And now for something completely different---

by brownsfan on Done For Now
Room from the entrance
View from the listening position

Description

An update is past due.  Previously, I had tried using a long wall arrangement, and while the room looked very nice, that orientation was hardly ideal from a sonic perspective.   Since this is a dedicated room, I can take some liberties with appearance.  For the most part, this is my man cave.  My wife rarely joins me for listening sessions.  I do have a decent 2nd system downstairs that the family  can enjoy for casual listening.   I've replaced the Coincident Frankensteins with Atma-Sphere M-60s, and my ModWright Sony 5400 ES was sold since it was rarely used after I had the HAPZ1ES modded.  With the benefit of consultation with one of our Audiogon gurus, I extensively modified the speaker crossovers.  This was one of the best things I ever did.  Amazing difference!  Another recent change was removing the old Berber carpeting.  I selected some luxury vinyl planks.  My flooring guy had concerns about using hardwoods in the bonus room, so I went with the flooring you see depicted.  I think it is very attractive and the room sounds much better than when it was carpeted.
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Room Details

Dimensions: 20’ × 14’  Medium
Ceiling: 8’

Components Toggle details

    • Coincident Speaker Tech Super Victory II
    Full range floor standers in rosewood. I recently rebuilt the crossovers and what a difference!  All of the stock Solen caps and resistors were replaced.  I used a Jupiter Copper foil with a Duelund Silver as a by-pass, followed by a Path resistor, for the tweeter.  A Janzen Alumen-Z and Mills resistor was used for the midrange.  Finally, Clarity CSA and Mills resistors were used for the woofer.  The stock Solen inductors were left in place.   These modifications completely changed the character of these speakers.  Prior to modification, these speakers were laid back almost to the point of being rather boring.  I could not be happier with the results.  I replaced the stock outrigger spikes with Herbie's Audio Lab Fat Gliders.
    • Coincident Speaker Tech Statement Line Stage
    CSL equipped with Psvane WE replica 101D tubes.  I've got an Synergistic Research Black fuse in this unit.  I bought several of those fuses for the system back a few years ago.  The preamp seemed to benefit more that the other components.  The preamp is powered by the PS Audio P-10 via a PS Audio Statement power chord.  I found that the performance of this preamp is noticeably improve by close physical proximity to the Audio Magic Mini Ref II, apparently due to the Mini Ref's pulse gen activity.
    • ModWright Sony HAPZ1
    ModWright HAPZ1 server equipped with Telefunken 6922 tubes. I am using a MW PS 9.0 power supply currently fitted with a Canadian Westinghouse VU-71 rectifier. This rectifier is my favorite 5U4 type tube. I am also using an Audio Magic Illusion Umbilical to the HAPZ1, which offers a substantial improvement over the stock Truth umbilical.   VH Audio AirSine PCs are utilized on both the power supply and server.
    • Mapleshade Custom Design
    The rack is  a custom design 42" wide unit and uses three 4" solid maple shelves.
    • PS Audio P10
    P10 power regenerator. Substantially reduces AC harmonic distortion and allows adjustment and regulation of AC voltage. Power suppy to the P10 is via a Voodoo Air Dragon PC.
    • Audio Magic Mini Ref II
    Power purifier with Pulse Gen II module.
    • Audio Magic Standard PEA modules
    Don't ask me how or why these things work but they do.
    • Audio Magic Blue dot
    Grounds cleaner
    • Wood Shed 1002-3 CD rack
    Large Oak CD rack. Stained to match mapleshade racks.
    • Wood Shed 1002-3 CD rack
    Solid Oak CD rack. Stained to match Mapleshade rack.
    • VH Audio Symmetry Ag Balanced
    This is a really wonderful balanced IC, which I am running from the HAPZ1 to the preamp.
    • Atma-Sphere M-60
    The M-60's were purchased new and I elected to go for both the V-Cap and power supply upgrades.   Having not heard the amps in stock form, I can't say how much improvement these upgrades offer.  I can say that I am very pleased with these amps. They bumped the excellent Coincident Frankenstein 300Bs from the system, which is not an easy task. Power tubes are SED Winged-C 6AS7s.  For the 6SN7 tubes, I am currently using one RCA grey glass in the left back outside position, with a Sylvania Bad Boy in the middle slot and the new Sophia blue glass tubes in the right back outside position.    I recently replaced GE 6SN7 GTAs in the isolated front (driver) position with Shuguang WE plus tubes.  Though the new Sophias and Shuguangs are pricey, I was amazed at the quality of those tubes.  They are just better than the NOS RCA and GE tubes that they replaced.  With the new tubes, there is an immediately noticeable reduction in grain.  Also, the gap between the M-60's and the Coincident Frankensteins has been closed somewhat with respect to the alluring midrange sweetness of a good 300B amp.  Short runs (~ 30") of 12 G Duelund Tin plated feeds the speakers.
    • The Room! Dedicated Listening Room
    The room is a bonus room that has been dedicated for 2 channel listening.  It is roughly 20 Ft long and 13 wide, with 8 foot ceilings, that are beveled at the floor and side wall junctions.  This room has been a bit of a challenge to get right, and I've learned a lot in the process.  I'm a long time Maggie guy, which means I have mostly had systems with limited output below 40 Hz.  I had no idea it could be such a challenge getting full range speakers to achieve their potential.   I'm using a traditional short wall arrangement, with the equipment rack located along the side wall as far back in the room as I could get it.  I have two dedicated 20 Amp circuits feeding all of the equipment with the exception of the amp on the left.   I have 5 bass traps in the room.  I'm using two GIK Soffit traps in the corners behind the speakers along with two Mondo Traps from Real Traps on the walls.  A third Modo Trap is used in one rear corner behind the listening position.  Treatment of the 4th corner is not possible or necessary, since the room door is in that location. The traps significantly improved clarity by reducing excessive decay times.  I also have a couple of homemade traps on the ceiling at the first reflection points.  First reflection points on the side walls was effectively addressed by clever placement of the CD racks.  These were carefully placed and angled out slightly from the side walls.  This arrangement either deflects first reflections back to the front of the room or channels them behind the rack.  I have not yet settled on an approach for addressing first reflections off of the floor.  But imaging is pretty good as things currently stand, which is not all that easy to accomplish in a room with these dimensions.

