Visit to Marc C.'s (SpiritOfMusic's) House in England

[kantx]

What about Townshend Corners for Tune Audio Animas ?

 

[spiritofmusic]

Why are we talking Animas? Those won't ever be on any spkrs list for me.

 

[bonzo75]

Why are we talking Animas? Those won't ever be on any spkrs list for me.

Because of your animated forum personality, he must have confused you

 

[spiritofmusic]

Makes sense.

 

[spiritofmusic]

There are times you should really listen to your trusted audio friends and take on board their advice. Both compadres Blue58/Barry and Audiophile Bill have pleaded w me many times to move my Westwick 8kVA balanced power transformer outside my listening room, due to its high levels of electro-mechanical buzzing...65kg of toroidal transformer in a non damped thin steel chassis is a recipe for trouble.
Indeed Barry promised never to return until sorted (or is that because of my Zus?), and Bill rolls his eyes the longer I didn't get it done.
Well the Westwick installer returned yesterday, and today I'm listening with the unit the other side of my wall in the stairwell area.
The results are as Barry and Bill predicted, and I was reluctant to imagine.
With my CDP there is a palpable increase in energy as the reduction of noise in my room is opening up audibility of higher frequencies, the sound off CD just leaping into the room, but no hint of hardness.
The change off vinyl is a tad more subtle, but it's highly evident in much more clarity thru mids, a good deal more transparency, bringing a great deal more realness to vinyl listening.
Even just quietly listening to the sound of (closer to) silence in my room w no music playing, and there's a greater peace and calm to the room ambient itself.
I do kick myself for not sorting this before now, and yes, my tail is between my legs as the "told you so!" responses from Barry and Bill have come in.
One additional word on my new Namiki-sourced Boron SDS-5 stylus on my Straingauge. I've just clocked 100 LPs listened to since the start of the year, and so compelling is the newfound sense of tone, bloom, warmth and bass articulation, to add to pre-existing strengths of speed, transient dynamics and timbral accuracy, that I haven't even once thought about playing a CD.
That compares to the recent past where more often than not I slipped into CD autopilot.
I'm calling that as major benefit as I can imagine, and this is being rounded out by the upticks from Platinum Bocchino IEC on SOTA/Farad motor to TT motor, and my PETs/CosyWool bass traps acoustics fit out to my room.

 

[PeterA]

Mark, congratulations. I commend you for keeping all of the effects of the various tweaks sorted out and sonically separated. And with no vague descriptors of the sound. It’s a good way to start out the new year.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Mark, congratulations. I commend you for keeping all of the effects of the various tweaks sorted out and sonically separated. And with no vague descriptors of the sound. It’s a good way to start out the new year.

Peter, I'll freely admit, I've always talked a good fight, but realised when I visited better sounding systems that my project had way more work to go. Indeed early visitors to my system (and previous systems) in London often looked at me in despair. And told me what they thought.
However you've also gotta have the courage of your convictions and if you feel your core sound has positives and communicates enjoyment, find out how you can improve things.
So, two things became super apparent with our big change away from London. First, just how poor and debilitating to my sound my old apartment acoustics and dirty mains power were. Second, that a move to a regular diet of live classical (fortnightly concerts on average) give me a new "benchmark" to aim my sound for/measure how far short I am. Third, realisation that noise really is the enemy, both mains-borne, but also from some of my gear, and critically, acoustically/room-derived.
Throw in my exposure to a small handful of fantastic sounds (Bill's TMayer 46 tubes/bespoke horns, Montesquieu/Tom's vintage 124 idler/Tannoys, Blue58/Barry's Extreme/45 tubes, UK Paul's Concert Fidelity/modded ML Spires), and a bunch more that missed the mark for me, and I'm now getting a clearer idea of a destination and how to get there, documented on this thread.
I'll freely admit, it was very hard a while back to shake off the feeling that I'd hit the rocks in my creaky old rowing boat after spending some time in Bill's sleek horns-based super-yacht, but I also realised I share some of his DNA in my sound (tubes, high efficiency spkrs), ditto Tom's sound is reflected a little in my rim drive TT and full range drivers Zus. Barry's sound is less relatable to mine, nothing really compares to the Extreme, it really is its own animal.
So, my journey to my hugely rewarding current place started as I sorted my analog setup, boosted by Stacore isolation, impvd version of my chosen LT arm, SOTA motor and quite amazing stylus change. Preamp noise was finally banished by finding those oh so precious Brent Jessee tubes, room acoustics went from excellent to exemplary w my PETs/CosyWool bass traps fit out, and now added bonuses like my way too delayed elimination of system balanced transformer noise.
How I feel confident I'm getting it right?
LPs like Philips pressing Bartok/The Wooden Prince isn't crushed into a wall of sound like it was back in London, but is way more colorful and varied and expressive, Tone Poets reissues of Blue Notes' Wayne Shorter/Etc., Chick Corea/Now He Sings Now He Sobs, Herbie Hancock/The Prisoner all sound vital and immersive, warm and textured, and my bread and butter prog/fusion like Brand X/Unorthodox Behaviour isn't the previous mix of bass slam and dynamics only, but the mix now reveals itself as way more subtle amongst all the fireworks.
Critically timbral accuracy which is something I never valued has really become underscored meaning a classical LP at home is not the vastly different experience from live it used to be. Jazz feels truly realistic as different instruments, not an amalgam of everything. And this means my previous cloying homogeneity is being banished, every LP is a new tonal experience, I now never know what to expect, making me even more addicted to LP listening than ever before.
And for the first time since we moved here 6 years ago, I'm settling down w my system, now just fine tuning, and instead buying, and listening to, a stack of LPs, classical and jazz, I subliminally stayed away from in the past, so coloured and crushed did my system make these sound.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Andro, hifi is certainly a trick.
But very little of it is cheap Lol.
However, £50 Rockwool in a communicating hatch, £500 on a new improved stylus, £250 on removing a major source of noise.
Less than £1k has upped the ante in ways that 10x that budget could easily...miss the trick.

