Thread: Chops' Current System Pics ....

Originally Posted by kzhtoo

You don’t have to “give me” anything. Lol It was pretty obvious to me it was a mistake.

OMG, that is a figure of speech... It means I agree with you for the most part... Please, I don't want to derail Charles' thread. Thank you.

6FQ7's now in place along with the 6CG7's...

Did a thing today... Been itching for a while for some DIY action, and I've had these sitting at the other house for a few years now doing nothing. Figured I'd get them fired back up and actually finish them off properly.

Here's the quick and dirty. And please excuse the mess at the moment in the room. There's been a lot going on in this room today. LOL

The dbx Driverack Venu 360 still had all of the crossover and level settings, as well as the old EQ settings for the old room. Just ran the "Auto EQ". Sounding better than I imagined it would, especially since they just replaced the Martin Logan's. In fact, these are doing extremely good right now.

The little silver amps are the Nuprime STA 9's that I used to own and sold to one of my brothers a while back. The Emotiva is powering the Audio Nirvana fullrange drivers, the top STA 9 is powering the Eminence woofers, the bottom STA 9 is only there to send a signal to the JL subs.

More to come!

And what about the cats? They look happy!


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Originally Posted by Hounddog

And what about the cats? They look happy!


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That's Trouble (left) and Charlie (right), the stereo kitties. LOL They are brother and sister, and they do in fact enjoy the music. And they also love those new little beds that we got them.

Been tweaking speaker positioning more, adjusting levels, crossover points and such. Really getting these dialed in. The result of all that work was that the AutoEQ in the dbx Venu 360 had to implement a lot less in order to make corrections.
Afterwards, I played my reference songs from Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight, I Don't Care Anymore, and Genesis - Mama. Songs/albums that I have lived and breathed for the past 30+ years. Also Carley Simon -Coming Around Again and Sting - Why Should I Cry For You and When The Angels Fall.

Especially while playing the Phil Collins and Genesis tracks, tonight was the first time in a very long time that my system made me get chills down my spine and actually start laughing to myself because how damn good it sounded! The last time this happened was when I was running HUGE open baffles back in the early 2000's with Usher Audio 15" drivers and Altec Voice Of The Theater 511B horns and 908-8b drivers. And this system is more refined than that system was, and much smaller by comparison!

Sheer dynamic swing, purely effortless slam, in-the-room vocals and drums, stage width and depth galore! And the naturalness and realistic presentation of it all... And this is STILL with the flimsy temp baffles and only one bass driver per side. I still have six more of these Eminence Acoustinator N2012 drivers to install (three per channel).

This is the RTA on the dbx Venu 360 after all the tweaking and running AutoEQ again, now with a lot less processing needed.

Doesn't get much better than that.
Job well done.
DIY can be very rewarding (sometimes not). Plus you learn a lot and have fun doing it.

Originally Posted by jadedavid

Doesn't get much better than that.
Job well done.
DIY can be very rewarding (sometimes not). Plus you learn a lot and have fun doing it.

Thank you, sir!

I was contemplating selling those fullrange drivers and that dbx a while back. I'm so glad that I didn't. This combo just does so much right, and I still can't get over the kind of treble that a 12" driver is capable of. The last bit of EQ that the dbx does is right at 8 kHz, with a 2 dB increase which was to correct for a 5 dB suck-out at that frequency. Everything above that, there's no EQ at all. It truly does sound like a pair of really good tweeters in the system, very open and airy, very comparable to my brother's Maggie 1.7i's treble.

These speakers as a whole are so clear, open and transparent. The bass is very tight, punchy and detailed to the gills.

Because the baffles are so narrow and nearly non-existent around the fullrange driver, the drivers start rolling off around 200 Hz, so I have those drivers crossed over at 100 Hz @ 12 dB. Everything that those drivers cover... Holy cow! That's really all I can say. Width, depth, height, size, imaging, naturalness, refinement... It's all there.

And with the subs rolled off sharply at 60 Hz @ 48 dB, integration with the OB's is seamless. They don't even seem to be there, just a natural extension of the OB's... The way it should be. And the expanse of the bass just swaths over the entire room like a large blanket of sound.

I know it sounds like I'm "gushing" over this setup, but I really can't help it. It really does sound that good.

Also, I see you run DIY OB subs. I would love to run OB subs again, but this room is just too small for OB subs that are large enough to dig deep enough.

Added this to my collection of music enjoyment... HiBy R5 Saber & BGVP DM8 IEM's, running balanced naturally. Use a pair of Bluetooth JayBird Vista's for at work, also with the HiBy.

I run both Qobuz and Tidal on the HiBy. Not sure if I will put Roon on it or not. But I do have a 256 Gb mini SD card installed but about 25 albums downloaded from Tidal so far.