Comments 58

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Yes, exactly Bill, regarding your question.

Regarding the retirement tip, I know what you mean, having been retired for a number of years now. No good deed goes unpunished :-) In my case it's my wife who does most of the volunteering, in local civic and government-related endeavors. I provide some support to those activities, and it generally works out to everyone's satisfaction.

Best regards,
--Al

almarg

I'm thinking maybe distance between speakers could be optimized first, followed by distance from back wall, followed by toe in?
Sounds like a reasonable plan to me. Although I think by "back wall" you are referring to the wall behind the speakers, which is referred to by most audiophiles as the front wall.

Speaking of the back wall, though, meaning the wall behind the listening position, a point which might eventually prove to be significant is that reflections from that wall will tend to produce a dip in frequency response at frequencies (in Hertz) in the vicinity of about 281.5 divided by the number of feet between that wall and the listener's ears. So if that distance is around 3 feet, as appears to be the case, reflections from that wall will cause a suckout, to some degree, in the vicinity of 94 Hz or so.

The 281.5 figure, btw, corresponds to 1/4 of the speed of sound in typical indoor environments, in feet/second. Rear wall reflections at a frequency of about 281.5 divided by the distance to that wall in feet will arrive at the listener's ears exactly out of phase with the direct sound arrival. The resulting suckout can be quite pronounced IME.

Best regards,
-- Al

almarg

P.S: When doing the battery thing, it would probably be a good idea to disconnect the amp from the speakers. Otherwise the 9 volts applied to the secondary of the output transformer would result in a much larger although very brief voltage transient occurring on the primary side of the transformer, and also being applied to the output tubes and associated circuitry in the amp. Which I suspect would do no harm, but better safe than sorry.

Best regards,
-- Al

almarg

10-02-15: Brf
I know of at least three pairs of Coincidents that the left the factory with different polarity.
Ouch. Not good! But thanks for alerting us to that possibility. Although given Brownsfan's evident aural acuity I would expect that he would already have concluded something is grossly wrong if the two speakers had different polarities.
I use a 9v battery and run a wire from the speakers +’ve and –‘ve terminals and touch them to the battery’s +’ve and –‘ve terminate and watch for the direction of the cone excursion. Make sure that both speakers’ cones operate in the same manner.
Good suggestion. I would add, though, that prolonged connection of the battery to the speaker should be avoided, or the battery could overheat or possibly even burst and leak as a result of the large amount of current drawn by the presumably very low DC resistance of the speaker.

Best regards,
-- Al

almarg

In my earlier post I was also thinking of suggesting interchanging the speakers, as an experiment, but I didn't because it appeared in the photos, especially the third one (and also in other photos I've seen of the SVii), that the front baffle may be slanted inward. In other words, with the speaker's depth on the woofer side being less than its depth on the other side. (My Daedalus speakers are designed that way, although all of the drivers are front-mounted). Is that the case, or is it a photographic artifact?

Best regards,
-- Al

almarg

Congratulations Bill, on the new system, setup, home, retirement, and locale. Enjoy!

Your system looks great. A thought I would offer, though, is that the woofers are in very close proximity to the amplifiers, and appear to be aimed almost directly at them. Which would seem to raise the possibility of the sonics of the amplifiers being adversely affected as a result of tube microphonics. So at some point you might consider, as an experiment at least, relocating the amps such that they are not between the speakers.

Best regards,
-- Al

almarg

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