I just finished building a dedicated listening room in my new apartment. It took me one year and a half to complete, but it was well worth the wait. I simply love it.
The room size is 14 x 19 x 8 feet.
The room was designed by a company that specialises in acoustic design. Not the popular Rives Audio, since I live in Europe and that would increase the costs of the Level 3 project well past $10k mark, but a reputable local company.
The room acoustics was was first designed in a digital domain and then improved upon with the real world measurements taken during all stages of construction work.
The room is soundproof and - among other things - features soundproof windows, double doors and 11" thick double walls. The measured noise level inside the room is 26dB during the day (measured during rush hours, at 16:00), so it is almost dead quiet.
The room has two dedicated lines, each rated 20A @ 230V, one for analog and one for digital gear. All cables, circuit breakers and mains outlets are of audiophile quality.
MSB DAC IV Signature with Diamond Power Base - replaced the dCS Scarlatti, which served me as my reference for the past 3 yaers.
MSB S200
Fully balanced 200 Watt stereo amplifier. Class A, Zero Negative Feedback design. Fluid, palpable, a bit on the warm side of things. An amazing piece.
Magico S5
New addition to the system. Replaced Wilson Sasha speakers.
MUSA S21T USB
Computer based transport with SOtM PCIe USB card, SOtM sata filter, fanless PSU, fanless i5 CPU, SSD, 8GB RAM and Synology 2x2TB NAS. Running Win 7/64 with Jriver and Jplay.
AudioQuest WEL Signature
Replaced Tara Labs The RS-1 interconnects.
AudioQuest Diamond USB
USB cable.
Shunyata Anaconda Z-Tron
A new model from Shunyata. Replaced van den Tara Labs RS-1 cable.
Shunyata Anaconda CX
I have two of those, powering Dart and dCS.
Pure Power 2000
Battery powered AC Regenerator.
Finite Elemente Pagode Master Reference HD09
Top of the range component stand from Finite Elemente, with their resonator technology (3 used). I favour those over a 4-tier Pagode rack, since they do not interfere with soundstage when placed between the speakers.
Finite Elemente Ceraballs
I have two sets placed under my speaker cables. Very unussual location, I agree, but works a treat.
Finite Elemente Cerapuc
I have two sets placed under my speakers. A simply stunning improvement in low-level detail retrival and microdynamics. Worth every penny !
HMS Energia SSDB mains outlets
Two of those finish off my two, 230V/20A, dedicated power lines.
AHP Klangmodul 3+
Audiophile circuit breakers. Gold plated, solid copper contacts. Each of the two dedicated power lines has his own breaker.
ACS Diffusors
Diffusors made by german company Acoustic Control Systems. I have 3 sets of those, one on the rear wall and two on the side walls. As you can see on the pic, the whole part of the rear wall, to which the diffusor is attached, pertrudes 12" into the room.
Custom absorbers
The whole room is fitted with custom absorbers, tuned to specific frequencies. The pic shows one of the six absorbers fitted to the front wall. If you look carefully, you wil notice, that there is an MDF plate with lots of small holes fitted inside, which divides the internal volume of the absorber into two smaller chambers. The sound enters the traps by the front gaps, goes to the first empty chamber and then through the holes to the next chamber, where it can dissipate in a mineral fiber (not fitted on this pic).
Custom diffusors
Set of 5 custom diffusors fitted over the listener's head.
RT-60 curve
This is the RT-60 curve of my room. Black trace is our target curve, blue one is base curve (empty room, no acoustic treatment, no floor), red curve shows how the room responded after ACS diffusors, wooden floor and sand stone were added. Green curve is the most recent one. It is still not perfect, but we are working on it.
Room Frequency Response curve
Room Frequency response. Quite nice if you ask me :-)
Daikin ultra quiet A/C unit
Daikin A/C split system replaced McQuay unit. The difference in noise levels generated by those two units is staggering. Daikin is so quiet (22dB) that you can barely hear it from the listening chair. There are CD-players that generate more noise than this ! The other outstanding feature of this unit is that it can work when outside temp drops to 10'F - so it can be used during winter too.
