My room is dedicated, 15 ft wide, 21 feet long and 9 foot ceiling. Walls built custom with ASC tube traps wall damping system and double sheetrocked with 2x6 studs on 8 inch centers. Surrounding damping in room with ASC tube traps, base traps and wall traps. The room is exceedingly quiet with minimal audible reflections. The system has great synergy between components and by my ear offers the best qualities of 'tube like' sound with the best qualities of solid state.
Newest Rockport/Andy Payer design. Exceptional build quality, custom drivers, new tweeter wave guide. Fantastic bass - tuneful, textured and detailed, yet fast and extended. Palpable midrange with great image density and texture. Smooth extended and extremely 'open' highs with great decay and ambience/space retrieval. Sound staging with 3D images even in the back portion of soundstage. Great macro and micro dynamics. Overall, realism of soundstage is so believable its spooky. Cant find a fault with them with the exception that one must be extremely patient with set up - it pays off big time though!
Cardas Golden Reference
Interconnects XLR and RCA
Cardas Golden Reference
single wired
Billy Bags Turntable Stand
VPI Aries 3 and SDS on stand
VPI Industries HW 16.5
Record cleaner
ASC Tube traps, bass traps, wall traps
ASC tube traps, wall traps and bass traps
ASC Wall Damping System
Walls built with ASC tube trap wall damping system (see system description for details).
TW Acustic Raven AC - 1
TW Acustic Raven AC-1. Great turntable. Build is fantastic. Images rock solid, great harmonics and decay. Very musical. Black backgrounds.
TW Acustic Raven 10.5
TW 10.5 tonearm. Great build, Nimble and tracks great. Joy to use. Gets every bit of data from the grooves.
Silent Running Audio Ohio XL Isobase
Custom built Ohio XL Isobase for the TW-Acustic Raven AC. Great product and great isolation, No noise floor what so ever!
TW Acustic Black Knight Feet
Tope of the line TW Acustic Black Knight Feet for turntable.
HRS Analog Disk Center Weight
Great and effective center weight from HRS.
Gingko Acrylic Turntable Cover
Effective turntable cover from Gingko
REL Acoustics Gibraltor G1
Seamless integration with the Avalons to get the last few 20-25 Hz bottom end in my room.
Marantz SA-8004
CD/SACD/DAC. Great for streaming with Apple TV or other device.
Audio Research Reference Phono 2 SE
Fantastic tube phono stage. Super quiet with all the benefits of tubes. All the reviews are right - super refined and detailed with incredible flexibility.
Audio Research Reference 250 Monoblocks
Super quiet, fast and detailed. Great bass control far surpassing most tube amps that I have experienced. Best of solid state and best of tubes in these amps!
Audio Research REF 5 se
REF 5se preamp. Great dynamics, bloom, ambience and texture. Phenomenal detail. A powerhouse preamp with finesse.
Auralex Q Diffusers
Added diffusers to room to balance absorption and diffusion.
TW Acustic TW Turntable mat
New TW turntable mat - custom for TW tables
Dynavector XV-1T
Dynavector XV-1T. Big step up from XV-1s.
Avalon Acoustics Eidolon Diamond
Incredible sound and synergy with Rowland and Cardas, great with almost all types of music, fantastic holography, soundstaging, air around images and very musical
Silver Circle Audio TCHAIK 6 and Vesuvius IIE Power Cord
Fantastic non-current limiting power conditioner
Billy Bags Design Three Level Rack and Amp Stands
TW Acustic Black Knight Platter / Bearing upgrade for Raven AC
Great upgrade, more air, transparency and even lower noise floor than what I already had which is amazing.
TW Acustic Three Motor Pod upgrade
Similar to the Black Knight motor - speed stability is now spot on at 33.3 or 45.0 RPM without variation. Better pitch, PRAT and deeper and tighter bass. Great upgrade.
Phil Heartiest congratulations on the Cygnus. I am sure it's a spectacular choice and will bring many years of musical bliss. Did you get a chance to listen to a demo pair ? All the best and do post your impressions. Cheers Pradeep
Phil My REL are also set at 28hz with the volume at 10 in a room size similar to yours ie 14x23x10 with a opening at one end for the dedicated HT and a small bar area. A second REL G1 would fit in ever so nicely. Of course it will depend on your music priorities /tastes. I find that for large symphonic works with huge dynamic swings, the 2 G1s are awesome. For example, Rimsky-Korsoff, Scherzade or Berolitz-Symphony Fantastique, the last 2 movements on side 2 . I am the self appointed Founder-President of the Avior Admiration Society! You know my views on the Aviors. Best Pradeep
Phil Congrats on an exquisite looking system and room. Glad you moved your system page to the "All out assault " category where it belongs. My 2 bit on fuses. I flirted briefly with Hi Fi tuning fuses in my amps and phono stage. Results were pretty impressive. Switched recently to SR fuses and am really happy with the results. The REL G1s have also benefitted. It's a no brainer given the quality and cost of your components. Best Pradeep
Hi Phil Sorry for taking so long to respond to your last post. I have been using RELs for years with a variety of amps and even today have 5 RELs in house. The Hi Level speaktron connection is way superior and I have had no problem with this route even with my Denons in my HT system(s). Do check with your dealer regd the connections, if possible. The yellow and red are twirled together and go on the +ve terminal and the black on -ve. I have banana plugs for the REL cable etc I hope this helps. A lot of great reviews on the Aviors. Best Pradeep
Thanks Phil. The Aviors are truly awesome speakers. I have the RELs connected to the respective L & R speaker terminals on the amp. Is there any advantage in daisy chaining apart from the expense of an extra neutrik cable etc. I think, though I could be wrong ,that daisy chaining is required if you use 3 or more subs. Cheers Pradeep
Phil If I had to list the inflexion points in my system's evolution the addition of the 2nd sub would be way on top. If your dealer is willing to provide a loaner, try a demo .IMHO, there is an almost magical synergy that 2 subs can provide in a stereo rig whether it's rock or classical music. Best Pradeep
Phil I am glad you are enjoying your vinyl. The TW is a great TT and good isolation squeezes that extra bit...Are you using a single REL or a pair? I have added a Hydra Triton and the reduction in the noise floor is pretty awesome. NJoy Pradeep
Congrats on a great system and the TW AC. Did you get the SRA Iso platform for the TW ? Am using a HRS platform on a wall mounted rack for my TW AC +BN combo. Do share your experience with the SRA . I have read many positive things about the SRA etc Cheers Pradeep
