Room Size

20' deep x 17' high x 54' wide

System Overview

American tubes, British speakers and Chinese DAC. Seeking the holy grail of a sweet full-bodied classic tube sound upgraded with some modern transparency, spacialness, imaging and dynamics.

Music Preferences

Modern Folk, Female Jazz, Male Jazz, Rock, Instrumental Jazz

Room Description

Listening area is family room on one end of a great room formed by family room / dining room / living room. Still working to get room dialed in. Needs help with bass traps, absorption, diffusion.

Acoustic Treatment

Thick rug on upper back wall to tame slap echo. Experimenting with infinite baffle placement of speakers.

Listening Impressions

The system has moved from somewhat dull and withdrawn to more lively, open and "in the room". More improvement needed.

Media Storage

Melco N1A Server

Components

Digital Source

Line Magnetic 502-CA tube DAC

Preamp

McIntosh C2200

Power Amp

McIntosh MC275 MK.VI

Speakers

Spendor S100

Speaker Cable

Duelund DCA16GA

Interconnects

Belden 8402 Balanced

Power Cables

Hard wired Milspec silver over copper direct from subpanel

Power Cond

Dedicated AC to each component via 20 amp iso transformer feeding dedicated sub-panel with oil cap across analog legs.

Tuning and Tweaks

NOS tubes; 5755's in place of 12AX7s in pre and amp; tube dampers; spikes and maple plinths; Russian PIO cap bypassing output cap in DAC. Slightly upgraded caps in crossovers; Milspec silver over copper wire in speakers.