my system

[indcrimdefense]

following pics were from my former house, as i just moved recently to an apt. will be building my dream home next year, so downsized my life for a year to save money. floorplan is in the works, but will be open area kitchen, dining and living room, with doors opening onto the deck, which will allow one system to be used for virtually the entire house, with all the money, effort etc concentrated on that system, instead of having a "main" system, 2nd in the bedroom, 3rd in office, etc.

components are paradigm signature 8 v1 front speakers, signature adp in the rear, velodyne dd10 sub, which was selected for musical accuracy and control over movies. mcintosh c45 preamp, cary audio 500mb monoblocks up front, krell kav 2250 for the surrounds, cary audio 303/300 cd player, pioneer elite bdp-09 blu ray player, furman power conditioner. interconnects all tara labs xlr, with exception of 50 ft mit magnum xlr to surrounds, powercords all shunyata. tv is 50" pioneer elite plasma 7th gen.

apt setup is 2 channel only and subwoofer remains in storage. it's an apt, so sound quality is not quite what i had at the house, but still very good considering the limited space i have to work with. had to compromise speaker proximity to back wall to provide "living" space aka keep speakers out of way so guests don't bump into them.

 

[jamie2112]

Nice clean setup you have there..........SUH WEET

 

[indcrimdefense]

thanks man. thought i had pics of surrounds and the krell in the rear, but i don't. there was a partial wall behind the couch, separating the living room from the dining which was mildly problematic for movies, as the surrounds were on the "rear" wall, or on the back wall of the dining room. the benefit of this was for parties, i switched to the 2nd set of stereo outputs of the c45 for the surrounds and music was everywhere downstairs and yet everyone was still able to hear, or later in the night we could just rock out and turn the place into a nightclub that actually sounded really good.

attached a pic looking into dining room and a few of the interconnects and power cords.

 

[ParadigmDawg]

Somebody bought the expensive cables.......

 

[indcrimdefense]

ahhh, cables. have purchased, and demoed, more than my fair share. accoustic zen, harmonic tech, audioquest, monster, river cable, mit, tara labs, kimber kable, synergistic research, bulk cable from home depot, and on, and on, and on.
some had boxes, some had batteries, alot had bullshit. have a drawer full of 'em sitting right behind me. some were inexpensive, some absurdly expensive, some improved sound quality, some actually made it worse, very many made zero difference at all. i've wasted more time and hard earned money on cables than anything else in this ridiculous hobby of ours. man, i hate cables. that being said, the cables currently in my system are there as the result of years of trial and error, have been there for a year and a half, and have not thought about tinkering, upgrading, etc. in a year and a half. i've been listening to music.

 

[jostenmeat]

Nice to see a system with speakers that look like they have proper spread, and proper spacing from boundaries. I assume the greater toe in on the left is for the best compromise between the two seats.

For cables, when I bought my first cheapie HTIB, replete with the cheapest Monster HDMI cable, I still felt butt-hurt after learning what a sham cables are. However, I now sort of think it might be the best purchase I've ever made (the Monster cable), because it lit a fire under my butt to research all of my purchases much more inquisitively (if you can't tell by my post count ).

Thanks for sharing.

 

[indcrimdefense]

actually, there is more to the story. if we go back over 3 years ago, system was coming along quite nicely, back when there was still an economy and we had disposable income. anyway, was on my way to acquiring components of my "dream" system, the paradigm signature 8's were in the system, and sounded great, but... i was convinced there was more, that i had not realized the speaker's true potential. at the time pre-amp was anthem 30, front amp was a krell kav-2250, but i was convinced there was more. so upgraded to cary audio 500MB 500 watt mono blocks up front, and soon after added my dream cd player, a cary audio 303/300. problem was, the 303 is a "high output" player, balanced at full volume i think is 6.0 vrms (i didn't bother to look up) and oh god the body at full output is amazing... if you were listening to something perfectly recorded. for anything less than perfectly recorded (like 97% of what we listen to) the treble could get quite strident (the sig 8 is NOT a strident , or bright speaker. but damn near anything fed 6.0 vrms coupled w/ a bad recording can sound awful). easy solution, turn down the internal volume control on the 303, or if still not fixed, upscale all the way up to 24/768, or if still not fixed engage the balanced tube output. 2 problems, turn down the volume and you lose some of the "body" and while the tube is beautiful for jazz and the female voice, it is nowhere near as tight and quick as the solid state balanced output. i wanted full body, it's past intoxicating once you have heard it, but wanted nothing to do with strident treble. at all.

