[inline_phil]

OK gang, let's see what happens here.

I am one of the folks who grew up watching first hand the transition from mono to stereo and everything since that early time of high fidelity. Glad that's behind me.

I still spin vinyl and still prefer its sound over all of but the best digital - something out of my financial reach at the moment.

However I am an engineer who loves to tweak making those antiquated pieces of gear sound respectable once again.

My power amp is a *highly* modified McIntosh MC2100 [not much original equipment here except the metal chassis and output autoformers] and preamp is an Onkyo P-3000R - again not stock. The [modified of course] OPPO BDP-105 does most of the heavy lifting in the digital and streaming world and the speakers - thought you would ask - started out as a pair of Bozak B-302A [wait till you see the pics of these little guys]. Severe surgery was required on my APC S20BLK line conditioner and unlike most folks my isolated and dedicated AC power comes from our sun - that's right photovoltaics and a 15Kw pure sinewave inverter on a 210Ah 48V battery pack [no down-stream line noise here].

Interconnects are hand made as is the tri-wiring from amp to the speaker crossover networks [PC-OCC, Litz, silver-plated OFHC, etc.].

But what truly made a difference is in what I call "your stereo's missing component", that being room treatment. I already remodeled the listening room removing a door and window to create the speaker-end and then started on an adventure of absorption and diffusion at the appropriate points. Inspired by a friend of mine who did it right, I started dabbling in alternative treatment techniques and came up with an inexpensive but less aesthetically pleasing approach.

The right room treatment to me is where one should invest when you have settled on a dedicated listening room. I would love to hear how others are treating rooms and the results you have achieved.

Notice the treatment of the backs of the satellite boxes and back of the super tweeter.

[FullRangeMan]

Welcome Phil
Thanks for the photos:(

[Mr Peabody]

Welcome.

 I agree on the necessity of room treatments.  I started with things like hanging a tapestry, diffusing from CD/LP on racks.  After a while I realized this helped but was far from adequate.  Many of the treatments you can buy were not thick enough to a very wide frequency range or took up a lot of room real estate like big corner bass traps.  What I'm doing now I have some Corning 703 panels, 4" thick, I have one at each first reflection and 3 others, one in a back corner to offset an open doorway where the other corner would be, the last two on the wall in the middle behind my speakers, which sounded better than in those corners.  These look bad sticking out, I may see about getting them air brushed on a design or something later.

This made a huge improvement and I didn't even realize there was any problem.  I don't want to add more afraid I might make the room too dead sounding.  Then again, I thought my friend's room was dead, he has a lot of treatment and hooked me up with the Corning stuff.  Trying it though and hearing will make a believer.

[Blackmore]

Glad you've joined us, Phil, and keep sending those pictures. Great work!

[Phil A]

Welcome fellow central Floridian

[Phil A]

PS - where is central FL are you - east, west, center, etc.

[JakeJ]

Hello and welcome to AC, inline_phil!  Looks like you got a bad case of audiophilia.

[ArthurDent]

Greetings & Welcome to AC Phil   

[inline_phil]

PS - where is central FL are you - east, west, center, etc.

Phil, it's Phil in Brooksville. We have a mutual friend Francis in Beverly Hills.

How did your gathering go yesterday? I had a previous commitment and could not make it .

[inline_phil]

Welcome.

 I agree on the necessity of room treatments.  I started with things like hanging a tapestry, diffusing from CD/LP on racks.  After a while I realized this helped but was far from adequate.  Many of the treatments you can buy were not thick enough to a very wide frequency range or took up a lot of room real estate like big corner bass traps.  What I'm doing now I have some Corning 703 panels, 4" thick, I have one at each first reflection and 3 others, one in a back corner to offset an open doorway where the other corner would be, the last two on the wall in the middle behind my speakers, which sounded better than in those corners.  These look bad sticking out, I may see about getting them air brushed on a design or something later.

This made a huge improvement and I didn't even realize there was any problem.  I don't want to add more afraid I might make the room too dead sounding.  Then again, I thought my friend's room was dead, he has a lot of treatment and hooked me up with the Corning stuff.  Trying it though and hearing will make a believer.

A good friend of mine recntly built a dedicated listening room for his big Martin Logans [the really massive ones] with the 703 panels. He did something clever: did not sheet rock over the wall studs leaving the fiberglass bats exposed and then made fabric-covered panels from the 703 to hide the wall openings. They are removable so he can run/change wires in the wall as opposed to snaking things along the floor.

[inline_phil]

Hello and welcome to AC, inline_phil!  Looks like you got a bad case of audiophilia.

Yup, pretty much hopeless.

Love to tweak the electronics too but the room can make as much of a difference as swapping speakers. Plus these plastic Martini glasses are really cheap and glue down with that gel-super-glue.

A friend of mine also converted his carport into a listening room and then treated it. The before and after differences were very good until two ceiling diffusers made their appearance. He has a pair of the Vapor Audios and it completely transformed the sound from really good to unbelievable.

[Sonance84]

A good friend of mine recntly built a dedicated listening room for his big Martin Logans [the really massive ones] with the 703 panels. He did something clever: did not sheet rock over the wall studs leaving the fiberglass bats exposed and then made fabric-covered panels from the 703 to hide the wall openings. They are removable so he can run/change wires in the wall as opposed to snaking things along the floor.

Very ingenious way of "treating" the room. Those amps are bigger than a lot of speakers! I like it.

[Phil A]

Greetings & Welcome to AC Phil   

Welcome - it went fine.  Good to see you here.

[Phil A]

A good friend of mine recntly built a dedicated listening room for his big Martin Logans [the really massive ones] with the 703 panels. He did something clever: did not sheet rock over the wall studs leaving the fiberglass bats exposed and then made fabric-covered panels from the 703 to hide the wall openings. They are removable so he can run/change wires in the wall as opposed to snaking things along the floor.

A guy in this area bought the $80k Martin Logans and D'Agostino monoblocks.  They had an event at a local store about a couple of years back with the Martin Logan rep here too.