Rives Audio Designed dedicated 2 channel room for 2 channel audio performance and aesthetics.
The room was commissioned in early 2009, designed by Richard Bird at Rives with construction beginning in late April. Richard is the ultimate professional and was great to work with. I highly recommend him to anyone.
I was fortunate to work once again assemble a team of craftsman trade people. CLD Construction, Dolphin Custom Cabinetry, Spiegelhalter Electric, B&U Wood Floorers, Kendall Painting, Miner plumbing . My wife did all of the interior design, coordinating paint colors, fabrics, wood choices, rugs and window treatments (still coming).
The team was not only able to build a room that sounds outstanding but one that has great aesthetic appeal. It is a true pleasure to be in this room.
I've been in the room for 7 months fine tuning and tweaking its performance.
Special thanks to MikeLavigne, Cincy-Bob, Carl Zapp, Slipnot for their support and encouragement before and during the planning and construction process.
My system has been stable for the past 10 years or so. I am a Merlin devote and have built a system around the speakers. I've owned several version of the speakers as Bobby has continued to refine the design.
I have however turned to the dark side and totally diggitized my CD collection on a music server. Wavelength Audio Cosecant V3 asynchronous DAC has the digitial honors and is sounding outstanding.
Next upgrade will be to my front end of my VPI table and a new record cleaner. I also have 500+ albums in storage that need to be delivered and put in the new record storage/rear diffusor.
Critical Mass Systems Grand Master Isolation Platforms
Isolation stands for VZN amps, Variac Power Supply and Merlin Master BAM
Joule Electra VZN Grand Marquis Mk 4 Monos
Music Wood Chasis, JPS Labs Aluminata Power Cord
Music Reference RM9 Special Edition
RM9SE Roger's hand built cost no object master piece. NOS Siemen EL34 Outputs.
Joule Electra LA 300 ME Memorial Line Stage
Joule Electra all out assault at State of the Art Line Stage.
Cardas Audio Clear
RCA to RCA.
Apple MacBook Pro Quad-Core 2.4 Ghz
PC Audio Server SATA 3 SSD/16 Gig Ram Running Pure Music and Audirvana engines inside iTunes.
Promise Pegasus HD Array Thunderbolt HD Storage
Raid 5 Disk array to hold the ever growing digital library including large Hi-Rez files.
Wavelength Audio Cosecant v3
Asyn tube DAC
JPS Labs Superconductor 3 USB Cable
JPS Labs shielded USB cable.
B-P-T BP-1 Ultra
Heavily tweaked Piltron based Balanced power conditioning for front end components. Cardas Clear Beyond Power Cord.
100 Amp Sub-Panel Square D
separate meter tap and grounded to my Lenco Rods & and copper water service. Cryo 10/3 Gauge RSAD wire to five 20 amp circuits with cryo breakers ensures clean power to the room. Oyaide R1 outlets.
Oyaide R1 R1 Outlets Carbon Fiber faceplates
Highly (twice) polished Beryllium Copper base metal, plated with platinum, and then the R1 is finished with palladium plating. Best sounding outlet in my set up for sure.
Rives Audio Level 1 Consult Service
Level 1 design. Best money I have ever spent on audio. transformed my dedicated listening room to a beautiful and great sounding room with very high WAF rating :-)
Indian Agra Rug Tweak 9X12 100% wool Antique Rug w/thick Pad
Floor reflection/diffusion per Rives blueprint Damn good looking as well.
Merlin Master BAM Clear
Upgraded to Cardas Clear geometry cable for the Master BAM in my rig for 100 hours and it is truly the icing on the VSM Master speaker's cake! Mids are ever so slightly recessed relaxing the entire presentation This allows for seeing/hearing deeper into the stage with increased midrange textures and stage layering. The highs are even silkier and extended and the bass has more presence, whomp and weight. System is so focused without any artificial etching to the sound. Female vocals take on even more of that reach out and touch me quality. All in all, very impressive upgrade for not a lot of money.
fantastic all around setup, I'd love to hear the Merlins in a setup like yours someday - or perhaps not:) What are your thoughts going from a great OTL to the ultimate MR9SE? I've always had the itch for an Atmasphere or Joule but am smitten w/my RM10 although the itch for the ultimate RM9SE you have is always on my mind. enjoy!
