Audio Federation's large system

Nope, we are no longer on the top of a mountain overlooking Boulder and Denver. We are in a plain old Eichler-style home in Palo Alto. The pluses are that there are a lot more audiophiles here and this house is similar to that which many audiophiles live in. The minuses are that we are no longer on the top of a mountain overlooking Boulder and Denver.

The LARGE SYSTEM:

Acapella Audio Arts "High Cellini" loudspeakers
Acapella Audio Arts "LaMusika" integrated amplifier
Audio Note UK "CDT Five" transport
Audio Note UK "DAC 5 Signature"
Harmonic Resolution Systems "SXR" equipment rack and "M3X" platforms

A simple system, but extremely high performing.

This is a 13 foot by 18 foot room. One wall is all glass. Yes, there is a mirror surrounding the fireplace - what can we say, this is a rental.

The hyperspherical horn, plasma tweeter and isobarically supported woofer are so well-integrated that each of these best-in-class most-suitable-for-its-task technologies is able to support its corresponding frequencies without calling attention to itself.

Speaking of magic, the DAC 5 is high resolution and yet sounds like music. More like music than any digital we have heard. No matter what you feed it. Music player? Yep. 1980's CDs? Yep. Oh, the more well-recorded the music, the better it sounds, of course, but the music is presented without emphasizing the flaws. You can all read elsewhere how they do it, but it works. No fuzziness or blurriness or muddiness. It just works.

The CDT Five transport has a special tube-buffer designed to optimally connect to the DAC 5, so CDs sound pretty good on it

The LaMusika integrated is a very good solid-state amp. Not saying much, I know, with there being so many poor solid-state amps out there But we like it and our ears are really picky when it comes to solid-state sonic artifacts.

Similarly with the rack. This isn't the new VXR, but the SXR is a very good rack, especially with there being so many poor equipment racks out there. If you can't afford these, we typically recommend basic steel and wood racks, like Mapleshade, or putting things on the floor, over the vast majority of racks that are out there.

The cables are a mishmash of Acapella, Audio Note and Belden. No conditioning. No room treatments [unless you include the carpets]. Sounds great however loud we play it, though it is still settling in after coming back from CAS 2017 [We are just so very happy with the current positioning of everything ... something just has to go wrong :-/].

At some point we are going to put the Audio Note 22 watt Kegon amplifiers on these speakers. That is why that naked amplifier platform is sitting there....

Thanks, LL21. And glad to help.

Steve Williams said:

Hi Mike

Welcome to beautiful California. I bumped into Nellie at the LAAS and she told me about your move. Best of luck and lots of success

Click to expand...

Thanks, Steve. Neli said that I ran into you in the halls and didn't recognize you...? Sorry, 'bout that, if so, but you are not being singled out For some reason, when I am in show reporting mode, I have an easier time recognizing gear than recognizing people... This can result in some interesting human interactions for me at shows

cjfrbw said:

Wow, good luck.

In an area where being a mere millionaire winds you up in East Palo Alto, you should have a pretty broad market for high end products.

Click to expand...

Thanks, cjfrbw. We are of course not happy with the rent - and cruised Zillow today, just kind of messing around. Neli liked the $18M place. Ha. Ha. A lot happier with the rent now

treitz3 said:

Hello Mike and please allow me to offer you a very warm welcome to the What's Best Forum! I gotta ask....you have my curiosity running around in circles now. What are the perfectly placed black triangles sitting about 3" from the speakers, directly in front of them?

Tom

Click to expand...

Thanks, Tom.

Well, those are pieces of hardwood that can be inserted under one of the sides of the speaker. This is really useful when the floor is not quite level and we want to make the speaker stand up straight. It also turns the speaker into a 3-footed speaker, if you see what I mean, which is a more stable platform than 4 feet. It actually does sound slightly but noticeably better most of the time: a little more solidity and separation / delineation between the notes, at least on carpet which is what we see at shows. We haven't inserted them yet here because a) we like the sound now, and don't want to muck it up, and b) the floors are so wavy it is going to take a lot more work to figure out exactly where to put them.

So now your curiosity can go back to running in a straight line

Mike Lavigne said:

welcome Mike and Nellie.

2 of my favorite folks I've met in the hobby. I always look forward to seeing you at shows. the sound in your rooms is an oasis I very much appreciate.

and only the finest gear. love the look of your new digs, even though it's not yet the grand thing you had, hopefully it works overall better for you. and you are now that much closer to a visit to Seattle sometime.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Mike. You are too kind.

We would *love* to visit you sometime [and, you, of course, are welcome to visit us - though our current digs aren't quite as impressive as they used to be ]

We're also a lot closer to Vegas, too, as 'the crow drives'. You still go to CES? We skipped this year and are thinking of skipping next year...

Steve Williams said:

I met Neli when our daughter was a freshman at CU Boulder and we were visiting during the winter and it had snowed hard. Neli drove down the hill and picked me up and drove back up that steep road to their house which was also their show rooms. I thought we were going to fall off the side of the mountain but Neli was great.

No snow in Palo Alto Mike

Click to expand...

Ha ha Funny you should mention that. Neli is 'very tired' of snow and number one, most positive feature of our move is... No Snow

But, yeah, six months out out the year, unless someone is used to driving in the slippery snowy twisty mountain roads, we went down to pick them up. Audi. All Wheel Drive. Blizzak tires. Quite safe if you are used to doing it every day like we were.

NorthStar said:

Hi Mike, I visited your website in the past; rejuvenating. I was feeling like @ home; comfy, great view, big smile.
When is your new housewarming party? :b

Cheers,
Bob

Click to expand...

Thanks so much, Bob.

Hopefully soon. We just got some IKEA record shelves and will perhaps wait until our LPs are out of cardboard boxes. Houses here are smaller and as one might imagine, a lot of our furniture is in storage. We are audio gear, plus listening chairs, plus two desks/computers, plus a place to sleep. I kind of like it is this way better - I think maybe this is what they mean by 'clean living'?

[Trying to catch up to all-of-a-sudden-its-2019!]

This was our system in the big room over the summer for a few months. This worked crazy well. The shape and size of the room, and the fact that we had real corners, allowed the speakers to engage the room with the full range of frequencies that these speakers are known for when setup well. A very immediate and dynamic and impressive sound, do much to the fact that these are such high efficiency speakers.

Speakers: Audio Note UK AN/E Spe HE in olive wood
Amps: Audio Note UK Kegon
Preamp: Audio Note UK M9 Phono
Turntable: Audio Note UK TT2 Deluxe
Digital: Audio Note UK CDT-Five transport and Audio Note UK Fifth Element DAC with Fifth Force power supply
Rack: HRS MXR
Cables: Audio Note UK ISIS and SOOTTO

You might think we are silly putting speakers, coming in at $10K-ish on $400K worth of electronics, but our ears didn't think so

More photos of this system...