To add to all of my other hifi goodies, I now have a solid headphone rig comprising of a Topping A90 amp and S.M.S.L M400 DAC connected with a 1 foot pair of Worlds Best Cables "Amphenol" Canare XLR cables. Headphones are a pair of Hifiman Sundara's with Hart Audio HC-9 balanced cable. Source is yet another Raspberry Pi4 running RopieeeXL, USB into the M400.

Replaced the cheap USB cable with a short 1' Pangea cable. Also purchased a cheap red power cable to go along with the blue one I've had laying around for a few years.

The USB cable is meant as an upgrade obviously, but the power cables are just for looks and better cable management since the back of the stack is right out in the open for everyone to see.

Been at it again... Simplified the system, changed speakers again, and purchased a Sony Blu-ray player...

Swapped out a power cable this morning...

JL subs pulled out of the system and going on the market soon...

Very nice room.......looks like a relaxing place.

Love your kitties

Some more Tara Labs cables, because why not?...

Where did you get the US style wall box from?

Originally Posted by brodricj

Where did you get the US style wall box from?

Well, I'm in the US, so...

Nice jumpers Chops.!!!

Did you hear some sonic difference after installing them..?

I have Chord Epic Twin jumpers in my Paradigm´s S6 but regretfully no further improvements after installation.

Originally Posted by Fer1000

Nice jumpers Chops.!!!

Did you hear some sonic difference after installing them..?

I have Chord Epic Twin jumpers in my Paradigm´s S6 but regretfully no further improvements after installation.

After letting the new jumpers cook for the past couple of days, it seems that the top end is just a touch cleaner sounding and the interaction between the woofers and tweeter are a bit more cohesive. Then again, the stock metal gold plated straps on these Klipsch were pretty cheesy.

A few mini reviews of the latest cable upgrades...

Tara Labs The One AC Power Cable...

There’s a few things I’ve noticed with The One cable, but nothing earth shattering.

One thing I was getting with both these Klipsch and the previous Audio Nirvana fullrange drivers (due to their high efficiency) was a notable amount of hiss, even at the listening position. It wasn’t loud, but you could hear it in between tracks. Once I replaced the Wireworld Aurora 7 cable with this Tara Labs “The One”, that hiss has been reduced to almost nothing. If you get about a foot away from the tweeter, you can hear the tiniest bit of hiss, but nothing like it was.

Probably due to the greatly reduced hiss, the overall sound just sounds cleaner and more personal, if that makes sense. Kind of like if the room had some acoustic treatments added. It’s hard to explain.

Bass weight and tactile punch is vastly improved. Where I noticed this first and mostly was at very low listening levels, typically where loudspeakers lack extension and punch. Of course, those improvements remain at higher volume levels as well.

With more listening over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed that the midrange is more palpable and three dimensional.

The really neat thing about all of this is, since I have both cables, I can (and did actually) swap them back and forth for comparisons, easily repeating the effects from both cables on the spot. The improvements are noticeable, so much so that even my girlfriend heard the same changes, and she has slight hearing loss in one ear.


Tara Labs The One CX Speaker Cables...

After getting these Klipsch RP-F8000's in the room, I tried several difference speaker cables including my old Wireworld Oasis 7 bi-wire, Audioquest CV-8, and a pair of Monster Z2 Reference, which these were the ones I ended up keeping on the Klipsch. I've never really cared for the WW Oasis 7's as they were a bit too lean in the bass and upper bass and smeared or something strange on the top end. The AQ CV-8's were decent but a little too harsh and/or forward in the midrange. The M Z2 Ref were surprisingly pretty decent and more pleasing than the other two, though lacked bass and midrange detail, and just a touch of grain on the top end.

With the Tara The One CX, it's a little more like the Tara power cable with a little more weight and tactile force in the bass and mid-bass. There's more speed and detail throughout. Treble is clean and detailed, yet also silky at the same time. Soundstage is a bit wider and open. There's more sense of space in the recordings.


Nordost Odin 2 Balanced Cable...

Let me just start this off by saying that these cables are extremely hard to find on the used market. It's even harder than that to find them at a price that I can stomach (next to impossible)!

The sound?... Holy smokes!

These are between the Freya+ preamp and Emotive XPA-2 Gen 2 amp, replacing a pair of WireWorld Oasis 7 XLR's.

Right off the bat, one thing I really like about these cables are the Holo Plug XLR connectors. No locking mechanisms of any kind, but they fit so snug and securely, there's zero need for locking mechanisms like traditional connectors. They look great, feel great, and fit perfectly. No wiggle or sag. By far the best solution I've seen.

Similar to the Tara power cable, these Odin 2's make things dead silent. This silence allows these cables to dig in deep for all of the minute details berried in the recordings. This also increases dynamics and speed. It's almost as if I'm feeding my speakers more power and you can actually sense the velocity of the sound, if that makes sense... Probably not.

