Very nice system.Congrats.

case04 August 31, 2009 16:16

Thanks for the kind words. As Grr6001 suggests, the power conditioning is one of the most important improvements one can make. Mjcmt, The Ekornes Stressless couch is awesome. Each seat reclines individually. The other chair is a "Perfect Chair - Zero Gravity" by Human Touch. The best I've ever been in. You can get your spine parallel to the ground by reclining. Reclining that far back is not a great position for listening to music but great relief for the back! We have no plans to add projection of any kind. Music is our passion.

rsorren1 August 12, 2009 16:53

WOW!
Love the ARC gear, love the Stressless seating, love the accoustical space.
Are considering adding a projection system for concerts and movies to it?

mjcmt August 12, 2009 13:13

Outstanding room. Love the hand painting on the walls.
Very well done & aesthetically very pleasing.

Also, very good choice on the electronic power upgrades & room treatments. These are 2 of the most important improvements you can make to a system. Well done, I did a very similar arrangement on the power.
Also, I've had AR in the past & also liked it.

Enjoy.

grr6001 August 10, 2009 15:20

Jfrech, thanks for the post. The power is conditioned by a Controlled Power Company 5KVA K-rated transformer that is in the garage.
http://www.controlledpwr.com/K-Rated_Isolation_Transformers.html

The primary side of the transformer is fed from a breaker in the main panel. The transformer has voltage supresssion, high frequency filtering, and is K-rated to eliminate harmonics on the power line. The secondary side of the transformer feeds a dedicated sub-panel with 12 circuit capacity. I use four 20-amp dedicated lines to the music room so each component is on it's own circuit. Grounding is the most important consideration so a second 8 foot ground rod was placed about 20 feet from the original ground rod for my electrical service. The second rod is connected to the transformer and at point of service entry according to electrical code. The resulting electrical resistance is about 3 ohms to earth ground. Finally, I use Hubell isolated ground receptacles. The affect is a blacker, quieter background with no loss of dynamics and a smoother sounding high frequency range. I had owned Exactpower EP-15 and SP-15 and experimented with Audience and Isoclean. No contest. A'gon member Babybear uses this approach as well. He has a bigger (10KVA) transformer because he has video as well as audio in his room. You have to size the transformer to be 2.5 to 3 times the power needed by system components.

The ASC wall panels were placed based on experimentation and trying to treat first point of reflection. The front wall, and side walls are treated. There are bass traps but they are hidden behind the trees in the corners. I also use corner tunes.

One of these days I would love to get back to vinyl. I might try another table.

rsorren1 August 09, 2009 07:57

Hi, VERY nice system. And love your room to! Can you elaborate on your electricity? Did you get a before/after chance to listen?

I to use a few of the ASC wall panels. They are highly effective for a few $$'s. How did you place them? Trail and error or just a guess? Any bass traps?

My room is the same as your's, 2nd floor above a garage. I don't have any footfall issues. I used to have a SME 20/2 and now a Grand Prix Monaco Turntable. (same rack as you) I suspect the Linn's suspension is to compliant. Hope you try a different table one day, vinyl and Wilson's are great combo.

I used to own wp 8's. With your electronics, I know that's a killer system!

jfrech August 09, 2009 05:28

Thanks for the kind words. I have not been comparing many other interconnect and speaker cables. I know, what's wrong with me! So far I continue to enjoy the Kimber Select line for interconnects. A friend gave me a set of PranaWire speaker cables to try and they are excellent! The system sounded more open and natural to me. PranaWire are all silver foils. I have also tried a few different power cables but the best combination so far is the current configuration with Kimber Palladian on the power amps and Shunyata Anaconda on front-end. I have never tried the Synergistic cables but may try them if I can get some loaners. Thanks for the recommendation. As far as vinyl, I have not had a TT/arm/cart for several years. If you look at the pictures again, the closet door behind the listening couch leads to a storage room where there are approximately 500 LPs I've collected through the years, all in good to excellent shape. I recently tried a Linn LP12 / ARC combination and the problem is that the listening room is on the second floor above our garage. The "footfalls" in the room jump the needle out of its groove even when sitting on a high quality stand. Not good. I could kick myself for not making the floor stiffer! Maybe someday when we replace the carpet. The only other option is to wall mount and we did not like the look of the TT hanging on the wall. My next purchase will likely be a standalone high quality DAC so that I can feed umcompressed Apple Lossless files to the room. In no rush for that at this point because I am waiting for the technology to support higher bit rate transfer via wireless to be able to stream hi-res audio via the wireless network.

rsorren1 August 06, 2009 14:40

Great setup and art work. How do you compare listning to BAT gear VS audio Research. Also try listning them via synergistic power cable, you will get better holographic sound. Anaconda are more detailed but in my opinion lack bass punch and are harsher with WP8

avsource1 August 06, 2009 10:26

Very nice system. I believe I saw your system on the Wilson Audio site. Nice to see you posting here. Did you compare Kimber to any other brands in your system? How about adding the new ref2 phonostage and a top flight tt/arm/cart to your system? ;)

sdrenslow August 06, 2009 09:58