Hi from Washington DC Condo

Hi Mike,
We are in a high rise condo, steel and concrete construction. It is like a bank vault. Pre-coronavirus when most people have been at work during the day I was able to crank it up, although not near the level of my big Tannoy’s in the single family house. I haven’t had any complaints yet, so fingers crossed.
 
I like the painting, big and bold! I have some limited issue prints that always get a response from guests who haven’t seen them before. Always a smile and a conversation that follows.
 
I like the painting, big and bold! I have some limited issue prints that always get a response from guests who haven’t seen them before. Always a smile and a conversation that follows.
 
NEW ELECTRONICS- BOULDER 866

Continuing my audio saga, I was very happy with my Fyne F1-10 speakers, but I had the feeling that my Ayre integrated amp and Transparent cables were not the best match for them. But how do you find the best match in a world of fewer brick and mortar stores? How do you know which will work best with your speakers? You could read reviews, but they only reflect the reviewers opinion, in their room with their equipment. You could travel all over the country listening, but how will that aural memory translate to your system in your room? And cables- what a rabbit hole. I decided on another alternative- find a dealer who has my speakers and a lot of electronics, and is willing to stick their neck out with an unequivocal recommendation.

I had been a lurker/poster on Audioshark and knew the equipment Suncoast Audio carried, so I contacted Mike Bovaird. I knew they had my speakers and a lot of choices of electronics/cables that could go with them. After a few emails and a few phone calls describing my music tastes and priorities, my room, my budget etc, Mike recommended the Boulder 866 integrated amp/streamer and Wireworld Eclipse 8 cables. No wishy washy “It depends on what you like” - he unequivocally said “I have this combination in the store and it is fantastic. Many customers have been blown away by this combination. I know you’re going to love it”. A breath of fresh air.

The transaction was seamless and hassle free- no fuss and everything as/when promised. I got the cables first and I could tell the “jump factor” increased. When the amp came, I felt it retained the organic sound I liked but had more grunt and oomph. A great combination.
Service after the sale was also excellent- I had a number of questions setting up the server part of the Boulder and Mike was always curious to find the answer- even on a Friday night. All in all, a great experience.

It has now been several months and the Boulder/Wireworld/Fyne system has continued to make me happy. A well matched system that does everything as right as possible for me in my small room.

Am I perfectly content? No. The streamer of the Boulder is the weak point, as it relies on a third party UPNP program like Mconnect for the user interface and streaming function. This is much more clunky and glitchy than the Lumin interface I was used to. Perhaps Boulder should license Lumin like some other high end brands have done, rather than trying to develop a streamer in house using third party apps. But all in all I couldn’t be happier.

Picture of the system below. One more thing has been added- room treatments- that will be my next post.
 

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Dylan said:
NEW ELECTRONICS- BOULDER 866

Continuing my audio saga, I was very happy with my Fyne F1-10 speakers, but I had the feeling that my Ayre integrated amp and Transparent cables were not the best match for them. But how do you find the best match in a world of fewer brick and mortar stores? How do you know which will work best with your speakers? You could read reviews, but they only reflect the reviewers opinion, in their room with their equipment. You could travel all over the country listening, but how will that aural memory translate to your system in your room? And cables- what a rabbit hole. I decided on another alternative- find a dealer who has my speakers and a lot of electronics, and is willing to stick their neck out with an unequivocal recommendation.

I had been a lurker/poster on Audioshark and knew the equipment Suncoast Audio carried, so I contacted Mike Bovaird. I knew they had my speakers and a lot of choices of electronics/cables that could go with them. After a few emails and a few phone calls describing my music tastes and priorities, my room, my budget etc, Mike recommended the Boulder 866 integrated amp/streamer and Wireworld Eclipse 8 cables. No wishy washy “It depends on what you like” - he unequivocally said “I have this combination in the store and it is fantastic. Many customers have been blown away by this combination. I know you’re going to love it”. A breath of fresh air.

The transaction was seamless and hassle free- no fuss and everything as/when promised. I got the cables first and I could tell the “jump factor” increased. When the amp came, I felt it retained the organic sound I liked but had more grunt and oomph. A great combination.
Service after the sale was also excellent- I had a number of questions setting up the server part of the Boulder and Mike was always curious to find the answer- even on a Friday night. All in all, a great experience.

It has now been several months and the Boulder/Wireworld/Fyne system has continued to make me happy. A well matched system that does everything as right as possible for me in my small room.

