An Interesting Install

garylkoh

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Marrakech - known as the "Ochre City" is the oldest imperial city in Morocco. It comprises both an old fortified city (the medina) and modern neighborhoods. It was founded around 1060 - which makes it over 950 years old. It boasts the largest traditional Berber market (souk) in Morocco and one of the busiest squares - the Djemaa el Fna - in Africa.

Market at dusk.jpg

The architecture is like nothing in the contemporary world - but once you understand it, it makes all the sense in the world. Homes (Riads) are turned inside-out. From the street, there are no windows, and all you get is this huge, thick wall (sometimes over 1m thick). There is no set-off or green zone and houses are built right up to the street. The courtyard/garden is inside the home, and windows open up to the courtyard. Privacy is complete - and you do not hear or see your neighbors unless you exit your home portal.

In the desert heat, it makes a lot of sense. Since warm air rises, the central courtyard where there is frequently a pond or fountain maintains a pool of cool air creating an "air well". Even with it is 47 deg C (117 F) outside, the inside can be a cool 35 deg. Since the walls are so thick, no matter how noisy your neighbor is, you do not hear it. Nor street noise. Inside your home, you have complete privacy from prying eyes and ears. This was where one of the latest Genesis 2 Junior speakers went into.

Down.jpg the derb.jpg
even further.jpg doorway.jpg

It was almost a 15min walk from the nearest motorable street, down winding streets well worn by hundreds of years of passing feet. The entrance was completely incognito - looking like the doorway to any other Riad in the medina (well, may be the plaster and paint on the walls looked a little newer).The owner bought three Riads and combined them to build his home away from home. They were originally built by one of the six original founding families of Marrakech - and hence, the Riad was over 900 years old. The families of the founders of Marrakech still lived in the surrounding Riads, but we never saw them.
 

garylkoh

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Difficulty getting the speakers in!!

Since these Riads were over 900 years old, and there were three of them to be combined, the owner, PVM, did not have a single room large enough for his listening room. Each room of these Riads are pretty small by modern standards. Combining rooms turned out to be no better, because these Riads were built like a jigsaw puzzle. Combining 4 rooms, he had the oddest of shapes, and he knew that such an odd shape would play havoc with his soundstage (his favorite music was opera). So, he built a room inside a room - but to best utilize the odd space, he built a completely ROUND room. Perfectly round. On an upper floor. Up a tiny spiral staircase.

Hence, the first interesting thing we had to do was to get these 100kg monstrosities of loudspeakers up there. It was impossible to get a crane or "cherry picker" to the Riad, and so the solution was just raw manpower. Since the Riad had historical significance, we did not want to be breaking 900-year old walls down. The only way in was on the side of the balcony above the pond. The crate had to be slowly winched up by hand, and even then it barely fit through the side of the balcony.

Only way in.jpg Barely Fit.jpg
Four guys.jpg A tight squeeze.jpg

I'm sure that if it had been any other residence, the owner would have elected to break through something. But with the age and historical significance, we wanted as little destruction as possible.
 

jkeny

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Feb 9, 2012
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Brilliant Gary, thanks for the photos & the text - I never thought about the logical brilliance of their house construction before - I always thought it was a ventilation thing (which is primarily probably is) but the privacy & security aspects are also interesting & hugely logical.
 

garylkoh

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An interesting room

I was completely fascinated by the room and system of the owner. As an autodidact, he did his research, and came up with the solution that he thought would work. Firstly, he came up with a solution to store all his CDs on a computer - but not as WAV files as I would have done (or any other format). He stored them as ISO images, reasoning that future technology might have made any choices he made obsolete. The ISO image seemed to be the safest and most perfect copy of his precious CDs.

As for the room, a round room made sense as it was symmetric (the odd shape of the original room would have played havoc with loudspeaker set-up for good soundstage and imaging). He, however, picked a diameter of just a little under 5.6m. The reason? The frequency of sound that a 5.6m wavelength corresponded to fall in the crack between the lower B and C keys of a piano. So, the resulting resonance of the room would not be excited by any music that is in proper tune.

Listening Room small.jpg
 

garylkoh

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With the room constructed of brick and mortar, and also solid floors and ceiling, there were no odd rattles or buzzes anywhere. The ceiling was extremely interesting - it was a copy of the sound control ceiling construction of French architect Corbusier. I thought that it would have been made of styrofoam or other soft material, but no - the owner said that it would not have worked. It was completely done in plaster - which was what was prescribed by Corbusier.

Corbusier.jpg

I thought that the room worked extremely well. While I was tuning the system set-up, the owner was sitting beside me. After a while, I noticed that he had tears in his eyes and he told me that he expected a slight improvement over his old loudspeakers (Genesis 300's - over 17 years old). He was hoping for a bit more of an improvement, but he had never in his life had been prepared for such a profound improvement in everything that was dear to him. His father was a jazz clarinetist in France, and his mother a piano teacher. He was unable to play any musical instruments, and so became an officer in the French Army - but with a profound love of music, he listens to live music as often as every evening when he was younger. Now at over 80 years old, he enjoys his music from his computer server, and has over 3TB of CDs stored.

When he played Daniel Barenboim - Chopin Nocturnes, which he said that he had heard "live", he could hear the nuances of the pauses. Saying that what most people do not realize is that there is music in the space between the notes, and there are some pianists who are masters at this expression. Daniel Barenboim was one of these pianists, and that was the first time that he had ever heard that space reproduced with such emotion.

Another successful installation, and a very happy customer.
 

treitz3

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Dec 25, 2011
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Fantastic post, Gary! Thank you very much for sharing. :)

Did you happen to ask how long it took to do that ceiling or what techniques they used for the shapes?

