My listening space

My system has a lot of poor man's high-end touches. If I can't build it, I usually buy an affordable piece and upgrade or modify it myself. I've had my hands inside just about every part of my system except for the DAC. Not only is that a great way to get better gear than budget allows, but it also helps me understand what's inside every piece of the entire chain. I've had the good fortune of having Bobby Palkovic from Merlin (RIP), and Ken Stevens from Convergent (CAT) as friends and mentors...I worked with Bobby at Merlin while they were in Rochester, and met Ken through him. We did many CES shows together from the mid 80s to early 90s. Exposure to the insights of these two brilliant minds, plus exposure to the level of gear they were surrounded by has been immeasurable to my audio journey, and they've truly had a significant impact on how my system sounds. The system was good enough to satisfy my needs 30 years ago, and has slowly improved over time. It's truly beyond anything I could have hoped for as a younger lad.

In 2023 the system got reconfigured in a tube/SS hybrid bi-amp configuration. Each driver of my 3-way speakers has it's own input, so are conducive to bi-wiring, bi-amping, or tri-amping. The signal from the preamp gets split between midbass/tweeter and the main 8" woofers. Twin stereo tube amps are run as single channel mono blocks to power the 5" midbass and tweeter, which basically act as a small passive two-way speaker with a natural acoustic rolloff at about 80hz. An integrated amp was added to power the main woofers , and it also feeds the powered sub. An active crossover was added as low pass only to limit frequencies above 80hz to the integrated amp, and the original passive low pass filter has been bypassed. This configuration treats the main preamp as a master volume, while the integrated amp has it's own volume control, so I can vary the output of the woofers and sub relative to the tube amps that feed the midbass/tweeters. In addition, the active crossover has it's own gain settings, as does the active subwoofer, so there's lots of flexibility to dial in low frequencies however I want, and not impact the vocals of the midbass driver. Cost for the integrated amp and active crossover were under $100, and have resulted in significant improvements on multiple levels IMHO. .