I had hoped to be finished with the room weeks ago -- but honeydos have delayed the project. On the positive side, the room is now painted and ready for listening.
This post has shots of my DIY bases for GIK Tricorners (extending 8' worth of GIK to meet 9' ceiling). The bases are complete with the exception of grill covers. Photos show the approach I used...
1. Raw stand
2. Cloth sides in place (GIK standard black) & filled with Rockwool
3. Front of room -- the flash didn't do well in such a large space, but you get the idea
What's left?1. Grills for the DIY bases
2. Artwork
3. Better job of cable management (Antiwire will likely be replaced by something less conspicuous)
4. More listening bliss aa
Since I started this blog, I've made the following product changes1. Purchased Red Wine Audio's new Isabella, battery operated linestage / nos DAC and headphone amp; it even incorporates vacuum tubes!
2. Sold my Wadia 830 CDP and replaced it with a Macbook via USB (this may sound odd, but Isabella's source of choice is USB via streaming bits)
3. Louis from Omega is building a pair of Super 6 Alnicos for me (Cherry fronts, with Wenge sides -- Wenge is the color of my current Hemps; So my Compact Hemps will probably be available for sale in the near future
)
The system and room are sounding very good, and this is prior to any real fine tuning of placement, etc.
I'll post photos and more thoughts on the sound when the room is 100% complete.
Thanks again to GIK, Bryan and everyone else who helped to educated me on the benefits of adding acoustic treatments. All I can say is don't spend big bucks on cables or other accessories / tweaks prior to looking into the sonic benefits AC may bring to your listening environment. For me, they are probably the best return on investment I've ever made for audio equipment.