Tom
 

Thf99

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Gary,
Assuming you are willing to add wings to the G2jr, how much extra cost will they add? Can they be in rosewood finish and how much extra?
 

jazdoc

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Gary -

Thanks for the incredible pictures and great story.

While I was tuning the system set-up, the owner was sitting beside me. After a while, I noticed that he had tears in his eyes and he told me that he expected a slight improvement over his old loudspeakers (Genesis 300's - over 17 years old).
That's what it's all about!
 

amirm

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What wonderful pictures and story Gary! So well done.

One question though. The round shape will reinforce back reflections, potentially causing echos as their levels gets higher than direct sound. Was that not an issue?
 

garylkoh

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Very, very cool, Gary! Is that R2D2 in between the speakers? ;)

Lee

Haha! I thought someone would ask that..... No, it is a niche cut into the wall with a pedestal built up of mortar and bricks to hold the amplifier and the DAC. We used the Genesis GR360+MDHR and drove it directly using the Weiss DAC202. Firewire (10m) to his music server.
 

garylkoh

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Fantastic post, Gary! Thank you very much for sharing. :)

Did you happen to ask how long it took to do that ceiling or what techniques they used for the shapes?

Tom

Tom,
You're most welcome. It was an incredible experience for me as it was also my first time in Morocco.

The room (including ceiling) was built during his renovation to turn 3 Riads into one. It took a total of 3 years to complete everything, but I didn't ask him how many man-hours was the ceiling. They made molds and poured plaster in square pieces.
 

garylkoh

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Sep 6, 2010
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What wonderful pictures and story Gary! So well done.

One question though. The round shape will reinforce back reflections, potentially causing echos as their levels gets higher than direct sound. Was that not an issue?

Thanks, Amir.

I didn't feel that there were any echos, or anything sonically deterimental in the round room at all! Whenever we played something, the room and speakers seemed to disappear and a huge wide, deep and tall soundstage developed. I was quite astonished as I had expected that a round room would give me all sorts of problems. That was why I elected to go personally to install this pair (and also for the chance to go to Marrakech).

The walls were all acoustically treated with a variable density black foam. And the "screen" in the middle was plaster.
 

garylkoh

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Gary,
Assuming you are willing to add wings to the G2jr, how much extra cost will they add? Can they be in rosewood finish and how much extra?

I haven't considered this - adding wings is not that simple. The crossover will likely have to be changed if the boundaries are different, and the rear/front 6dB frequency different...... That's a completely new design.

The G2jr can be in rosewood, but that will take longer and cost about 15% more.
 

Thf99

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May 1, 2012
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I haven't considered this - adding wings is not that simple. The crossover will likely have to be changed if the boundaries are different, and the rear/front 6dB frequency different...... That's a completely new design.

The G2jr can be in rosewood, but that will take longer and cost about 15% more.

Many thanks, Gary.
 

MylesBAstor

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Apr 20, 2010
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What wonderful pictures and story Gary! So well done.

One question though. The round shape will reinforce back reflections, potentially causing echos as their levels gets higher than direct sound. Was that not an issue?

Great story Gary. Hopefully you also had a chance to get in some couscous there! Like nothing else in the world.

'Course the round room brings to mind the joke "How do You Make an Audiophile Crazy?" ;)
 

jadis

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Apr 28, 2010
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Great pics, Gary. An awesome sight, the exotic location and the exquisite music room. Congrats to you and the owner. :)
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
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Great story Gary. Hopefully you also had a chance to get in some couscous there! Like nothing else in the world.

Thanks, Myles. Yes, I definitely had couscous, and also mint tea, and tangines. One of the things I do when travelling is to sample all the local delicacies - no matter how strange.

The hospitality in Marrakech was incredible. I was lost in the depths of the medina looking for lunch the first day I was there, and wondering around. Someone came and wanted to guide me to a restaurant, and so I followed him - that's a common thing in Morocco, and they will usually ask for money after that. He brought me to a restaurant in a Riad, but it was closed. It being Ramadan (a month of fasting), they don't do lunch. However, seeing that I was hot and hungry, they invited me to sit down and rest and brought out a pot of mint tea with honey for me.

While sitting there considering my options (they had free wifi in the Riad), the cook turned up hauling bags of groceries to prepare for dinner. Soon, the server came out and told me that the chef would cook me lunch - but I could only have their house meal. Of course, I said OK. It was a most wonderful lunch of a meatball tangine, aubergine, salad and couscous. The Riad was the Dar Najat - it was actually a hotel, and served mostly their own guests only. I was invited in for the meal as I was a passing traveler - part of thousands of years of desert hospitality.

Moroccan Lunch.jpg

Later that evening, I was in the Djemaa el Fna - the market square - where I had an open-air BBQ dinner of kebobs and grilled vegetables under the new moon.

Skewers.jpg
 

garylkoh

WBF Technical Expert (Speakers & Audio Equipment)
Sep 6, 2010
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www.genesisloudspeakers.com
A few more pictures of the Riad of Mr PVM. The courtyard air-well inside that kept the place cool through the hottest days of Summer. Key to this working is the pool in the middle of the courtyard. A previous owner had it as a swimming pool, but it is no longer used as such.

Courtyard Air well.jpg

Being in the middle of the desert, keeping the air cool and moist kept it down and cooled the entire Riad without the need for air conditioning (which is frowned upon because cooling your own air means that hot air is vented out at your neighbors and is thought of as anti-social).

Courtyard Air well 2.jpg

The entrance to the "Grand Salon" - or sitting room where guests are invited.

Grand Salon.jpg
 

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