New York Listening/Living Room

Hi All, this is the completion (for now) of my living/listening room. I will try to add more pictures of the construction but i am not having success uploading the pictures (get an exclamation sign)

To explain the construction; it was an old raw loft that i bought in the east village. it is approximately 3600 sq feet, which was the top floor of a manufacturing building in the early 1900s. a number of artist bought the building in the late 1970s and did little to no repair (none in the case of the floor I bought).

I went through a full gut renovation and selected the northeast section to double as a living/listening area for my TV and two channel stereo (the dimensions being 20' x 19' with no wall behind my listening spot for another 19'). because of the age and construction of the building, one of the major challenges was to get noise isolation between my floor and the floor(s) below. For that i worked with Rives Audio to construct an isolated floor. We started with fiberglass insulation between the beams that separate both floors (approximately 14"). I wanted to use the spray insulation; however, the construction of the floor below was of such a poor quality that we were afraid the action the insulation expanding would pop her sheet rock (which is her ceiling) from the beams.

We then put a layer of plywood down, followed by acoustic glue, followed by another layer of plywood. We then laid an acoustic insulation which effectively is a a 3"x3" fiberglass block (about 2" thick) every square yard. On top of this we laid another layer of plywood, acoustic glue and then wide beam white oak floors. The flooring and plywood never touch the structural walls. This does a great job isolating sound (notice there are no subs - yet). it does a decent job isolating the equipment. i have a larger issue with the building shaking as large buses drive down our street.



I started by selecting Magico M5 after listening to Wilson Alexander Series 2, JMLab Utopia III and Kharma extensively. I like all the speakers mentioned for different reasons, but the Magico spoke to me. I was in the process of ordering the M5's when the Q5s were announced. i decided to go for it without listening and I am happy that I did. I then debated between solid state and tubes for some time. i previously had tubes, but fell in love with the Soulutions. They can truly be some of the greatest components and some of the worse depending on the recording quality of the software (LP or digital) being played. they are incredibly true to the recordings. i would say the same of the Q5.

i did a lot of listening on Odin cables during my demo process, but fell for the Kubala Sosna when i heard them. Joe came out to my place and installed everything. he is awesome, really down to earth guy.

I run the digital front end off a Mac Mini hooked into my Pioneer TV (nice website!) and then into a dCS Scarlati upsampler, master clock and DAC. i did not buy the transport and will utilize my OPPO 83 SE for and SADC or DVD HD.

The analogue is a Da Vinci AAS Gabriel MKII (with Da Vinci 12" arm and Air Tight PC-1 Supreme) going into the ARC Phono Reference 2. I must admit, demoing analogue can be more difficult. i listened to about three turn tables in a similar price category, none of it was in my system so it was hard to be objective, therefore, part of my decision was driven by aesthetics

A few notes about the room. The ceiling is slanted, i am still waiting on an oriental rug that i ordered. The media shelves and equipment rack is reclaimed posts from a demolition of a nearby building. Being an open loft, i had to find a way to overcome the irregular transmission of sound waves (i.e. brick walls on two sides and open on the other two walls). That is why we decided to use the media curtain on both sides to try and equalize the absorption. The thought was that we would over absorb and then put diffusion blocks on the ceiling. to date, I haven't found this necessary (but a lot of the system is still breaking in.

I am really happy with the sound. The Q5s are amazing if you understand what your are getting. They do not deliver the slam of a ported speaker, but they are really incredible on a great recording. On other threads, there were some concerns that they are only good for certain types of music, I would not agree with this, rather i would say they have an inability to cover up bad recordings. What I mean by this is that they are not as versatile from A to Z through your library because they do not add any color or uumph to a less than good recording. that often hits the rock library the hardest (i listen to rock) but overall I am ok with this down side because i have a lot of good recordings on which these speakers are incredible (including rock). some day, i might tempt tying a set of subs in with them (this is more a neighbor management issue than a listening preference issue).

thanks for looking, Brian

I haven't listened to the Q5's with tubes. i did listen to the M5's extensively with tubes mostly the Zanden and VTL's. For me, i felt the Soulutions were a better fit, not across the board (i.e. all recordings) but the Soulutions with the Magico on the right recording just is unbelievable. I would like to hear them with the ARC 610. i don't know if the Lamm ML3 would drive the Q5's they are power hungry (if that makes sense)

Thanks Steve, you have been a large part of this journey. the construction of the whole loft was really fun. I was very nervous about having a living/listening room, but it is working out nice. The stereo can cover the loft when desired (with expected sound quality impact, but none the less, my wife likes to listen while sitting across the apartment while i am in my listening position.

microstrip said:

Thanks. As far as I know the more powerful amplifier from Zandem has around 60W. Was it able to control the M5's bass? Do you think that the M5 bass balance is very different from the Q5?

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I did not think the Zandens were sufficient to drive the M5. I also found the Zandens to be too sweet in color for me. They are a beautiful tube amp (and there red book CD player is an excellent digital source) but as i listened over and over to recordings i know well, i found the color to wear on me.

I don't think the M5 bass balance is very different from the Q5. I think if you like the M5s then you will really like the Q5. The sound is similar, if anything I personally think the Q5 is better at what the M5 does so well. There are a lot of questions/comments about the Magico bass. I think all of them are well founded. It is not that the Q5 doesn't have good bass or that it is too linear, rather it is very tight as expected from a sealed speaker. The Q5's bass can be incredibly dynamic, but will always remain clean and precise. People keep stating it is good for acoustic or classical music, however, i would say it differently, I would state that it will remind you of hearing music associate to conditions usually surrounding acoustic or classical music. An unplugged session in a small bar room. it is clean, crisp and exact to the source. Personally, I love that sound, hearing every pluck of the bass, snare, etc very precisely. But it does not portray amplified bass as well. (I also like this and realize the trade off I decided to make). both sounds have a great feel to them, but they are decidedly different sounds. I often get to hear live Jazz, I think most people can appreciate the different of a live jazz that relies on amplification to fill the room vs an unplugged session in a small room with good sound qualities. i think that is the difference with the Q5, it is the latter and everyone knows the bass and drums at an unplugged jazz session can be awesome, just different than the sound reproduction of a larger show.

I don't think it is a knock on the Magicos (obviously, i bought them over other speakers with a different bass quality) but overall, they produce a beautiful sound and one that is very listenable (i don't think that is a word) in my listening environment (i.e. wife isn't yelling at me to turn it down!)

Thanks Jay, i would have loved to have built a man-cave (look at Jack's, Steve or many of the other rooms here) for pure sound engineering reasons (and a nice place to escape), but given my requirement to tie the room in with the rest of the apartment, i am very pleased how everything turned out both aesthetically and sound quality. i was really happy with the media center and equipment rack. i loved being able to find reclaimed wood from the city and tie utilize it. I am going to experiment with different SRA equipment to sit underneath the components on the equipment rack, but i will do that with time. as i stated earlier, my major problem is due to the vibration the whole building goes through when the subway (actually double length bus on my street) goes by.