 

[andromedaaudio]

I deleted the message as i thought it was a bit of a " cheap " comment , lol .

An Upgrade is an upgrade .
The only downside of my power amp is some transformer hum .
Dead silent backgrounds are better

 

[spiritofmusic]

Hey, Andro, I've had FAR worse.
Someone once posted a 15 mins YT video on psychic surgery aimed at me. I *think* the point was that I was a sap.
Well, I'm still here, and that dealer isn't exactly doing brilliantly in business, so I'll take that Lol.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Marc,

I'm very glad you're happy with this change. (I made the same suggestion when I saw that big box on the listening room side of the wall.)

As a natural skeptic of many tweaks there is one tweak that no one needs to be skeptical about: the reduction of audible noise in the listening room, whether emanating from something inside the listening room or from noise outside of the listening room.

I am sure that getting that noisy box outside of your listening room pays dividends up and down the frequency spectrum. Great work!

PS: Since I can't make any progress on the listening room while we are dead in the water on several house repair fronts I sometimes spend time doing things like hunting down sources of noise which are audible in the listening room. This is pretty annoying but I have discovered that if I want to minimize the ambient noise floor of the listening room I have to

-- turn off the wine refrigerator in the adjacent kitchen (doable)

-- turn off the refrigerator and the freezer in the adjacent kitchen (not doable)

-- turn off some device in-line with my water heater controller in the garage (doable)

-- turn off the air conditioning zone in which the listening room is located (not doable if I want to wear clothes with the VTLs on)

-- turn off the wine refrigerator in the living room (doable)

Doing the doable things reduces the noise significantly, but it's very frustrating to know that there still are noise makers of any kind affecting the noise level in the listening room.

Marc, you (and Marty and MikeL and Jfrech and Steve and David and many others) are very lucky that you have a dedicated space over which you have complete control!

 

[spiritofmusic]

Well Ron, you're absolutely right, and I was certainly remiss in being so lazy (stubborn?) in not sorting this before. Ironically I could have done this on day one early 2017, before you visited, but obviously passed over the opportunity.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Marc,

congrats on your free system upgrade. those are the very best kind......and most satisfying. just because your buddies suggested it does not take away the good vibe it delivers. had many such experiences too. humble is a pie simply eaten and savored.....i'm an expert at it. ridding the system of noise helps every single thing.

nice about your stylus upgrade too. you are starting off 22' in fine fashion.

cheers,

Mike

 

[spiritofmusic]

Mike, thanks for the kind words. 2022 looks like a Red Letter year for many, XMOS on Extreme, a certain SOTA Spanish DAC/server, Horizon, and a bunch of people I know who've hit on their best ever sound. I'm gatecrashing into that latter group.
For me, it's reward for sticking with a specific approach and choice of gear (or is that vice versa?), getting hugely lucky w this room, running w that ball, and then having the data points (live classical, friendly contacts w fantastic systems) to tailor where I currently have got to.
The new stylus is kinda luck too, because it's effectively a new component upgrade, so positive is the change here, but at a fraction of the cost of a new cart and phono. This uptick beyond any expectation because it was never promised.
Not moving my feisty transformer before now? I'll just put that down to stubbornness to accept I needed to, and laziness to get on with it.
Procrastination never got anything done Lol.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Marc,

I'm very glad you're happy with this change. (I made the same suggestion when I saw that big box on the listening room side of the wall.)

