| neolith's The Carriage House System | ||||
| IP Address: 67.172.199.48 | Last Update: June 03, 2009 at 04:34:14 | |||
| Amplifier: | Two Wyred 4 Sound ST-500 amplifiers vertically bi-amped. | |||
| Preamplifier (or None if Integrated): |
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| Speakers: | Magnepan IIIA's with DIY stands. Rel Strata III subwoofer Grado SR-60 Headphone with Grado RA-1 headphone amplifier. Also Sennheiser 280's (closed design) for air travel and when the wife is in the room (blocks her out and she doesn't complain about being able to hear the Grado Phones - talk about low WAF). | |||
| Sources: | ||||
| CD Player/DAC: | Heart CD-6000 with Amperex PQ 6922
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| Turntable/Phono Stage: | 1)Linn Sondek (Valhalla) with Magnepan Unitrac I tone arm and Grado Red and Herbie's Excellent Turntable Mat. 2) Denon DP-55K with Unitrac I tonearm and DV Karat 17D2 MkII. Lundahl Step-up Transformer Kit (LL9206) from K&K Audio.
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| Other Source(s): | Sansui TU-919 AM/FM tuner | |||
| Other Accessories/Room/Misc.: | ||||
| Speaker Cables/Interconnects: | Belden 89259 IC'S with Eichmann's from Heartland Cables . Speaker cables: Speltz's Anti-cables. | |||
| Other (Power Conditioner, Racks etc.): | Dedicated 20 amp Main for the amps and two dedicated 15 amp Mains for rest of equipment. Marinco outlets. | |||
| Tweaks: | MG-IIIa's are modified with the mid-bass panels reversed (magnets in back) and the internal XO, fuses, jumpers removed. Rewired with magnet wire. Internal Crossover externalized and rebuilt with Obligatto caps and Alphacore 14G coils and Duelund resistors. The xo point is lowered to ~2500 Hz and the Q's are closer to 0.5 on both the high and low pass filters. Replaced the Magnepan steel jacks with Connex 5-way posts. There are JW Miller 5502 inductors in series with the tweeters and JW Miller 2201 toroid inductors with the woofer to reduce RFI picked up by the drivers.
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| Room Size (LxWxH): | 20' x 20' x 7 to 8' | |||
| Room Comments/Treatments: | The room is ~20'x23' with a 6' by 8' bathroom in the right front corner making it L-shaped. Carpeted floor. DIY corner bass traps using Roxul Rockboard 60 (not in pictures). This is a dedicated room, separate from the house, and has its own bath and kitchen (sort of a studio apartment). The power supply comes directly from the transformer (app. 30' away) and is a steady 120v.
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| Music Preferences and Comments: | ||||
| Music Used (Genre/Selections): | Classical, including 20th century and lots of baroque, jazz (especially Charles Mingus) but also some Blue Grass (Doc Watson, etc.) and a limited amount of rock. | |||
| System Goals/Comments: | Wide sound stage with proper imaging and depth. Warmth and musicality. | |||
| System Strengths: | Sound stage is deep and imaging is precise. The bass is solid and firm (not muddy). | |||
| System Weaknesses: | Low WAF and I need more vinyl and CD's. None of these is a resolvable problem. | |||
| Video/HT System: None | ||||
| TV/Projector: | 32" LCD (not shown) between the speakers so I can listen to Mozart while watching NASCAR | |||
| Other Interests/Hobbies/Occupation: | Surf Fishing, bicycle riding, photography, NASCAR, violin (this is more like torturing the cat than making music), woodworking (turning perfectly good wood into sawdust). | |||
