Gene's system

[Gene 15352]

Hi everyone. After years of building one piece at a time, I'm finally settled in with a system that gives me tremendous enjoyment. Room is 18x27 with 8.3 ceiling. Corners are mitred at 45 degree angles, cork flooring on cement slab. I believe that I can't get any more out of the Dynaudios that is feasibly possible. Not exaggerating when I say that adding the Torus AVR-20 with the Audioquest Hurricane power cords]was like adding a mini sub.

 

[jeff1225]

Beautiful system and a very clean design. Have you experimented with Pass Preamps at all?

 

[Gene 15352]

Never auditioned the Pass preamp. I owned a Spectral DMC-20 back in the mid nineties so it was a natural progression for me. I always believed that Spectral's strengths were its preamps and Pass Labs with their amps. I used to own a Spectral amp but prefer the Class A sound.

 

[PierreB]

Very very nice room and system.

 

[Gene 15352]

Very very nice room and system.

Thank you Pierre.

 

[ack]

Just beautiful and clean, enjoy!

 

[Ron Resnick]

This is a beautiful room and a beautiful system! Thank you for telling us about it and posting photos!

Does your comment that you cannot get any more out of the Dynaudios suggest that you are considering other loudspeakers?

18’ x 27’ are fantastic dimensions. Is this a completely custom built room?

How far are the speakers from the front wall, and how far is your listening chair from the rear wall?

 

[Macattack]

Great room dimensions and better system.

 

[Gene 15352]

Thank you for the kind words Ron. When I see your system, Ack's and many others, it makes my jaw drop in how stunning they are. I've tried to arrange the room in thirds as close as I could. Front wall to tweeter is just shy of 9',, rear wall to sitting position is approx 7 1/2'. The room is a somewhat rudimentary built room as two of the four walls are exterior walls with spray foam insulation and the other two have Roxul safe and sound behind the drywall. JPS in-wall cabling to panel box,, mitred corners were done to minimize standing waves, corked floors, floor rug and that's it. In the eleventh hour I kept the acoustical treatments as natural as I could after getting last minute advice from a veteran audiophile journalist who I trust. The Vicoustic flat panels that were used are not wool batting but a porous wool panel with a cotton twill covering. Inexpensive and now discontinued. No diffusers were recommended for the front wall. No plans of upgrading speakers anytime soon. When I commented on how I can't get any more out of the Dynaudios, I meant that I'm driving it with a mix of electronics that are a perfect match. The Dynaudios need some warmth or else they can sound too clinical - reason for the Class A amps and the Luxman Dac. I've reached that level of diminishing returns where I believe I'd have to spend a lot more to improve the system. It took me years to figure out what reviewers meant when they described a speaker as coherent. I finally get it. I can appreciate a well designed 2-way speaker with a simple crossover. The only other speaker that really intrigues me is the UBIQ AUDIO Model One. Btw, do you keep your Torus units on continually as I assume you don't want to be shutting down your front end electronics all the time? Thanks.

 

[Gene 15352]

Great room dimensions and better system.

Thank you Macattack. Your system is quite impressive when I read your profile. Did you ever post pics? I'd love to see the system especially those Strads!

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thank you for the kind words Ron. When I see your system, Ack's and many others, it makes my jaw drop in how stunning they are. I've tried to arrange the room in thirds as close as I could. Front wall to tweeter is just shy of 9',, rear wall to sitting position is approx 7 1/2'. The room is a somewhat rudimentary built room as two of the four walls are exterior walls with spray foam insulation and the other two have Roxul safe and sound behind the drywall. JPS in-wall cabling to panel box,, mitred corners were done to minimize standing waves, corked floors, floor rug and that's it. In the eleventh hour I kept the acoustical treatments as natural as I could after getting last minute advice from a veteran audiophile journalist who I trust. The Vicoustic flat panels that were used are not wool batting but a porous wool panel with a cotton twill covering. Inexpensive and now discontinued. No diffusers were recommended for the front wall. No plans of upgrading speakers anytime soon. When I commented on how I can't get any more out of the Dynaudios, I meant that I'm driving it with a mix of electronics that are a perfect match. The Dynaudios need some warmth or else they can sound too clinical - reason for the Class A amps and the Luxman Dac. I've reached that level of diminishing returns where I believe I'd have to spend a lot more to improve the system. It took me years to figure out what reviewers meant when they described a speaker as coherent. I finally get it. I can appreciate a well designed 2-way speaker with a simple crossover. The only other speaker that really intrigues me is the UBIQ AUDIO Model One. Btw, do you keep your Torus units on continually as I assume you don't want to be shutting down your front end electronics all the time? Thanks.