As a natural skeptic of many tweaks there is one tweak that no one needs to be skeptical about: the reduction of audible noise in the listening room, whether emanating from something inside the listening room or from noise outside of the listening room.

I am sure that getting that noisy box outside of your listening room pays dividends up and down the frequency spectrum. Great work!

PS: Since I can't make any progress on the listening room while we are dead in the water on several house repair fronts I sometimes spend time doing things like hunting down sources of noise which are audible in the listening room. This is pretty annoying but I have discovered that if I want to minimize the ambient noise floor of the listening room I have to

-- turn off the wine refrigerator in the adjacent kitchen (doable)

-- turn off the refrigerator and the freezer in the adjacent kitchen (not doable)

-- turn off some device in-line with my water heater controller in the garage (doable)

-- turn off the air conditioning zone in which the listening room is located (not doable if I want to wear clothes with the VTLs on)

-- turn off the wine refrigerator in the living room (doable)

Doing the doable things reduces the noise significantly, but it's very frustrating to know that there still are noise makers of any kind affecting the noise level in the listening room.

Marc, you (and Marty and MikeL and Jfrech and Steve and David and many others) are very lucky that you have a dedicated space over which you have complete control!

Ron, it's really not that simple. With the renovation here I had a pretty blank canvas, so installed a beefier house circuit breaker at 100A, drew the line to the loft from before the split to the rest of the chapel, and then installed a dedicated consumer unit in the loft for exclusive use of my balanced transformer, thence six dedicated lines to six duplexes.
I believe I'm immune from fridge/freezer issues, and we don't run HVAC. However things like vacuum cleaners do pump DC back into the system, and this may "backwash" into my system. Luckily that's just sporadic use...can you imagine if Tang's crazed cleaner was here, she'd be testing my patience vacuuming 24/7.
Maybe Mike gets away w the lowest noise of all.
My issues on noise are that I have multiple sources...balanced transformer and LT arm air pump (now both out of the room), noisier than ideal preamp (Brent Jessee sourced tubes the current solution), hum from Zu sub amps (still working on a solution).

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Mike, thanks for the kind words. 2022 looks like a Red Letter year for many, XMOS on Extreme, a certain SOTA Spanish DAC/server, Horizon, and a bunch of people I know who've hit on their best ever sound. I'm gatecrashing into that latter group.
For me, it's reward for sticking with a specific approach and choice of gear (or is that vice versa?), getting hugely lucky w this room, running w that ball, and then having the data points (live classical, friendly contacts w fantastic systems) to tailor where I currently have got to.
The new stylus is kinda luck too, because it's effectively a new component upgrade, so positive is the change here, but at a fraction of the cost of a new cart and phono. This uptick beyond any expectation because it was never promised.
Not moving my feisty transformer before now? I'll just put that down to stubbornness to accept I needed to, and laziness to get on with it.
Procrastination never got anything done Lol.

took me 10 years to fix my room. that was a 'me' problem, the room was waiting all that time. it cost almost nothing to do it. i had inklings about it that i never paid attention to. i can beat myself up for not doing it sooner, but we are on our own personal journeys and we do things when we get to it. i wish i was smarter, but i'm not.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Sure Mike, good to know we're not all super efficient, even the best of us leave it to another day.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, it's really not that simple. With the renovation here I had a pretty blank canvas, so installed a beefier house circuit breaker at 100A, drew the line to the loft from before the split to the rest of the chapel, and then installed a dedicated consumer unit in the loft for exclusive use of my balanced transformer, thence six dedicated lines to six duplexes.
I believe I'm immune from fridge/freezer issues, and we don't run HVAC. However things like vacuum cleaners do pump DC back into the system, and this may "backwash" into my system. Luckily that's just sporadic use...can you imagine if Tang's crazed cleaner was here, she'd be testing my patience vacuuming 24/7.
Maybe Mike gets away w the lowest noise of all.
My issues on noise are that I have multiple sources...balanced transformer and LT arm air pump (now both out of the room), noisier than ideal preamp (Brent Jessee sourced tubes the current solution), hum from Zu sub amps (still working on a solution).

Don't vacuum while you're playing music.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Certainly not when I'm flipping an LP over...

 

[howiebrou]

I also found a jump in SQ when I turn off the filtration system in my olympic sized swimming pool and my car wash. I'm gonna see what happens when i dim the lights in my aircraft hanger next...