Shawn's Exotica 3's in "sinker" cypress

sfox7076 · « **Reply #20 on:** 2 Oct 2014, 12:14 am »

When more dialed in and the baby is a bit older, all will be welcome.

sfox7076 · « **Reply #21 on:** 2 Oct 2014, 01:31 am »

How good are these speakers? My wife has taken over the stereo and she loves the finish. We are listening to the Grateful Dead (not my fav.) and she has her eyes closed, listening to the music. Never seen her do that before. The cymbals from these speakers are amazing. The accuracy seems to be miles ahead of my HT2s (though they were miles ahead of any other speaker I ever owned). I am still tweaking to get the perfect placement. My room is not ideal, but man do these sound sweet. Still have the static on the tubes. Will investigate more as times go by.

Despite the static comments, from the listening position, these are dead silent. The soundstage is mind blowing. I don't know, it seems like there is more space between instruments and sounds. Like there is a stillness from the areas that are not engaged. Beautiful is all I can really say.

sfox7076 · « **Reply #22 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 01:49 pm »

The static went away on changing inverter tubes. Woo! There is still a bit of noise when the amp is on. Will sort that out in time, but it isn't staticy. So last night I sat down and listened to Josh Ritter for hours. I have seen him live about 20 times. These speakers reproduced him perfectly. I would say that it is like sitting 10 feet away from him if he were playing an acoustic set. The speakers are clean and pure at reproducing the sound. I cannot wait to get my new amps and try those out. I will be doing some rack reorganization when I get a few minutes. In that, I think the Ultimate 70 will come out of the rack for a bit so I can try my nCores. That said, I am sure the Ultimate 70 will go back into the rack shortly.

Tonight starts Yom Kippur. Not sure I will listen on the holiday.

If I do, I am going to switch my source to my Thorens 160B MKii with a Ortofon 2M black cartridge, SME tone arm, Musical Surroundings Phono-pre, Tortuga preamp and Ultiamte 70 amp. I don't use fancy cables. Made most of my interconnects myself and use Belden speaker cable that was bought by the foot (left over inwall rated stuff from running surround speakers). As for the rest of the system, the digital audio side is a MacMini running J-River, hooked to my Meitner MA-1 (which is for sale if anyone is interested (I bought the Lampizator Big 7)) to the Tortuga. The video stuff comes in from my Anthem D2V (Tivo, Roku, and Oppo BDP-83) to my Tortuga.

Shawn

mr_bill · « **Reply #23 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 05:57 pm »

Do these have the powered sub section?

JonnyFive · « **Reply #24 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 06:01 pm »

Quote from: mr_bill on 3 Oct 2014, 05:57 pm

Do these have the powered sub section?

Yes, dual 8" Rythmic servo controlled subs.

jtwrace · « **Reply #25 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 07:35 pm »

What about a room picture of them setup?

sfox7076 · « **Reply #26 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 08:07 pm »

Here is a shot. Excuse the mess. We are setting up for the holiday dinner in an hour and pushed the toys all to one area.

Room has 11.5' ceilings. 12.5' wide at speakers. 25' long along the front wall (where speakers are). Have no choice on where furniture goes, but couch will move from in front of speaker once my other Salk sub is sold. The room Ls into a kitchen at the far end (by the table in the third pic) and there is a 3' hallway just before the kitchen. Here you go

jtwrace · « **Reply #27 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 08:11 pm »

Here you go.

sfox7076 · « **Reply #28 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 08:31 pm »

Thanks Jason. On my phone. I will also note that this is huge for NYC. Couch is L shaped.

sfox7076 · « **Reply #29 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 08:42 pm »

I wish it were cleaner. 14 people are coming for dinner. The ugly bridge table isn't usually there. Sigh.

Two dual 8" subs. One pair in each speaker.

jtwrace · « **Reply #30 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 08:45 pm »

Quote from: sfox7076 on 3 Oct 2014, 08:31 pm

Thanks Jason. On my phone. I will also note that this is huge for NYC. Couch is L shaped.