Thank you for your answers.

I don’t have any system put together and functioning at the moment.

If I get a Torus in the future I will get the balanced power version to power only the turntable and phono stage and line stage electronics. I would keep it on continually.

 

[Steve Williams]

I echo everyone's comments. Nicely planned and beautiful to look at

I like your thoughts about choice of preamp and amp

 

[howiebrou]

Beautiful clean setup. I bet it sounds lovely.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Gene, can I ask why diffusion was not advised for yr front wall? This is an area I'm really interested in, and there seems no consensus on use of diffusion in different rooms.

 

[PeterA]

Great looking room and system. Congratulations. I like the way the speakers are so far forward allowing the centrally placed rack and gear to be low and far behind the plane of the speakers. Could you describe the sound of the system and what, if any, your sonic priorities are and your music preferences?

 

[sujay]

Excellent room and a great looking set up. I agree that the Dynaudios need some warmth upstream. I have heard the Dyn sound good with the Burmester amps

 

[marty]

Just beautiful and clean, enjoy!

+1, beautiful system

 

[analyzer]

great system!
casually three days ago I listened to a very similar one; it's of a friend of mine where frequently I go for some listening.
Same speakers (Dynaudio C2) and same preamp (Spectral DMC-30SS (?). He use a Spectral 260 power amp and cabling is all Tara Labs.
Source he uses CD's (Emmlabs) and Vinyl (Linn LP12 at max upgrade).
Speakers are supported by an active separate subwoofer; very enjoying and balanced between detail and timbre, never harsh.
I'm sure that also your system sounds lovely!
Marco

 

[Gene 15352]

Gene, can I ask why diffusion was not advised for yr front wall? This is an area I'm really interested in, and there seems no consensus on use of diffusion in different rooms.

Gene, can I ask why diffusion was not advised for yr front wall? This is an area I'm really interested in, and there seems no consensus on use of diffusion in different rooms.

Well like you said there is no consensus on this subject. I've read a lot of posts right here on WBF while researching the topic. My room before treatments sounded a bit lively. Diffusers weren't going to dampen the room. I was careful to not overly dampen that's why the absorbers are only 1" thick. Btw, I have nothing on the rear walls behind my seating position. Perhaps I'll do some diy diffusers but right now everything sounds really good so I'll probably just leave it. The quote below was the correspondence that I received which made me stick with absorption panels. "Absorbing on the wall should be done with a natural fabric for best results — I prefer cotton twill over cotton batten, but wool is good too — a wall hanging with wool would do. Same in corners behind the speakers. Nothing in front because you have natural diffusion done by furniture in the room. Wanna test this? Take an upholstered chair put it between the speakers, slightly behind, of course. Sit and listen. Multi-fusers are for professional sound, such as recording studios — and they work well for them, BUT they are not the listeners like we are. We want to get this like an audience at the concert house. So, there is my take and I have many in the industry believing that I got it wrong and they use diffusers to show off the "professionalism"."

 

[spiritofmusic]

Gene, thanks for the input. My old room was extremely lively, harsh and overly reflective. My current room is way calmer, maybe borderline overly damped. I suspect some conservative diffusion could help.

It's certainly not easy to make the right decisions here. I have to 100% agree w you that what recording professionals and we are looking for are often two v different things.