Am I perfectly content? No. The streamer of the Boulder is the weak point, as it relies on a third party UPNP program like Mconnect for the user interface and streaming function. This is much more clunky and glitchy than the Lumin interface I was used to. Perhaps Boulder should license Lumin like some other high end brands have done, rather than trying to develop a streamer in house using third party apps. But all in all I couldn’t be happier.

Picture of the system below. One more thing has been added- room treatments- that will be my next post.
Click to expand...

That’s a GREAT pairing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Hi Dylan,

It's great to hear that all is well with you & yours!

I remember when you came here to hear my Canterburys, and later RoomPlay voicing yours in N.C., not too long after your pair arrived.

I recently sold mine, which was really tough. I had thought they were keepers for life.

Interestingly, I am evaluating a pair of F-703s. I may have misplaced reactions, but I still miss the Canterburys, which were highly modified, if you recall. These days - sadly - I could not recommend that anyone purchase speakers from Tannoy, as their customer service is but the palest shadow of what they were before the Chinese buy-out.

The Fynes do have that wonderful cohesiveness and musical involvement that we appreciated in our Tannoys. I bet that your F-10s are almost magical!
 
Hi Jim,
So nice to hear from you. I hope you and your family are doing well.
Yes, the Canterbury’s were keepers for life, and you were instrumental in my hearing them, buying them and setting them up.
I’m very pleased with the Fyne’s. They have the coherence, tone and dynamics that I value so much. Although more transparent than the Canterbury’s, the smaller Fyne’s in the small (12’x13’) room don’t have the majesty of the big Tannoys in the big room. But that’s to be expected.
I voiced the Fyne’s in my small room using your techniques- starting with couch first, then speakers. I used an iPhone Real Time Analyzer app to help.
Take care and happy holidays,
Mitch.
 
ROOM TREATMENTS

I’ve never had to use room treatments because all previous iterations of my stereo were in very large rooms. Although they may have benefited from room treatments, there was no crying need.

On the other hand, in my new small (13’x14’x9’) second bedroom listening room, it was obvious that there were bass problems. I downloaded a $5 Real Time Analyzer iPhone app and it was clear that there was a bass suckout at about 70Hz. The real time analyzer app is a great investment. Although I’m sure it isn’t the most accurate, you can clearly see differences between, for example, different couch positions or door open vs. closed. Optimizing the couch position and keeping all the doors closed gave me a relatively flat low end response, but the suckout remained.

I also became aware that the sound was bouncing around the walls, which was creating smear. The smear manifested itself by a masking of low level details, poor clarity and significant changes in the sound with minor head movements (as a result of interference or comb filtering).

After my wife agreed that we could add room treatments (I am the luckiest guy in the world), I contacted GIK Acoustics. They were amazing to work with- I sent them pictures, a floor plan, my real time analyzer measurements and my findings. We had several discussions and emails over optimal and practical solutions, and finally decided on two 2’x4’x5” bass traps for the front and three 2’x4’x3” panels for the rear corner. I have to tell you, they treated me as if I was their biggest client, even though I was only buying 5 white panels. The first batch of panels all came in defective (creases in the fabric that wouldn’t steam out) and they gladly replaced them.

The difference in the sound was profound. There was a slight reduction in the suckout- I suspect I would need many more traps to really tame it. Most profound was the big improvement in clarity and fullness of the sound, much reduced interference and much reduced changes with slight head movements.

I heartily recommend downloading an RT A phone app and getting room treatments if you experience bass problems or smearing. Although the stereo doesn’t sound as good as in my earlier huge rooms, it certainly sounds much bigger and better than you would imagine. I’m very happy with the sound and can now get back to listening to music.

Pictures below: the front of the room, the back corner and the RTA graph after treatments.
 

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I see a couple of issues that might be worth addressing as well.

In fact, When Robert Harley gave us (Avantgarde-USA) Best Sound at CES one year (IIRC, winter of 2003), I had - for the first time ever - given up prior to the beginning of the show on getting what I considered to be acceptable sound in the approximately square room.

As much as it pained me to do so, I had insisted that we should have a static showroom, because demonstrating bad sound was not in our best interests in any way.

Steve Bednarski at BAT (we were sharing the room with BAT, and as usual, I was the set-up guy) asked me if I would be willing to try something fairly radical for show conditions, and it definitely worked at a very high level, but also with some definite room usage limitations relating to the radical set-up.

