Thread: Starting Point - Bob's new room and Alexia's new home

Nice room Bob. Complete with wine/beer fridge on right hand corner ?

The Wilson dealer came on Sunday and spent six hours WASPing the Alexias. They are pretty close to the back wall, much more than I would have imagined. And the tweeters are 12.25' apart, which has my listening position about 15' back. I had some older, broken in REF gear for the setup, then just swapped in my new REF10 and REF75 yesterday. I found new positions for them today, and they now have 4 hours.

I spent a couple hours listening tonight in the almost darkness, with the meters turned off. That little REF75 is quite the amp. It drives the Alexias fine. And the room sounds quite good even with only the tube traps in the corner. If I run the volume up into the 90+ db range I hear things getting a little reverberant and confused with rock and orchestra, so there is some work to be done acoustically, but not so much I am not enjoying the hell out of having music again. (And tonight with a nice little Italian red! Wine that is!)


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Originally Posted by Myles B. Astor

Try some KT 150s in the amps!

KT150 tubes are on my list... I thought I'd go ahead and run the amp through break-in using the stock tubes. Then, just when the amp is at its musical best, slip in the KT150s for even more sonic bliss.

Oh hell, why wait? I went ahead and ordered up a quad of KT150s. Bring on the sonic bliss!

Originally Posted by CPP

Bob a really nice room, now how can I fix this room

Nice digs!

I have an idea, we swap houses for week. You can enjoy the forest here, my sweet wife and I get some beach time!

Excellent Mike, thanks. I'll download that app. Did you use a specific test source with that tool?

Originally Posted by Myles B. Astor

Can't put anything past these eagle eyes!

That wine club membership sounds awesome!!!

I thought the thing that was missing was a turntable. Screw the wine!

Originally Posted by mep

I thought the thing that was missing was a turntable. Screw the wine!

Turntable is being setup, wine club deliveries coming frequently this time of year. In fact, I'm upping my count from the "rare washington wines club" because so far I'm really loving this club. Re the turntable, I just got a new stylus force gauge so can finally dial in the LPS.

And Mike, my brief and hasty pink noise test @85db shows my peak at 63hz and of course also its double @125. I'll get a little more granular later, to see just how high the bump is, but at first glance the overall response was amazingly flat.

Home ownership is so much fun!

When we bought our place we had identified some water seepage behind the fascia boards on our deck, even had a small holdback on purchase price for future repair. Last week we had the deck railing removed for repair, sandblasting, and powder-coating. It was severely rusted 'cause it wasn't made ready for the Great Pacific Northwet when originally made. That allowed the next contractor to remove the fascia boards to survey the extent of damage. Here's what we found. Great example of how to build a deck wrong...





Worse, we have to demo the rock columns to get access to where the beams attach. F me! I guess my music room modifications will have to wait a while.

Originally Posted by RedSectorA

Holy sh!T Bob, isn't that a fairly new house? Alot of work to be done there, man! Good luck with the repairs but I think it's going to be brutally expensive.

Yep, house is only 7 years old. Deck builder not the same as the home builder, so hopefully the main structure isn't enjoying the same fate. Up against the house all looks well. Damage appears to be isolated to the outer exposed portion of the deck. They completely wrapped the beams with a plastic flashing product, super stong glue. But they did some f'd up things too and didn't allow for moisture to escape, so once behind the pseudo flashing, water just hung around. Add some warm summer weather, some subterrainian termites ( they really like that dark wet environment) and Pacific Northwet winter rain, well, you can see the results. Add the cost of repair and powder coat for the railing, looks to be around $70K. That's more than I expected to pay to remodel the music room.

Ah well, first world problems. Many sharks are dealing with issues far more important than I.

Great thing though... Finally got the LPS tracking dialed in, and having played only a few albums so far, I can say the total system, with only 21 hours, sounds ohhhh so good. The REF10 paired with the REF75 and Alexias, now with the AMG/Benz feeding the Einstein Turntable's Choice, I'm just fucking thrilled! The sometimes strident sound I heard with the Sashas (v1) seems to have been a function of, IMHO, the titanium tweeter. I feel the leading edge of transients no longer has the slight sharpness I had heard before. A long way to go, but the musical joy is taking the edge off the home repairs. Sometimes you just gotta roll with what needs to be done, and thank God for the blessings you have.

Bob

I guess I just don't understand how you got to this point with the house if it was financed at all. In Florida, also a moisture State, you would have had to have a bank approved WDO inspection before they signed off on the mortgage. Any wood damage, rot or structural damage would have to be repaired by the seller before the buyers mortgage would be approved. Is it different there or did you pay in total and bypass all of those safeguards? Just wondering?

Originally Posted by Jack

Bob

I guess I just don't understand how you got to this point with the house if it was financed at all. In Florida, also a moisture State, you would have had to have a bank approved WDO inspection before they signed off on the mortgage. Any wood damage, rot or structural damage would have to be repaired by the seller before the buyers mortgage would be approved. Is it different there or did you pay in total and bypass all of those safeguards? Just wondering?