You're welcome. I know...my sister lives in a 600 sq ft place on the upper west side.

Tomy2Tone · « **Reply #31 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 09:37 pm »

I think it looks great man!

I was hoping there would be a shot without the grills on but then I see you got a little one there with little fingers that I'm sure like to explore.

Congrats on the whole setup!

sfox7076 · « **Reply #32 on:** 3 Oct 2014, 11:04 pm »

Two boys. Two and a half and three months.

dB Cooper · « **Reply #33 on:** 4 Oct 2014, 03:01 am »

Quote from: sfox7076 on 2 Oct 2014, 01:31 am

We are listening to the Grateful Dead (not my fav.) and she has her eyes closed, listening to the music. Never seen her do that before.

Well, Jim did mention in the opening post that the wood is sometimes referred to as "Deadhead" cypress

kingdeezie · « **Reply #34 on:** 4 Oct 2014, 03:45 am »

Probably a stupid question....

Are the grills included, or is it something you have to specifically request from Jim?

A less stupid question for you, how does the Ultimate 70 power them? That amp is 35 watts per side correct?

Do you feel like you are running out of juice? Do you listen reasonably, or get a little crazy sometimes with the volume?

I've always wanted to try atmasphere OTLs, at 92Dbs/watt, and the bass handled by the active portion, they might work.

Nick77 · « **Reply #35 on:** 4 Oct 2014, 11:20 am »

Im pretty sure the dual 8" drivers have a servo plate amp of their own.

jsalk · « **Reply #36 on:** 4 Oct 2014, 12:31 pm »

Quote from: kingdeezie on 4 Oct 2014, 03:45 am

Probably a stupid question....

Are the grills included, or is it something you have to specifically request from Jim?

They are included. We never photograph them, preferring to show the drivers. But there are magnets embedded in the front baffles and in the grills. So they snap in place when in use and there are no plastic stand-offs or the like to show when they are removed.

Quote

A less stupid question for you, how does the Ultimate 70 power them? That amp is 35 watts per side correct?

Do you feel like you are running out of juice? Do you listen reasonably, or get a little crazy sometimes with the volume?

I've always wanted to try atmasphere OTLs, at 92Dbs/watt, and the bass handled by the active portion, they might work.

The amp is only driving the T35 tweeter and the W8 midrange in this case. The tweeter does not draw much power. And the W8 is in a sealed cabinet and rolls off at 110Hz. So the power it draws is a bit more limited than it would be in a ported cabinet.

At AXPONA this year, we ran the Exotica 3's with an Ulitimate 70 and the combination worked just fine. We also ran it with the Fet Valve 600R. While the 600R was obviously gross overkill in terms of power (the speaker is 92 db sensitive), the sound was more open and less veiled. So we will be running them with the 600R at RMAF next weekend.

- Jim

sfox7076 · « **Reply #37 on:** 5 Oct 2014, 05:03 am »

Will swap my nCore in next.

No grills.

Tomy2Tone · « **Reply #38 on:** 5 Oct 2014, 01:46 pm »

Wow! They look incredible Shawn.

If I was to ever buy a pair of Exotica 3's I would want them to look like this. You did an exceptional job of picking the perfect veneer for not only the drivers but also your room!

Probably the best looking Salk speakers I've seen. Love them.

sfox7076 · « **Reply #39 on:** 5 Oct 2014, 07:23 pm »

Thanks. They are not flashy. They fit. That was the point. A lot of people want speakers to be the centerpiece of the room. That's not something we wanted. The centerpiece of the room is really the mix of all of the items and wood. More aptly, it is also the people that are in the room all the time. We needed subtle. I searched a lot for interesting veneers. And, well, the concept of the sunken cypress was cool, so that is what I decided to go with. Jim made them exactly the way we hoped. The odd thing in picking the veneer was deciding whether to trim the worm holes or not to (we decided to trim). If you wanted really rustic, the holes could have been left in. They would show the MDF underneath (or putty that could be added). That was too rustic for us.