The Odin 2's add even more weight and solidity to the ever so important midrange, giving both male and female vocals real life scale and force. There's more soundstage depth and openness to be had and the treble shares that same depth and openness; airy without being "tizzy" or fatiguing. It's just there, clean and pure.

I'm feverishly searching and searching for another pair of these Odin 2's to go from my Bifrost 2 DAC to the Freya + preamp. That will complete my interconnects since those are the only two in the entire system, luckily.



I think what's most amazing about all of this is the equipment and speakers these cables are connected to, more so the speakers. The fact that these Klipsch RP-F8000's DON'T sound like Klipsch speakers at all is a triumph of its own. The only trait they have with Klipsch is dynamics, and with 500 watts on tap, they have plenty of dynamics when needed. They're so naturally lively and life-like and snappy with no effort. The sound never sounds "forced" into the room.

The 8000's never get harsh or honky, bright or in your face, and believe it not, they never get fatiguing. Bass extends deep, well into the mid-20's in my room, very taut, detailed and punchy. Midrange is clear and natural sounding with plenty of detail retrieval, and the treble is clean, accurate and open.

If I'm shocked/surprised about anything in my system it's these speakers. The kind of sound they produce for their price point is nothing short of amazing. Out of all of the speakers I have, these are by far my favorites. And the fact that they can easily display the changes that all of these new cables make to the system is excellent. Whatever the cables do to the system, these speakers let you know.


Just for reference, here's a few albums that I've used over the past few weeks to help evaluate the cable changes...








And just today, listened to this album. Actually very good sounding and the music isn't too bad either. Not what I would usually listen to, but it's a pleasant change of pace. Nothing wrong with trying something new.

Now running Monitor Audio Bronze 500's...

Do you belong to a "Speaker of the month club"? LOL

What about the Klipsch decided you to move in a different direction.....?....if you don’t mind me asking......

Originally Posted by MRJAZZ

What about the Klipsch decided you to move in a different direction.....?....if you don’t mind me asking......

Nothing actually. I just wanted to give these a try is all.

Originally Posted by jadedavid

Do you belong to a "Speaker of the month club"? LOL

I hope someone is keeping track Is this speaker pair #5, #6 or #7 in the past 12 months? Do they even have a chance to break-in before moving on?

Originally Posted by jadedavid

Do you belong to a "Speaker of the month club"? LOL

Originally Posted by rbbert

I hope someone is keeping track Is this speaker pair #5, #6 or #7 in the past 12 months? Do they even have a chance to break-in before moving on?

Who cares? And the system literally runs 24/7. You figure it out.


Quite frankly, I'm getting tired of people saying crap about me changing speakers from time to time. Don't like it? Keep quiet and move on. Simple as that.

I don't think anyone is criticizing, we're just interested. For example: are you trying to (essentially) demo a bunch of speakers to see what you might want to settle with longer term? are you just interested in a variety of different sonic palettes? are you getting frustrated trying to find something you like?

There are all kinds of philosophies in this hobby, and since yours appears relatively unusual I think the rest of us might like to be able to understand your approach a little better.

Originally Posted by rbbert

I don't think anyone is criticizing, we're just interested. For example: are you trying to (essentially) demo a bunch of speakers to see what you might want to settle with longer term? are you just interested in a variety of different sonic palettes? are you getting frustrated trying to find something you like?

There are all kinds of philosophies in this hobby, and since yours appears relatively unusual I think the rest of us might like to be able to understand your approach a little better.

There's a few reasons, but mainly because I want to streamline the system with minimal clutter, get the sound I want with the right amount of detail and refinement, as well as sonically, visually and physically "fitting" the room.

It sounds as if my first possibility is most likely? Once you find the sound you like you may stay with one pair of speakers for a couple of years or more?

Most likely.

And as of right now, the Klipsch are back in place. Just reinstalled them about an hour ago. Even though the Monitor Audio's are great speakers, they just fall short in more areas where the Klipsch are just stronger in those same areas and several others. Quite a surprise actually as I was expecting the MA's to outperform the Klipsch in almost all aspects.

Originally Posted by chops

Most likely.

And as of right now, the Klipsch are back in place. Just reinstalled them about an hour ago. Even though the Monitor Audio's are great speakers, they just fall short in more areas where the Klipsch are just stronger in those same areas and several others. Quite a surprise actually as I was expecting the MA's to outperform the Klipsch in almost all aspects.

The latest generation of Klipsch speakers are much better than their previous ones.....Especially their HERITAGE series. Check out the Cornwall IV....
Cheers....

Originally Posted by MRJAZZ

The latest generation of Klipsch speakers are much better than their previous ones.....Especially their HERITAGE series. Check out the Cornwall IV....
Cheers....

Any of the Heritage line with the exception of the Heresy IV are way too large for this room. But like you said, this latest generation of Klipsch loudspeakers are really good. It's why I like these 8000F's so much, because other than their better than average efficiency and great dynamics, they sound nothing like Klipsch.