Inspections here limited to main structure, So the deck not technically included. We did get a small discount towards future repairs when we purchased, and with only 7 yo house never imagined things could be as bad as shown.

Originally Posted by Bobvin

Heh, heh! I was sure to have performed the wine test before buying the carpet. I poured a nice Brunello on a sample of the carpet; even rubbed it in good 'cause the lanolin in the wool just had it beaded up and sitting there. Then with some pure water 95% of the stain came right up. After a little enzyme cleaner there was no trace of Brunello... passed the WAF.

On the topic of wine, I joined a "rare washington wines" club recently. First time they opened the roster in 10 years. Now starting to get deliveries of various Washington wines I'd not have much access to as the limited production usually has these sold out before I learn about them.

Its going to be a good autumn and winter. System finally coming together, and lots of wine to drink. Now I need to be sure there's an equal amount of new vinyl

Bob with the wine i hope you did the ass grinding test too.......

Originally Posted by CPP

Bob a really nice room, now how can I fix this room

Bit of mdf on the top of the structural top to bottom axis will work good there, probably coated matt black for sonics...

Originally Posted by Bobvin

Yep, house is only 7 years old. Deck builder not the same as the home builder, so hopefully the main structure isn't enjoying the same fate. Up against the house all looks well. Damage appears to be isolated to the outer exposed portion of the deck. They completely wrapped the beams with a plastic flashing product, super stong glue. But they did some f'd up things too and didn't allow for moisture to escape, so once behind the pseudo flashing, water just hung around. Add some warm summer weather, some subterrainian termites ( they really like that dark wet environment) and Pacific Northwet winter rain, well, you can see the results. Add the cost of repair and powder coat for the railing, looks to be around $70K. That's more than I expected to pay to remodel the music room.

Ah well, first world problems. Many sharks are dealing with issues far more important than I.

Great thing though... Finally got the LPS tracking dialed in, and having played only a few albums so far, I can say the total system, with only 21 hours, sounds ohhhh so good. The REF10 paired with the REF75 and Alexias, now with the AMG/Benz feeding the Einstein Turntable's Choice, I'm just fucking thrilled! The sometimes strident sound I heard with the Sashas (v1) seems to have been a function of, IMHO, the titanium tweeter. I feel the leading edge of transients no longer has the slight sharpness I had heard before. A long way to go, but the musical joy is taking the edge off the home repairs. Sometimes you just gotta roll with what needs to be done, and thank God for the blessings you have.

Sorry to see this, have had the same in buying a new place & it really blows chunks!!!!. All is good, let the V12 sing! Bound to fix most allergies. Congrats on a great looking room Bob, this really gave me a warm fuzzy to come back to this thread & see what you've been up to. Beautiful room,great components, gorgeous table, bliss.......

Gulp! That's one bit of rot! Very sorry for you, especially after all the waiting. Hope you get this sorted soon.
Chris

Sounds like live music?

Yesterday in my home was crazy. Decorating outfit we'd hired to dress up our new home delivered new rugs and some furniture. They also have a unique approach... bring two large vans full of "stuff" including mirrors and a crap-load of knicks and knacks, and basically try to decorate your home in one fell-swoop. Three young men to hang pictures, move furniture, place rugs and cut rug pads, and three design types to create settings then ask what we like and don't like. If you don't like something, it goes back in the van to the store. Keep what you like. As both my wife and I have a taste for fine furnishings, but no ability to decorate, it was a great result. But insane--people moving all throughout the house moving shit around repeatedly, total chaos, and for 5 hours! There is a little ways to go but we're 95% 'decorated' upstairs.

As for myself, it created a lot of anxiety, along with stone masons rebuilding the rock columns outside, and the carpenters working on the deck, other guys pouring some concrete, ugh!

So I head downstairs to listen to some music. Of course, the floorplan is open so its distributed audio to the upper floor. One of the designers happens to also be a musician who plays keyboards. She comes downstairs and admits being shocked she didn't find me playing the piano. I had some George Winston on the turntable. She was convinced she was hearing a real piano being played.

After the dust settled a bit, I invited her downstairs for 'just one song' and played the first cut, side A, of the Bluenote classic "Something Else". She sat in the prime position and I watched her eyes close and her toes begin tapping. When the song was over she stated "I've never heard anything like that, it seemed the musicians were right there in the room playing."

That, to me, is one thing I love about having great kit... sharing, even if only briefly, what recorded music can sound like in your own home!

Oh yes, indeed, along with the little Alfa Romeo Spyder I drove for many years after I left the university. And if I could have my 57 year old brain in my mid-twenties body! Then I'd have been happy to find some magnetic chics.

Not sure what you mean "rainscreen?"

But in regards the deck repair, we now have a 'system' for ensuring water that might ever get to the beams is channeled away and won't have anopportunity to stick around. Involves a lot of custom flashing, drainable wrap, firring strips, and WR Grace plastic flashing behind every joist hanger. Its a lot of overkill, given pressure treated gluelams which I think were not used originally. I think they used untreated gluelams and tried wrapping them in WRGrace plastic flashing, leaving no escape route for water.