My system - new house = the next chapter!

Looks great. What are your room dimensions? It looks similar in size to my upcoming dedicated room and I'm still weighing long wall vs short wall setup.

Edit: Nevermind. I found it in the first post. It's really close to my room. Mine is 12'x18'x9'.

What are your thoughts on long vs short wall placement?

- Woody

I found the short wall placement to give a deeper sound stage, but the long wall placement gives a bit more soundstange width and a very intimate sound.

The current configuration is much better from a practicality perspective, especially once a TV is added to the room.
 
newroom6_zps7e61795e.jpg



When I came home from the service I stopped in Yokosuka Japan and went to the PX and bought the AU7700, TU7700, and four JBL L26s. When I got home they were already at my parents place. I really liked that system.
 
Beautiful job, structurally and aesthetically.

Just wondering what music you favor, pete_mac? I'm sure everything sounds great, but something like Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations would seem to be perfect for that room...
 
Beautiful job, structurally and aesthetically.

Just wondering what music you favor, pete_mac? I'm sure everything sounds great, but something like Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of the Bach Goldberg Variations would seem to be perfect for that room...

Thanks!

I'm predominantly into electronica of various types (some of which is superbly produced and has superlative imaging and sound staging) but also listen to other genres.

I don't mind listening to classical in other people's rigs when they are demoing them to me, but it's not a genre that I actively collect. I can certainly appreciate it from a technical and emotive pespective though! :thmbsp:
 
Ok, some further changes!

As much as I've enjoyed he ES9018 equipped NFB-3(2014), I still found myself drawn to the tonal goodness of the PCM1704UK-equipped audio-gds.

So, I posted a WTB ad on the SNA forum in Australia and waited...

A fellow SNAer contacted me to advise that he had a DAC19DSP for sale, and that he believed it to be the exact unit that I bought new from Kingwa back in 2012.

Sadly, I had no record of the serial number of my unit, so I initially struggled to verify this. However, with a bit of detective work, I established who I sold the unit to, and who the unit was later onsold to. When the third owner sold the DAC on SNA, he posted photos:) The DAC went through another two owners after that. After checking the photos on SNA... lo and behold - the DAC being offered to me matched the photos, so it is indeed my original unit! Pretty damn cool if you ask me!

So, baby is now home to roost!










Speaker-wise, I sold my JM Lab Cobalt 816s and have been using either a pair of Sound Dynamics 300ti which I tweaked a few years back (a favourite bargain speaker of Harry Pearson from The Absolute Sound) or a pair of Paradigm 5se MkIIs. Both sounded quite decent in fact, but probably a tad bassy for my particular room configuration (can anyone say room modes??)

I've scored a pair of very clean Orpheus Minotaur standmount speakers. These speakers are designed by Brad Serhan and were used extensively as monitoring speakers in various TV, radio and recording studio applicaitons.

The cabinets are 19mm thick 7 layer Brimsboard lined with 3mm thick bituminous pads across exactly 50% of the internal surface area. The cabinets are very inert indeed and have external dimensions of 430mm x 210mm x 260mm and weigh 10kg each.

They were RRP $AUD1400/pair in 1990.

The woofer looks to be a SEAS which is a cross between the T14RCY and P14RCY (black cone of the latter, phase plug of the former). I might research further. The tweeter looks to be a SEAST 25T series tweeter as per my recently departed JPW Ruby 2s.

So... how do they sound? Bloody superb! The imaging and sound staging is uncanny! Superb clarity and coherence - bags of detail, but a certain 'musicality' to the sound which can be lacking when you're chasing out-and-out detail retrieval. These babies have soul! I reckon Brad has done a super job with the driver integration. They work VERY well in my room and don't excite any room modes.

I reckon I can kick up my heels, relax and enjoy the music for a while (after re-arranging some speakers to reduce clutter and to let the Minotaurs really breathe). The presentation that this combination of gear gives me is just fantastic and is EXACTLY what I've been after following the sale of my beloved Focus Audio FS68s and audio-gd Reference 5 a year or so ago. It's not an ear-blasting rig, nor is the scale and dynamics up there with bigger systems. It is intimate, inviting, seductive. I like it!

The sound is easily as good as the decent standmount speakers that I've owned over the past few years (Lenehan ML1s, ProAc 1S clones, Focus Audio FS68) and way ahead of the Usher S520s, Wharfdale 9.1/10.1s.

