Room Size

20 x 15

System Overview

Combination of vintage and modern components: PC-Fi Front End Custom Russian DHSET tube integrated amplifier in open-back pine guitar cabinets German fullrange speakers (Alnico/Field coil). Subwoofers for low-frequency help.

Music Preferences

Pop Folk Classic

Room Description

Living Room open to dining area and hallway to bedroom.

Acoustic Treatment

Just furniture and blinds

Listening Impressions

Very live sounding with H-CAT DAC, but a bit light in the mid-bass. Very full sounding with Concert Fidelity (tube) DAC, but missing a bit of leading-edge transient.

Media Storage

64GB Patriot flash drive. Laptop's own 256GB SSD drive.

Components

Digital Source

PC-Fi Front End 1. HP Elitebook --> TotalDAC D1 USB --> Uptone Regen (powered by Uptone JS2) --> H-CAT x9 DAC 2. HP Elitebook --> TotalDAC D1 USB --> Uptone Regen (powered by Uptone JS2) --> Sonicweld HR2 USB to S/PDIF converter --> Concert Fidelity DAC

Preamp

None

Power Amp

*Oberton SV572-3 DHSET (Directly Heated Single Ended Triode) integrated amplifier. *A low-volume custom build in Russia. 6SL7 Input/5U4G Driver/SV572-3 Output. *Roughly 100 lbs. Completely dual mono, except power cord.

Speakers

*Open-back guitar cabinets housing 1930's Blaupunkt 12" fieldcoil speakers *Open back guitar cabinets housing Rullit Silver Lab 10 (10") modified german Alnico fullrange driver, high-passed by Mundorf Silver Oil 8.2uf caps. *Townshend supertweeters

Subwoofer

*A Pair of Gallo TR-3D subwoofers run fullrange *A single Genesis G-928 subwoofer

Speaker Cable

DIY 1" wide 3M copper tape wrapped by 2" cotton tapes. Both fullrange drivers and the subwoofers are connected at speaker level

Interconnects

Silver wires directly crimped to component RCA terminals using DIY tubings. No RCA connectors.

Power Cables

*Omega Mikro LCX Active 30W Red on DAC *Verastarr Grand Illusion on amp and Genesis sub *Tel Wire Cord on Uptone JS2 *Acoustic Zen Tsunami cords on the Gallo subwoofers *Mapleshade Double Helix Mk1i PLUS power cords on field coil supplies

Racking

*Steve Blinn Designs Rack for components *Pine Side Tables for the Loudspeakers

Power Cond

*Weizhi PRS-6 powering all components, including Mapleshade power strip *Mapleshade Double Helix Mk2i Powerstrip with Plus Upgrade powering the field coil supplies (makes a big difference!)

Tuning and Tweaks

*Mapleshade Maple platform under Genesis subwoofer *Mapleshade rounded brass cones under Gallo subs. *Clear Audio Magix magnetic suspension underneath loudspeakers *Cardas Myrterwood blocks between upper and lower speaker cabinets.

Other Components

Lambda LQ 533 power supplies powering field coil speakers.