If you are interested at all, we should probably have a phone conversation, as it is a bit complicated for posting or e-mails...

If not, no biggie, as it looks as if you have addressed most of your issues in a more than satisfactory manner! :congrats:
 
Another Update- I replaced the stock spikes on my Fyne F1-10 speakers with Isoacoustics Gaia 1 footers. A very worthwhile improvement- lower noise floor let’s me hear more detail, expanded soundstage, increased jump factor and more defined bass. Also, presumably less sound leaking through the floor of my high rise condo. They didn’t change the essential character of the speakers, but enhanced what was already there. Spent an evening installing, leveling and positioning, and spent a couple of hours today adjusting toe-in in 1/4”increments until I got the right image size, center fill and soundstage. Heartily recommended.
Thanks to Audioshark member JohnThomas for figuring out the thread size needed and for sharing his evaluation on his F1-10’s. Also thanks to Mike for the excellent service.
 
Dylan,

I’m glad the Gaia’s worked out for you. Not only do they enhance the sound they look way better than the spikes.
 
HEADPHONES???

Yesterday I was lamenting to my wife that one of my biggest regrets is that for the rest of my life I will never be able to listen to the music I like (electric Dylan, The Band, Allman Brothers, Dead, Stones, BS&T, Hendrix, Steely Dan, CCR, etc.) the way it is supposed to be played- loud.

A little context- six years ago we moved from our house to a high rise condo. It has taken a while, but I have now optimized the performance of my stereo in our small second bedroom, and it sounds excellent. But I simply cannot play my music loud. So I listen to jazz, soft rock, female vocals etc, but playing the music that really moves me at condo volume levels just makes me frustrated.

In her infinite wisdom she turned to me and said- “So why don’t you just get a good set of headphones so you can play your music the way you like to hear it? Just get whatever you want.”

I’m thinking about it, but the first and only pair of headphones I ever owned were Koss Pro-4AA in the early 70’s. . They were horrible, sound and comfort wise.

I’m asking the group for their collective wisdom and advice.

Thanks!
 
Dylan said:
HEADPHONES???

Yesterday I was lamenting to my wife that one of my biggest regrets is that for the rest of my life I will never be able to listen to the music I like (electric Dylan, The Band, Allman Brothers, Dead, Stones, BS&T, Hendrix, Steely Dan, CCR, etc.) the way it is supposed to be played- loud.

A little context- six years ago we moved from our house to a high rise condo. It has taken a while, but I have now optimized the performance of my stereo in our small second bedroom, and it sounds excellent. But I simply cannot play my music loud. So I listen to jazz, soft rock, female vocals etc, but playing the music that really moves me at condo volume levels just makes me frustrated.

In her infinite wisdom she turned to me and said- “So why don’t you just get a good set of headphones so you can play your music the way you like to hear it? Just get whatever you want.”

I’m thinking about it, but the first and only pair of headphones I ever owned were Koss Pro-4AA in the early 70’s. . They were horrible, sound and comfort wise.

I’m asking the group for their collective wisdom and advice.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I would also suggest a great headphone amp. I have tried over 50 different kinds and brands and LOVE the reasonably priced Rupert Neve headphone amp (I use their commercial mixing gear in my studio).

It will make a huge difference in the quality of sound through headphones.
 
MichaelsMinute said:
I would also suggest a great headphone amp. I have tried over 50 different kinds and brands and LOVE the reasonably priced Rupert Neve headphone amp (I use their commercial mixing gear in my studio).

It will make a huge difference in the quality of sound through headphones.
Click to expand...

Here is a link to the one I like: [url=https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/RNHP--rupert-neve-designs-rnhp-1-ch-precision-headphone-amplifier]Access to this page has been denied.[/URL]
 
Dylan said:
HEADPHONES???

...

I’m asking the group for their collective wisdom and advice.
Click to expand...

Headphones are going to provide a different experience than speakers, and I'm not sure they're the best solution for playing "loud" in the sense that oftentimes playing headphones loud is too loud and risks damage to your hearing. But if the issue is you can't even play your speakers at a decent listening volume due to the thin walls or specific times of the day / night, then headphones could be a good solution.

There are many very high-quality headphones now, with much better choices than you would have had even 10 years ago. There are also some products that can help recreate the speaker sound (i.e. crosstalk from your right ear hearing the left speaker a little later, and vice versa) like the Smyth Realizer, BACCH hardware/software, and the Weiss DAC crosstalk algorithm.
 
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