I guess I was expecting a little more drastic change to the design, but it looks like a standard E3 cabinets with just a little space in between.
I think it was a good call on going with the white!
-Tom
Simple: I wanted to keep the weight down for moving them. Sure, I end up with 4 pieces, but I kept the size and weight down to where I can move them w/o blowing out my back. And they fit into vehicles better, even in the crates.
Was there any thought that the speaker would perform better? Not really. I actually anticipated the upper rattling due to the lower energy but that has not occured and my backup plan was to change to a thick piece of foam between them if need be (plenty of extra from the shipping crate build).
I wanted the smallest crack between them and we got pretty close - there is a brow on the upper hiding the recessed spikes. I also wanted very sharp edges all around for a super modern look but Jim talked me out of it for acoustic reasons. As it turns out the cabinets are different dimensions than the one piece because the volume relationships between the upper section and lower section change when they are not integral. So I had to go back and modify my baseplate design to take on the deeper cabinet dimension.
Everything about this build was custom except the drivers and crossover!"
Just installed a TotalDac USB cable last night and in the first hour I am quite surprised the changes it is making: more bass, deeper bass, solid (not breaking up) bass, more separation between instruments, and more blackness inbetween notes and phrases. Rather spooky and very new to me. Will take more break in and me adjusting. I never expected a single cable, especially a digital cable to make such an impact.
Nice system and the speakers look very interesting indeed. Love to compare Paul newly updated Samson amps to the Electrocompaniet amps. I have the new Samsons and have always liked the Electrocompaniet sound.
Please tell us more about your speakers? I also see what looks like a transformer on the floor near the speaker?
bugredmachine on Ever Evolving