Chops' Current System Pics ....

Spent the past five plus hours playing around with REW and my new Dayton Audio UMM-6 mic, attempting to dial in my system. I'll be the first to admit this room is in need of some major help.

The GR-Research X-Statik's create a huge peak at 74Hz. Keep in mind, these are sealed loudspeakers, and positioned 6' in front of the front wall and just over 3' from the side walls. Even when just by themselves, there's a huge hole that shows up between 35Hz to 50Hz! In any of the other rooms I've had these speakers in over the past 13 years, I've never seem huge peaks and dips like this before.

With the subs active, there's still a huge hole at 43Hz. Also, to help reduce that hole, I had to move the subs back towards the front wall. They are only about 1.5' away from the wall now, instead of the near 6' they were previously when positioned along side the mains. To get a smoother, cleaner transition from the subs to the mains, I had to cross the subs over at 72Hz with a 24dB slope, then dial them in with phase adjustments.

Whenever I get more time, I'll set everything up again and do some more measurements and tuning. It certainly doesn't look good on paper, but there is a vast improvement in overall sound quality over just the "throw them in and tune by ear" method I did when I got these subs. Which is also how I've been listening to them for the past couple months that I've owned them now.

Anyway, a few graphs to chat over...

Mains by themselves...

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With subs...

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The two above combined, and limited to 200Hz...

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Changed things up once again... Now running a pair of Revel Concerta2 M16's and my old AudioQuest CV-8 speaker cables. One word... Wow!

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AJ Soundfield said:
I have a pair myself...for blind testing. Excellent speakers.
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They truly are, well balanced and refined, though I do have something else coming. Something bigger and better. Something that should hopefully interact better with the room, or rather not interact.
 
Understand that. I recently have moved completely away from all tubes myself. 100% solid state now.
 
And for another, rather major update/upgrade... Some nice, new Magnepan 1.7i's!

Since these two pics earlier this evening, the Maggies have swapped sides so now that tweeters are on the inside. Lots more tweaking to come over the weekend.

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Randy Myers said:
Understand that. I recently have moved completely away from all tubes myself. 100% solid state now.
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Not that I don't like tubes. As you may know, I leave my system up and running literally 24/7, and with the Schiit Freya+, I was able to turn the tubes on and off. But since I don't like having tubes on for only a few hours a day, I would keep them off all week and only have them on from Friday evening to Sunday evening (when I'm off work). This was fine, but it left me the entire week listening to the system in the evenings NOT to its fullest. It sucked only being able to fully enjoy the system on the weekends.

Now having gone back to full solid state like you, I now have the freedom of listening to the system EVERY day at its fullest. So for me anyway, it works out much better in the end. Not to mention this new preamp sounds amazing.
 
I also have had tube gear that I enjoy. Several pieces have been quite finicky while the solid-state gear always seems to be solid. I have found that both SS and tube gear sound very good, so like you, I decided to go back to SS for reasons not related purely to sound.
 
Randy Myers said:
I also have had tube gear that I enjoy. Several pieces have been quite finicky while the solid-state gear always seems to be solid. I have found that both SS and tube gear sound very good, so like you, I decided to go back to SS for reasons not related purely to sound.
Click to expand...

Luckily, I never had issues with the preamp, but I did have a few matched pairs of tubes that were either very microphonic or would end up getting noisy after they warmed up to full temp. Even had one pair were one of the tubes would start making a whistling/ringing sound after a couple of hours. So those were another reason to move away from tubes.

And I have to say, after replacing the Freya+ with the Artera Pre, with everything else remaining the same in the system (a.k.a. - before the Maggies), the was a very substantial improvement in sound with the Quad preamp. It offers greater inner detail and layering, a bit more warmth and body, and the sound stage is simply larger and deeper. And of course, now with the Maggies, even more so.

I'm quite pleasantly surprised with the Emotiva amp. Not only does it have plenty of power and current to drive the Maggies with ease (500w x 2 @ 4 ohms), the Quad and Maggies show how good this amp really is. Even at volumes of 100+ dB, the sound remains controlled, clean and effortless sounding with zero strain or fatigue. However, that's not to say if I come across a Sanders Sound Magtech amp at a great price that I won't snag it up and replace the Emotiva with it.

But for now, I have no complaints with this "cheap mid-fi" amp. It's well built and sounds damn good for what it is. A lot better than I thought it would.
 
Been playing with positioning all day yesterday and today. These massive Maggies (massive for this room anyway) are doing the incredible disappearing act, and I've got the subs integrated perfectly. Solid center image, all of the bass benefits from the Maggies, and getting that low end foundation from 45Hz on down from the subs. Man, I'm really digging this!

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Picked up this super mint, fully restored Pioneer RT-1020L from my father over the weekend. This is one of the many reasons why I decided to purchase the Quad Artera preamp as it has what they call an RCA "AUX" preamp output, which completely bypass the volume, so it gets full signal from all of the inputs, including the balanced input. Pretty much like a "tape loop" on old preamps and receivers from back in the day. I have a couple of Ampex 456 tapes, though I have no idea what's on them if anything. Guess I'll find out in the next couple of days or coming weekend.

Soon will come another Pangea rack for a couple cassette decks, dbx goodies and turntable, as well as the hunt beginning for some RTR tapes. Also have to get some new interconnects as the Wireworld Oasis ones I have, the machined ends on them are too thick to fit comfortably in the jacks on the Pioneer. Those jacks are just placed slightly too close together.

Anywho, on with some pics...

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