Very nicely done. From the handsome room treatments and of course some top notch gear. Great use of the back wall for your albums. How much use they will get since you have "turned to the dark side",.... especially with the Wavelength DAC....well. Great room, great gear, great times.
The upgrade to the Cosecant is significant and the ability to read higher-rez files up to 192/24 will take your rig to the next level. Worth every penny of the upgrade coast.
Indeed, the VSM Master with the Bam wire upgrade is Bobby's masterpiece and continued refinement of an already relentlessly refined product.
Your upgrade is the opposite I want. I have the Master VSM, in the future i want to upgrade my Cosecant (now 96kHz/Nominator module) with the Dominator module.
System edited: I've had the Cardas Clear geometry cable upgrade for the Master BAM in my rig for 100 hours and it is truly the icing on the VSM Master speaker's cake! Mids are ever so slightly recessed relaxing the entire presentation This allows for seeing/hearing deeper into the stage with increased midrange textures and stage layering. The highs are even silkier and extended and the bass has more presence, whomp and weight. System is so focused without any artificial etching to the sound. Female vocals take on even more of that reach out and touch me quality. All in all, very impressive upgrade for not a lot of money.
Yes, I added the HS switching & Denominator upgrade in July. It takes the Cosecant to yet another level of even finer resolution. The DAC does 192/24 Hi-Rez files without a hiccup.
Gordon Rankin over delivers in a real bang for the buck manner with the Cosecant HS Denominator. Worth the price of admission!
System edited: Merlin VSM Master speakers added this summer and Music reference RM9SE amp. Having owned several versions of both products, these are statement pieces by both designers and have definite synergy!
Found my Rives print. 18" radius on the polyfusers ply (purchased them pre-made from a source in Wisconsin) and my finish carpenter applied the Clear Maple Veneer. Height is 8' 1".
Wow, that is quite the set up you have. Love to hear that system crank out a tune or two! NIce work assembling the system.
Promise Pegasus can be purchased on Amazon from several suppliers or Apple. I actually purchased from B&H Photo Supply in NY as we have a supply relationship established with them.
Install was a breeze if you have a Thunderbolt cable (Apple site only) and 12 hours for formatting the drives. It has excellent software that allows you to do what ever RAID format you desire as well as monitor the array. So far, so good. The speed of the Thunderbolt connection is amazing. The unit is indeed amazingly quiet, but in fairness I have my front end in a 6X9 walk in closet adjacent to my listening chair so I really hear nothing what so ever.
I also installed a OWC SATA 3 SSD/16 Gig of RAM in the Macbook Pro that is equally impressive with its speed and sound! PM & Audirvana programs engines running in side iTunes love that RAM for great sound. Loading files is seamlessly fast.
I also back this unit up to a WD 4TB drive and will be looking for another back up redundany solutions soon. As my digital collection grows and with the size of Hi-Rez files, I would cry if I ever lost my data. For those computer-geeks among us, we all are aware that HD store files and fail. Almost a guarantee.
Your rig looks well put together as well. Congrats on the hard work.
I was able to A/B the B-P-T unit that has the Sig mods against a. Equi-tech T-1000 and it was not even close. I agree, I have no nits to pick with it's performance on my front end.
Thanks. It has been fun and a work in process for sure. Here are my attempts to answer your questions.
I also took a peek at your set up and it looks equally impressive. Congrats!
Floor to ceiling traps in front are indeed fiberglass triangles with pool liner stretched over a second frame that was screwed and green glue to the frame. The acoustic fabric is stretched onto a separate frame completes their construction.
Rear wall bass traps are built into the shelving unit on left rear. At the rich rear, their is a solid core oak pocket door that has a wool drape that is lines with fiberglass.
I've seen one large front wall diffusor as well as well as two smaller diffusors in several rooms Rives has done. All depends what the CAD says in the design I suppose! If i remember correctly, the window above the center wall was a sonic consideration as well. I have placed a honeycomb translucent window treatment that is closed when listening that is not in the photo on the site.
RPG Skyline diffusors while part of the original design plan were added last after roughly 90 days of room adjustment per Richard's suggestion. Their contribution to a very solid 3D SS was nothing short of jaw dropping and they of course are real conservation piece for visitors.