Love the room. Congrats! Hope to be able to do the same thing one day. You have a fantastic combination of aesthetics and functionality as evidenced by your room response curves!
Big fan of your room and system. Got a question. Ive made a lot of the same changes in Cabels you have over time. Ive switched all my Cabels over to the AQ wel signature. To be honest I'm real blown away. My interconnects are long and as we know that added a lot to the cost. I'm about to pull the trigger I think on the wel speaker cables. Wanted to get your thoughts on em. I've had a the top of the line Tara and synergistic research and the wel blows em away. Problem is the cost of the speaker Cabels. Moving to a new room and house soon so I will get the s5 or q 3 or q 5 then. Man I'm going crazy cause I want a new set of magico bad.
My system is at the state of constant change, LOL. 6 months ago I got myself the MSB S200 and I'm already buying the MSB monos :) Thinking about upgrading to the Diamond DAC too (I already have the Diamond Power Base).
Rhyno - I think that the S5 is a better speaker. MUCH smoother, more refied, less in your face. More natural timbre - especially on female vocals. The bass from the sealed box is also much better - goes lower, is faster and much more detailed. Wilsons almost sound boomy in comparison.
Now I can see what people like in sealed box designs.
The only area where Sasha outperforms Magico is the soundstage depth. My guess is that it is becouse of the wider front of the speaker. Sasha's head is almost like a minimonitor, which helps it to disappear better.
those are big changes. can you please contrast the Sashas and the S5s? Also, what speaker cables have you tried w/ your sashas? any thoughts to Audioquest?
System edited: BIG system changes ! I haven't updated my system thread in a year or so, and during that time I have replaced almost an entire system. Sashas were replaced with Magicos S5, darTZeel with the MSB S200 and dCS Scarlatti had to make place for the new MSB DAC IV Signature Plus with the Diamond Power Base. New system images to follow.
I read on another thread that you are considering the Wilson Alexia among others for your next speaker. How would you describe the Alexias to your ear so far?
Perrew - My main reference point is dCS Scarlatti, but I also had many other (cheaper) DACs and CDPs at home.
Metrum Octave, was one of the very, very few DACs that made me want to listen to more music instead of reverting back to dCS, after listening to a couple of songs.
As for the USB converters, AP1 was great, so was the EA ORT 5, but overall slightly I prefered the full M2Tech Evo stack (converter + battery PSU + clock).
Sutts - yes I did. I had Accuphase DP-700 about 4-5 years ago for about two weeks. I was looking for a new CDP back then to replace my MBL 1531 and was checking my options. I had finally settled on ARC CD-7, which I felt was a better CDP.
A friend of mine, who had an all Accuphase system with the DP-700, came to similar conclusion after hearing the CD-7mkII, and bought himself a CD-8.
Hi, saw your post on the Metrum Octave and very interrested in your findings, what other Dacs did you pin it against and was the pairing with the Audiophileo2 the best? Cheers P
FTKS25 - only 22dB in quiet mode. I think this is as low as you can get, but ask around. Most manufacturers give dB figures - just like projector manufactures.
It is a great speaker, especially for the money, but also very demanding.
For one, it has very low sensivity. It was advertised as 87dB, but I had measured a (record setting) 78dB ! You need literally loads of power to make it sing. Fortunately, I have had Cary CAD-500MB at the time, rated 500W/1000W (8/4 Ohms), so for me power was not an issue.
The other thing is that they are uber sensitive to placement. I have spent several evenings before I found the right combination of distances to back/side walls and toe in. They are also extremely directional - move 10 inches to the side, and the highs and all the magic is gone. Sweet spot is extremely limited.
The panels are rather small, so naturally, they will not drive big rooms with full range sound at high SPLs. My room is 14 x 19, and IMO that is more or less the upper limit for them, without having to worry about the volume levels and choice of musical material.
But once setup, with the proper amplification, thay can sound magical. Super fast, very low in coloration, above avg resolution (better than Quads 2905), good texture and exceptional 'you are there' sensation,, with voices floating freely in the room. Amazing.
