Nope, we are no longer on the top of a mountain overlooking Boulder and Denver. We are in a plain old Eichler-style home in Palo Alto. The pluses are that there are a lot more audiophiles here and this house is similar to that which many audiophiles live in. The minuses are that we are no longer on the top of a mountain overlooking Boulder and Denver.
The living room is a 13 foot by 18 foot room. One wall is all glass (which we love). Yes, there is also a mirror surrounding the fireplace - what can we say, this is a rental.
We started out on Audiogon in 2002(?) with large red Acapella Triolon speakers for our virtual system. We were dealers then - we are importers now. It is past time for an encore tour :-) We're back on Audiogon... currently with the Acapella Celllini High speakers.
The hyperspherical horn, plasma tweeter and isobarically supported woofer are so well-integrated that each of these best-in-class most-suitable-for-its-task technologies is able to support its corresponding frequencies without calling attention to itself.
We are also heavily into Audio Note U.K. We were dealers for many years. Then we were distributors for many years. Then we were dealers.
As you can see, a 100% Audio Note system plus the XDS1 player. We don't call this the Audio Note room because AN speakers would also work just fine in the larger 13x18 room. In fact later today we are probably moving the Kegon amplifiers and M2 pre [or, not shown, M9 Phono preamplifier] to put them on the Acapella Cellini High speakers in that room.
This will be the ongoing [mis]adventures of a couple of crazy audiophiles who got married. Hope to keep this less serious than the 2248 and counting posts on our blog :-)
Thanks, vn101606, that is an interesting suggestion. The wall opposite the glass is made from Philippine mahogany paneling, same as other Eichler homes here, which is a hardwood and, though not as hard or reflective as glass, isn't too bad at balancing the glass.
So, yeah, a painting or other piece of art in a glass fame, or a mirror. We don't want to damage the wall [or have to do repairs when we move out] so this would require some engineering. Hmmmm....
We think an important part of enjoying listening to music is the aesthetics of the listening space. So windows, art, 'appropriately placed' mirrors, it's all good! Ours is a 'working space' too, like Mike Fremer's space [if you saw his latest video] but we try to keep it comfortable and enjoyable for people... [and to keep a handle on the mess :-) ]
In our experience, high-efficiency and horns don't have any more problems with reflective surfaces than any other type of speaker.
As far as the glass... we've always thought that glass does not deserve it's bad reputation.
It's reflective of sound waves, yep, like other hard smooth surfaces. It has resonances in the audible frequency band [depending on size of the window pane] like many other building materials.
In the case of our room, getting rid of the first reflection point on both sides of the room would require putting sound absorbing material in front of the window - kind of unattractive - so that would suck :-)
But so as long as we do not feed the speakers a bright-and-edgy signal, which we don't :-), then we do not need to add sound dampening except 'to taste'. And out taste is that we like the sound to be dynamic and engaging, and we do not like even slightly over-damped room sound, if it can be avoided - so we are happy with how this sounds.
That said, we are looking at adding more padding under the Persian carpets and even perhaps putting pipe and drape behind the speakers mostly so guests do not have to look at themselves [though no one has complained, and you do learn to just ignore that gargoyle-who-cannot-possibly-be-me fairly quickly ;-/].