Here's a little "review" I just posted in another forum because a member asked me about my thoughts/findings between the Klipsch and Monitor Audio towers...

"Definitely the Klipsch. They do a LOT more right.

The Klipsch's tonality remains the same no matter how quiet or loud you play them. With the MA's, you have to turn them up a fair bit for them to open up and start sounding good. To "wake them up" so to speak.

The Klipsch's treble is more refined. They easily reproduce those airy, light, delicate cues in music that the MA's just completely mask over. I mean, you hear them from the MA's, but it's like they are trying to do something they aren't capable of doing. Hard to explain.

Vocals and midrange in general is more open and natural through the Klipsch. They produce more space, width and depth with really good layering, detail retrieval and a super solid phantom center image and pin-point stage imaging.

With the Klipsch, there's more texture and energy upper bass, lower mid-bass region, giving you solid impact from drums, piano and the like. Low-end bass extension may seem greater with the MA's, but I'm beginning to think it only "seems" that way because there's simply more energy above that low bass with the Klipsch as I just mentioned, which slightly makes that low bass a bit more subdued.

The things that stand out with the MA's is that upper bass/lower mid-bass is a bit too soft around the leading edges, the midrange/vocal region seems congested a lot of the times, the treble is a little too etchy/unrefined, and the only way to get a solid center image in my room is to have them placed about one foot closer together and toed in almost directly at my ears, which doesn't guarantee that it remains anchored to the center all the time, and absolutely kills stage width and depth."

Back to the Monitor Audio Bronze 500's again... Just to give them another shot.

There’s no rules that say we have to listen to the same speakers all the time.

Originally Posted by steve59

There’s no rules that say we have to listen to the same speakers all the time.

This is true!

Originally Posted by Bobvin

Well this setup has to be better, the cat is in the room!

At any given time, there's at least one cat in the room with me. Sometimes, all five are in the room at the same time, but then it's almost like an anechoic chamber in here. LOL

Hehe... there is usually one with me when I am listening.... Five, holy cow... I thought we were bad with a third one on the way... she was just born and we have to start getting the house ready for a new little one. Really excited about this one....

Originally Posted by Randy Myers

Hehe... there is usually one with me when I am listening.... Five, holy cow... I thought we were bad with a third one on the way... she was just born and we have to start getting the house ready for a new little one. Really excited about this one....

At one point, we had seven kitties. That was when we were still living in the apartment. In fact, the complex only allowed you three pets, we had 7, and only registered one of them with the complex. They wanted a $350 deposit for the first one and $250 for each additional one, hence why I we only let them know about the one.

Makes me remember why I absolutely hate apartments so much. Never again. And don't get me started on the extremely poor parking issues at that place...

My wife is nervous about the third one coming; she would loose her mind with 5 or 7 . She thinks that one of our current ones might have an issue with her.... I think it will be fine...

The old one (Kit) is the music listener... the younger one (Peanut, well he is like 7 now) gets into issues with the Kit because he tries to play too much and Kit wants nothing to do with it.

The new one was just born so we are excited to meet her... a little girl Bengal! So I think Peanut will have his hands full in his playful endeavors! Marliegh will run circles around him in just a few months .

Kit, Peanut and Marliegh... I really like those names. I'm sure once the kitten is around, Peanut will have his "paws" full. Marliegh will keep him occupied and hopefully not upset Kit so much.

Yea, we are hoping that. I think my wife picked Marleigh as her name spelling. I think I spelled it wrong up above. Looking forward to her. Supposed to be quite the bundle of energy .

Well, some big changes coming soon.

We just closed on a house, so in a month or so, things are going to be stirred up a bit. We're excited about it as well as dreading it all at the same time. I don't think anyone likes moving, but it will be for the last time for an extremely long time!

Congratz Charles! Moving into a house of your own is always exciting.

I really hate moving, and the entire process of getting a new house. Cheryal and I sometimes talk about moving when I retire (2 years and 1 week as of today ), but the whole thought of going through that process again just makes me twitch. On the plus side, any place we go will cost a ton less than it does here... but there are pros and cons every place you go... here on the Central Coast we have maybe the most perfect weather on the planet .

Your system is looking good... you have to use the speakers that you like the most in your budget. I too am trying a different speaker. I am trying to get smaller more room friendly speakers. Kind of sick of large unruly speakers .

Charles I feel your pain with your upcoming move. I moved this past year but gained a much better listening space. Will this be the case at your new place? Good luck with the new transition.

Originally Posted by chops

Well, some big changes coming soon.

We just closed on a house, so in a month or so, things are going to be stirred up a bit. We're excited about it as well as dreading it all at the same time. I don't think anyone likes moving, but it will be for the last time for an extremely long time!