Ceiling: Joist runs parallel with front and real walls. Kal board was removed to expose the floor joists. The joist bays are treated with rigid fiberglass, green glue and a wooden diffusion system design to take the large reflective ceiling surface out of the equation. The Clear Maple frame you see was my way of "hiding" the 24x48 panels (Vendor who manufactures them with a CMC for total accuracy) seams used to cover the ceiling diffusor. The panels are attached with velcro to the framing. I was able to leave a 1/4" reveal with the panels for pure aesthetics. Looks and sounds great!
Floor: Engineered Oak treated with an antique Indian Agra rug. I listened W/O pad as well as 3 different rug pads underneath that to no surprise, sounded very different from one another. I settled with the extra thick rubber pad as it sounded the best by no small margin.
RT 60 is really moot in a room this small. I'm only in a room 20X13 with 8 foot ceiling. THe RT 30 times were less than a second as I recall. Given the small room size, means little.
I firmly believe that some of the the best $$ I have spent in audio went into this room. With a good design in hand, my son and I were able to do the demo and all of the framing. This helped control the costs and allowed me to use primo finishes for a room that not only sounds great, but looks great as well.
Very nice system. Could you tell me more about your Promise Pegasus Raid unit? Where can u buy, how hard is it to use and install, and how quiet? Do you have your Mac and Raid in listening room?
Joneill, I`ll agree with the chorus above, this is a very fine system you have, congratulations! The addition of the BPT I can understand.I use the BP 3.5 Signature plus and it is simply a superb product,'everything' in my system improved with it in place. After 3 1/2 years of use I `ve not found any negative aspects at all. Regards,
Hi Jo, Great system and room. Mind if I ask some questions? * are the front wall (behind the speakers) corners floor to ceiling bass traps? If so, then is fiberglass used in a triangle shape or is a diaphragmatic type bass trap being used, or something else? * I dont see bass traps in the back wall corners - are they there? * rives usually has a large Polyfuser mid wall on the front wall. Why did they elect for a pair of RPG Skylines and two much smaller polyfusers on eith side? What is the radius of the two polyfusers? * I'm trying to understand your ceiling. Are they planks of wood that run across the room width with the bottom of the plank pulled towards the speakers to angle the planks such that direct sound is reflected upwards into the ceiling joist cavity? Or is the bottom of the plank pulled back towards the listening position? My guess is the former. * lastly, what have you on the floor for treatments, if anything?
What is the average RT60 (or RT30) of the room? Great job. Enjoy!
System edited: B-P-T balanced power conditioning, Cardas Clear & Clear Beyond Power cords. It has been several years since upgrading the power delivery/conditioning so it was time! New Apple Quad Core music Server, USB cable, Thunderbolt high speed Storage device. Currently running Pure Music as well as the new excellent sounding Direct Mode of Audirvana. New Merlin VSM MXr in production will complete the system overhauls.
I agree. Nothing I have tried can beat the Joule Electra design. With the right speaker they can produce the magic we all lust after. They are not "plug & play" by any sense of the expressions, they throw a bit of heat, nor are they the quietest amp design. With a little tinkering and TLC with the variac and tube bias, they deliver the real deal in spades. Speed, clarity, quickness, PRAT and bottom end punch, they got it all going. There is a special rightness and magic to the midrange tonality that is very difficult to describe. With the Merlin VSM MXe, they really are magic!
5 days short of two years since you posted your system and I admired it and posted here. I was browsing your virtual systems and realized I wasn't to clear in my original post " I have a slight bias", it's I "love" my Joule amps and Lap 150 Mkll!!! I haven't found anything that can replace the amps, sorry, I'm singing to the choir. I envy your room and can only imagine how much that improved your listening experience. Sam
The room measured flat to 33 cycles then gently rolls off. There is a slight hump at 78 cycles as well as 125 that I have attempted to work out but to no avail.
The before & after of the room with the Rives design is almost too hard to explain. Everyone who had done a Rives design told me that it would be the best $$$ in audio I would spend and after the process, I'd whole heartily agree It has and continues to bring lots of pleasure to my listening experience. I only wish I had more time to listen!
I'm located in Northwest corner of South Carolina....wish there was an audiophile 'transporter' to make listening and travel easier! In any case, If you are ever in NW S.C. or Charlotte, let me know. I like to have listening sessions whenever possible...
