asilker's stereo [photos]

asilker

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March 2018 with Altecs and tubes
Detail shots of Thorens, Altec, Etc
Guitar stuff starts here
Back in 2021 with more smoke, more guitars, moving to solid state

Original post:
We moved into a new condo with a little more space in order to host out of town visitors and eventually children.

My new room is 17 x 18 ft, which feels enormous compared to my last space. I'll admit it: 16" Altec drivers sound better with a bit more space.

It's not unusual for us to have friends over 4 times a week, so my goal is to create a space that's colorful and welcoming for me, but also homey for friends. I am concerned with speaker placement and refraction / diffraction / reflection / absorbsion, but frankly my stereo is working to serve a living space and I'm not concerned with scientifically perfect playback. Goal 1: love the room, goal 2: get the stereo working as best as possible without goofing up goal 1. I suppose I buy into the Art Dudley philosophy there.

We are trying hard to avoid putting a TV in the room and disconnect from the screen a bit. Still feels weird but I think habits are starting to change.

The intent of this thread is just to air some photos of my space, and I likely won't be doing a whole lot of that until I finish the room up and purchase a real camera. Until then here's a couple teasers

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Good luck making all the choices for the room!

I loved that part of the process with mine....took awhile but worth it in the end.

Looking forward to some pics along the way!!
 
Nice. I moved back into a rebuilt room. If you have a stereo in the room near start. Was fun to note how sound changes as you add furnishings to soften sound in increments.
Have fun with decorating.
 
This week I am finishing up some curtain considerations and trying to figure out optimal cartridge alignment. I've aligned cartridges a number of times before but I am just not happy with my alignment right now. I realize that there is groove distortion that is native to the LP format, but its time to do some experimentation. Today I'm printing 7 or 8 graphs and we'll try out Baerwald, Lofgren, and Stevenson all in one listening session back to back and see whats what.

It is so easy to get sucked into hours and hours of reading about alignment measurements. I'm trying hard to take in all of this information without getting frustrated. If you'd like to lose a half hour or so, here's a comprehensive writeup from Stereophile: https://www.stereophile.com/reference/arc_angles_optimizing_tonearm_geometry/index.html

and here's a photo. I really need to buy a DSLR and do a better job
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Nice. We just went through the same thing with a move. The new space has a little less elbow room but also for some reason sounds acoustically better - maybe because there's more acoustic dampening. And like you I've had to give up on getting my speakers exactly positioned. So now the music sounds better as far as details ,but a little less to the soundstage. But as long as you can make it a homey, comfortable place to listen, that should offset any small acoustic subtractions. Good luck!
 
This week I am finishing up some curtain considerations and trying to figure out optimal cartridge alignment. I've aligned cartridges a number of times before but I am just not happy with my alignment right now. I realize that there is groove distortion that is native to the LP format, but its time to do some experimentation. Today I'm printing 7 or 8 graphs and we'll try out Baerwald, Lofgren, and Stevenson all in one listening session back to back and see whats what.
Analog Planet posted a chart showing the null points and resulting distortion. This is based on the new Technics 10" arm with their latest turntable release, but the principles remain the same. The left side of the chart is the inner groove area, and the right side the outer diameter; grey areas are lead-out and lead-in. The blue is "L-B" aka Lofgren B, and the most common.

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FWIW, I bought the MintLP protractor. A bit pricey, sure, but I've never been more sure about alignments prior to this. It has a clever parallax feature and unique markings that get the alignment dead on. It takes a while since I need to rest my eyes every so often, but I got my ART7 aligned perfectly using it. (Now I need to get out the digital microscopes and other toys to get the SRA and azimuth set correctly.)
 
photo post imminent
We're waiting! :D

Did you ever think of heading to AXPONA (two weekends from today) just for giggles? (It's in Schaumburg.) If you're like me, you can't afford most of it, but I've gotten a lot of good ideas just seeing how the equipment and room treatments were set up, talking to a few reps, and taking in a few presentations (like Fremer's turntable setup seminar, or a presentation on room treatments by Bob Hodas two years ago...both were helpful).
 
Alright here is my room. This is my first attempt producing photos of any quality... You guys like large format, right?

Turntable:

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From my spot:

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Detail on the cherry that wraps my Altecs:

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In-laws are in town for the holiday.

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My listening buddy, Pepper.

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Killer room T!
...lovely aesthetic.
Altecs look amazing.

Can Pepper talk?
 
Hey fellas, thanks!

No, pepper cannot talk. He is a noisy little guy though. He has a buddy who is blue and white.

And yeah the goal is kids... Which is why we are trying to clear as much floor space as possible. Tract lighting is next, hopefully we can do away with a couple more things :)
 
Nice looking - except what exactly is the purpose for the chair and ottoman between and facing away from the speakers?
 
Beautiful room, and nice photography too.

Good on you for 1) going without the TV screen.
The room can be about reading, relaxing conversation, music.

And 2) daring to paint the room an intense, dark color.
So many people are afraid to do that, but with the right lighting it's quite dramatic.
And...conducive to everything I mentioned in #1. Well done.
 
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