It's a funny game this audio journey! Sometimes, you don't realise how good your existing system is, and you head off in another direction for something bigger/better/faster/shinier/DIFFERENT... but end up returning to almost the same place that you were previously at!







 
A little update... I snaffled a pair of lovely ELITE Aesthet 1 MK II speakers speakers a few days ago.

I have previous experience with Chinese/Hong Kong speakers (having owned ProAc 1S clones previously) but these beauties are in a different class altogether.

I'll comment further on the sound in future, but I'm absolutely smitten at present. They are probably the best speaker that I've owned, but let's wait until the honeymoon period subsides before making that call. Mr Lenehan, Mr Focus Audio and Mr PMC should be worried though! ;)


The main specs are:

Frequency Response: 42Hz-20kHz
Sensitity: 86db/1M/2.83V
Nominal Impedance: 6 ohms
Power Handling: 50-150W
Tweeter: Scan Speak D2010-8513 3/4" tweeter
Woofer: Scan Speak 18W-8545 7" carbon impregnated paper 'crinkle' cone
Crossover Elements: Large diameter OFC hollow inductors,Solen MKP polypropylene capacitors,Imported pure copper connection wires
Cabinet Material: Multiple layered MDF
Finish: Birds eye maple
Dimensions: 420H x 225W x 310D mm
Weight: 13.8kg each

The build quality is also SUPERB... the veneer is immaculate, the gloss finish is impeccable, the cabinet is weighty and inert. I'm really enjoying having speakers which aren't BLACK in my system. You might have guessed that I have a penchant for black, but the birds eye maple veneer really lifts the vibe of the room and contrasts with the rest of the gear.

Anyway, back to listening!!!

Oh, and there's something else different in the pics - a lovely Sansui BA-F1 power amp and CA-F1 preamp combo which is on loan from the Sydney Sansui Museum aka skippy124. BEAST!!!











 
Wow ya picked them up well done Pete...

I guess having a museum daddy helps....:smoke:

How does the separates combo compare to the your staple integrated Suis?
 
Wow ya picked them up well done Pete...

I guess having a museum daddy helps....:smoke:

How does the separates combo compare to the your staple integrated Suis?

Absolutely - I've been meaning to borrow one of his BA/CA combos for a while now, and have finally gotten around to doing it!

I only grabbed them yesterday so they are currently not connected as yet. Watch this space for some comparisons in future! :thmbsp:
 
Thanks for the comments gents! I'm a very happy camper at the moment, that's for sure.

Wow, that's very nice! How big is the room?

The dimensions are 3.5m x 5.4m x 2.6m. The system was previously set up to fire down the room lengthways, but the need to incorporate a pair of old lounges meant that it was reconfigured to fire across the room as shown in this earlier post:
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showpost.php?p=8068261&postcount=35

There's probably about 3m between the drivers and your ears. The walls behind the speakers and behind the lounge have Polymax XHD panels to tame reflections and make the room sound larger than it really is.
 
great system and room. I have both a NFB-3 (2014) and a REF 5.32 and greatly enjoy them both. I use the UK DAC in my main system and the Sabre DAC in my office system. I agree with you, as good as the Sabre DACs are, Kingwa's UK DACs are very special.
 
great system and room. I have both a NFB-3 (2014) and a REF 5.32 and greatly enjoy them both. I use the UK DAC in my main system and the Sabre DAC in my office system. I agree with you, as good as the Sabre DACs are, Kingwa's UK DACs are very special.

Thanks! I agree regarding the DACs - whilst I thoroughly enjoyed the NFB-3(2014), particularly regarding the incredible detail retrieval and resolution that it offered, I feel 'at home' with the tonal goodness of the PCM1704UK DACs.

At some stage in future, my next upgrade will most likely be an external reclocker such as the Wyred 4 Sound Remedy. This will sit between the Squeezebox Touch and the DAC to reclock/de-jitter the digital signal. I previously owned an Empirical Audio Synchro Mesh which did just this, and I ended up switching off the PLL (phase locked loop) setting on the DSP1V5 board in the DAC, because the external reclocking was better than the onboard reclocking! The difference was not subtle - Kingwa's PCM1704UK DACs really benefit from a clean, low jitter digital feed.

Another Reference 5 or perhaps even a Reference 7 are on the wish list, but it will be some time before that becomes reality.

Awesome room and system!

Thank you squire! :thmbsp:
 
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