i wanted it all, i wanted the "body" of the 303 at full balanced output (volume max 63) without the treble sounding strident, and i wanted to be able to listen to all my music that way, not just the handful of masterful recordings. i went searching for components, cables, etc. to realize the full potential of both my speakers and my cd player. and after a fair amount of trial and error, found it. the wicked irony is that 3 years ago i demoed one of the components which was part of the solution (macintosh C45), knew it sounded better than what i was buying (cary cinema 11) but went with the cary anyway, as i thought at the time the C45 lacked "features". features is not sound quality. hindsight is always 20/20.

also part of the solution was reverting back to common sense, and realizing from experience that anything that tries to do too much will end up compromising in some area. so i started demoing stereo pre-amps after purchasing the cinema 11. after a lengthy demo of a classe cp-500, which is a hyper accurate pre-amp, superior sound quality to the cinema 11, but caused me to question how accurate do you really want, demoed a macintosh C45 again. heaven. and after tweaking the system with interconnects and power cords, i achieved my goal. in my hyper subjective opinion, realized the true potential of both my speakers and cd player, cd player is constantly set to 63 (at least before i moved to an apt) and i can listen to virtually anything i want and love it. i don't think about components, cables, this tweak or that, i turn it on and love it for hours a day. so were the cables expensive, yes, but finally being beyond happy with your system for over a year and a half is priceless. and the interesting thing is that the interconnects, tara labs air series 1 xlr, while expensive, more than held their own with interconnects up to 15 times their price. cables are worth paying for. but never for a second believe simply because you are paying more you are getting more. never.

this will have practical advice for very few, as i built a system around the analog output of a cd player and searched for components that would do as little to alter or corrupt that signal as possible. i also built a system around a speaker whose potential i was convinced had not been realized yet, and purposely tweaked the system to get around the speakers shortfalls.

the moral to the story, build your system for you. certainly listen to others, read reviews, look at specs, seek advice, but at the end of the day your building it for you. my only additional advice is, if in anyway possible, demo at home prior to purchase, or buy from somewhere with a liberal return policy. always ask yourself 2 questions... can you hear a difference? and more importantly, is that a difference YOU are willing to pay for?

for me, i built the fire breathing dragon i always wanted. that's enough for me.

 

[westcott]

Nice to see some care taken to place the speakers.

Thanks for taking time to share some photos!!

 

[yepimonfire]

looks nice, those speakers look like they can pump some serious sound.

 

[indcrimdefense]

the front speakers were over 3 feet from the rear wall, and at least several feet from the side wall. distance between the front speakers was over 10 feet, can't recall exactly. toe in of both front speakers was matched to the primary listening position. where i was standing when the pic was taken was slightly off from that spot so it does appear that left is more toed in from the pic. the soundstage was huge, and deep. the sub sounded best in the center level with the front speakers, but that was impractical so the sub position in the pic was the next best spot. actually over time the sub position moved to the right closer to the right speaker.

several times i moved everything out with the exception of the front speakers and amplifiers, left the tv disconnected and all components were on the back wall of the dining room. used the 50 foot runs for the surrounds to connect pre-amp to amplifiers. this sounded spectacular, and was a noticeable improvement in sound quality, but obviously was impractical. whether the improvement was a result of getting everything out of the way, or from the distance the components were from the speakers/sub and vibration, or a combination of both, i don't know but suspect a combination of both.

thanks to all for the kind comments. westcott that's a beautiful room, and i used to have RF7 fronts, RF3 as a dual center and can't recall which klipsch as surrounds. that was a fun system, especially after i purchased the krell kav 2250 for the RF7

 

[krzywica]

Nice setup!

