Main System - Premier 17LS & MF2500

[Jim Treanor]

My main audio system resides in the living/dining room area, where it shares space with a 40" flat-screen TV, and consists of:

SOTA Sapphire TT/Profile (rebadged Jelco) tonearm/Grado Prestige Gold cartridge
Graham Slee Era Gold V MM phono stage
Oppo BDP-83 BluRay/SACD/CD player
McIntosh MR77 FM tuner (connected to rotored outdoor yagi)
Motorola DCH 3200 cable box (typically used with the audio system for cable music channels)
conrad johnson Premier 17LS tubed line stage
conrad johnson MF2500 SS power amp
Paradigm SE-3 speakers
Shunyata Hydra PLC
Wireworld Electra 5.2 power cords
Wireworld Equinox 6 interconnects
Blue Jeans/Belden 10-gauge speaker cable terminated with ultrasonic-welded banana plugs
ASC Tube Traps

The room's layout, the presence of an abundance of reflective surfaces (including a ceramic-tile-surfaced fireplace), and furniture placement present a far less than ideal acoustic environment only partially ameliorated by tube traps and a throw rug. Additional trapping that would be beneficial is precluded by the need to maintain domestic harmony ( ). As seen below, available space also requires some atypical equipment placement. Notwithstanding those limitations, the system outputs more than decent imaging, three-dimensional soundstaging, and frequency balance with appropriately-recorded program material.

[admin]

Very nice. Clearly my favorites are the Conrad Johnson pieces, but I like the McIntosh FM tuner as well (not to mention the oppo player which I own two of). May I ask what your primary source of music listening is from? I see FM radio, LP, CD player.

Also, from your diagram I see that the room is very elongated and not completely symmetric. I'm sure the sound traps work well in there. Did you have any problems with the room configuration and acoustics. You mention that "domestic harmony" is a limiting factor. Overall the diagram seems to show that the speakers, listening position, and general setup of the room is pretty darn good (good speaker placement, listening position is not off axis, etc), so it doesn't appear that you have to sacrifice too much. My home theater is pretty square but I still utilized a significant amount of acoustic foam to improve the sound. I'm always curious about other people's acoustic treatment experiences.

[Jim Treanor]

Primary listening is about evenly divided between vinyl and CD/SACD, with program consisting mostly of classical, jazz, vocal standards, and film scores. FM is typically tuned to one of two 24/7 listener-supported stations, one classical, one jazz, with particular attention devoted to weekly recorded-live broadcasts of orchestras such as the Concertgebouw, New York Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony and to Bill McGlaughlin's WFMT-Chicago-originated "Exploring Music" series.

The room presents a number of acoustic issues, the most significant of which is reflection inherent in the front wall's massive tile-fronted fireplace and the right speaker's proximity to the DIY audio/video equipment cabinet close behind it. I played with a number of tube trap configurations (including a modified "attack wall" which sandwiched each speaker between a pair of 9" traps) before striking "listening gold" with the current front-space setup. At first blush, the rear-corner 16" Super Traps appear to function like three-day-old Rice Krispies that have lost their snap, crackle, and pop and do nothing but just lie there soaking up the milk. But pull them out of the room and there's a noticeable loss of low-level detail accompanied by muddier bass and "thicker" lower midrange. Likewise for the trap parked in the indented space alongside the piano. One of the traps' assets is their full-absorption-on-one-side/diffusion-plus-absorption-on-the-other design, which allows me to tailor what I call the diffusive envelope to the room's specific acoustic characteristics and their effect at my listening position.

Livability necessitates the amount and placement of furniture present, thus limiting flexibility in achieving a more or less "ideal" acoustic environment, so I've done what I consider the best I can. My "domestic harmony" comment is a bit of a red herring, in that Mrs T has been almost unfailingly supportive despite unspoken but detectable reservations about some of the esthetic results. As an illustration, when I had the New York Phil broadcast on with the orchestra rendering Mahler's First at what I considered a pretty decent listening level, she looked at me and admonished, "This is Mahler, you don't have it on loud enough." Somewhere along the line, I must have done something right.

[admin]

Good mix of sources. I still would be very interested on what the FM radio music sounds like. There are not many radio stations in my area and the one that are here play mostly popular music which is ultra dynamically compressed that is meant to be played in noisy cars and not a high end setup in a quite room. For this reason, I mostly listen to CD/SACD and vinyl. I also enjoy listening to film scores/soundtracks as you. I like how you can put in a soundtrack CD and have a nice listening experience but also get a "story" out of it at the same time.

Once again, I think your careful planning and experimentation probably eliminated any major acoustic issues. I have planar speakers and they are much more sensitive to positioning and other acoustic anomalies of the room. Having standard cone speakers at least mitigates much of the front wall placement issues. With my Martin Logan speakers, they sound best once you get 4-5 feet off the front wall! Also, the listening sweet spot at about 13 feet out is with in a +/- 6 inch area! Anything further off from center and the soundstage shifts greatly. It is truly a one listener speaker. How about that for problematic setup?

I get the "domestic harmony" as well. Before I had a dedicated listening room, it played a major part in any audio decisions, and even though it's "less" important now, I still consider aesthetics with my room. Whenever buying a new piece of furniture or changing the setup in the room I always consult my fiancee. Even though it's "my room", I highly value her aesthetic input.