Room Size

10.25 D x 12.25 W x 7.75 H

System Overview

Work in progress system that I'm trying to upgrade as funds allow. Attempting some DIY with moderate success and finding little tweaks to maximize what I currently have along the way. My wife just laughs when I'm constantly tinkering. What can I say, I am my father's son.

Music Preferences

Everything. All music can be enjoyable depending on mood, so party on Wayne.

Room Description

Small spare bedroom turned into media room / music listening.

Acoustic Treatment

DIY bass traps in rear corners and absorber panels on first reflections and front wall. Dog beds for floor reflection. Room size and shape are definitely a struggle.

Listening Impressions

Work in progress but so far it's improving nicely. Clear and detailed without bloated bass or harsh brightness. I like smooth but detailed sound. I spend a lot of effort to make the soundstage as consistent L to R and as enveloping as possible. I hate when you can pick out exactly where the speakers are in the room, even with subs. Just loses the magic for me. I really love that "10th row" sound that wraps you in music but is full and even in the center.

Media Storage

Media PC on home network with 20TB of movies and music. DIY record storage.

Other Comments

I really enjoy tinkering for making things better than they currently are. So far I've made large strides given the time and $ invested, but I just have too much fun to leave good enough alone so I keep trying things for better sound. My wife laughs and says that I'm just like my father in that I'm always tinkering. I take that as a compliment.

Components

Digital Source

HAL MS-6 server playing Foobar. Hapa Aero Cu USB to MHDT Labs Atlantis DAC w/ assorted buffer tubes depending on the mood (mostly NOS RCA 6SN7). BlueJeans Ethernet cables between router to media pc and to MS-6.

Analog Source

Heavily modified Schiit Sol w/ Benz Micro Zebra L cartridge. All about resonance isolation and electrical noise proliferation. Vacuum Tube Audio PH16 with seriously hot-rodded internals (caps, SUT, hexfred diodes, signal wire, rca plugs, etc).

Other Sources

TV feeding DAC via optical toslink. Mostly used to watch F1 and motocross in a different room as to not annoy my wife with racecar noises.

Preamp

Tubes4HiFi SP9 with SP12 phono card with upgrades. Gold Lion 12AX7 tubes, KLE RCA connectors, miflex caps for high pass filter on one output. Some point down the road will upgrade to the SP14 preamp

Power Amp

Jolida SJ202A with upgrades. Mundorf Supreme caps in signal path, KLE binding post and rca plugs and HexFred diodes for power rectifier. Tubes are Psvane EL34PH, Telefunken ECC801S and Gold Lion 12AX7.

Speakers

GR Research NX-Studio w/ upgraded crossovers and over the top paint job

Subwoofer

2x SVS SB2000 with GR Research wiring and NoRez and a lot of polyfill inside. These hit hard and much cleaner now.

Speaker Cable

DIY braided low impedence 10awg (4x16awg per leg) w/ KLE banana on speaker side and tube connectors on amp side.

Interconnects

Hapa Aero Cu from MS-6 to DAC, Hapa Quiescence C from turntable to phono, Hapa Ember from phono to amp, Hapa Breathe C from DAC to amp. All have KLE Absolute Harmony upgrades. Subs have BlueJeans LC-1 cables.

Power Cables

GR-Research B24 for integrated amp, B16 for phono stage and preamp, DIY shielded w/ Sonar Quest copper plugs for subwoofers

Headphones

Hifiman Sundara with Schiit Magni+

Racking

Custom built media console for gear, DIY LP storage that will need to expand for more space shortly :).

Power Cond

Cheap Panamax power conditioner for circuit protection/long enough cable from outlet. Went in and soldered the wire connections, added shielding and replaced cheap plug with SonarQuest copper.

Tuning and Tweaks

Lots of little tweaking to room and setup. Everything matters. Cables lifted off floor initially for pet hair cleanup, but also yielded sonic improvement. High-pass filter to cut speakers @100hz or so.

Other Components

There is usually at least 1 dog "helping" with listening to music. Really they are the best listening buddies because they never complain if you put on a hit song or your favorite guilty pleasure.