All that $$$$$ on special cables and not a single room treatment? Hmm.....

 

[indcrimdefense]

thanks. the room acoustics were actually quite good bare bones, and with proper speaker placement were very good. front speakers originally were closer together and closer to the rear wall. but over time spread them out, further from wall and played w toe in (the kitty toy laser thingie was helpful) until dialed it in. compared to where i had moved from, it was heaven. combined living/dining room, living room had 30+ cathedral ceiling, open stairway, and halfway through the room dropped down to 9 foot ceiling. nightmare. getting that room to load was all but impossible, although it acted like a giant amplifier if you were outside the house, and had some weird telegraphic effect for the bass straight into my next door neighbor's bedroom. my neighbors were pretty cool, but don't think anyone was sorry when i moved.

2 homes ago was also problematic acoustically, and had room treatments galore. long, rectangular dining/living room, on the right side a huge bay window at first reflection point, fireplace at 45 degree angle on back wall, and 2 french glass doors into my office on other side of back wall, a hallway at just past first reflection point on the left (although could get some really cool bass effects depending on where you stood in hallway), and the worst... one front speaker had a corner behind it and on the left just behind the speaker went from carpet to tile and a very angular entryway, the doorway to the utility room, door to garage and the path to the kitchen. 12 foot ceilings, and just behind where the front speakers was a 10 foot wall separating the kitchen from living/dining room with a fake window just above the right front speaker. i had self made acoustic panels on the utility room door, door to garage, and at times on back of front door. rest of room had acoustic treatments everywhere, on the left wall a large rug hung on the wall backfilled with foam, the bay window was filled with foam, acoustic panels behind the tv and up front in the right corner, placed a bookcase behind the front left speaker and filled with books to try and help, even the large "painting" over the fireplace was backfilled with foam. for serious listening, covered the french doors w/ foam and pulled a very large, solid wood table top i was refinishing and "sealed" off the hallway. even with all of the problems, i could make that room sound damn good. but it sure as hell didn't look good. sold that house in 08 for that and multiple other reasons and moved north.

where the pics were taken i was leasing with an option to buy, and declined to exercise my option. landlord pocketed ins. money from hail storm damage in 09 and roof started leaking in may 10, he never really fixed so at end of lease i was out. good sized house in a great neighborhood, beautiful backyard that backed up to walking trail and woods that separated my backyard from the neighbors a street over. however, small kitchen, small bathrooms and a lack of closet space, and i have grave concerns about ability to resell.

i did briefly play with a few acoustic treatments in the room where pics were taken, but had difficulty discerning a significant difference with the ones that were aesthetically pleasing. and after last 2 houses that room was an acoustic dream. and without being coated in foam and having to have furniture in the entryway, etc. there were some significant bass nodes if you were listening to something with alot of bass at a significant volume, but it only reinforced the bass did not sound sloppy or muddy, it sounded like boom to the power of boom. but otherwise that room was a dream. don't miss the house, but i do miss that room.

 

[flava30]

Holy S__t! Nice set up it must sound amazing

 

[indcrimdefense]

thanks. i keep meaning to post pics from the apartment, but difficulty is so much light during daytime from all windows glares everything out in pics, and night too little light. i'm no photographic genius.

going from a large living/dining room to a small living room has been a transition, and sound quality is not what i once had. it's still very good, just in the confines of a smaller sound stage. speaker placement options are limited, and out of necessity closer to rear wall than ideal. speakers are also closer together. one benefit is that i'm now MUCH closer to the tv, so was like an instant upgrade. and for the 1st time my home office is in the same room as the system, which results in hours more listening time a day.

almost 3 months here and not 1 noise complaint. mildly disappointed in myself. although i did specifically pick this particular apartment as it only shares 1 wall off the utility room in back w/ another apartment. and the view of the walking trail right out my window is quite nice. lol.

 

[dkane360]

\

almost 3 months here and not 1 noise complaint. mildly disappointed in myself. although i did specifically pick this particular apartment as it only shares 1 wall off the utility room in back w/ another apartment. and the view of the walking trail right out my window is quite nice. lol.

if you want the noise complaint, break out the subwoofer