CJ MET1 m-channel Martin Logan system

[Mr_BT]

My new listening/HT room. Finally after long construction process is almost ready. Exceptions are bass traps, which are still under construction.

Not too long ago I added Conrad Johnson MET1, which gave a new life to my multichannel system.

My system:

M-channel:
- Conrad Johnson MET1 preamp
- Martin Logan Summit, Vista, Stage
- Musical Fidelity 750K mono blocks driving Summits
- DIY AMB Beta24 DIY mono blocks driving Vistas
- Emotiva UPA-1 for center speaker
- OPPO BDP-95
- 2x Martin Logan Abbys
- DEQ2496 to EQ subs

Stereo:
- Krell kav-280p
- Marantz SA-11S1

- Various DIY pure silver and copper cables for interconnects.
- Probably a Chinese knock off of speaker cable AudioQuest Gibraltar, which sounds very pleasing to my ears.

I know, room is far from being ideal and I still work on acoustics. In near future I plan to work on EQ subs with DEQ2496 using RoomEQ wizard and of course finish and add some more bass traps. Maybe even try a Vinyl..... will see....

[eagle6014]

Hey it looks good to me. I bet it sounds super sweet. I really like that Marantz player you have. Always been a fan of Marantz products. Good job and welcome to the site. Pat

[admin]

Wow,, what a great setup! Not only is it top notch equipment but a very aesthetically pleasing room as well. I have to admit that I am jealous of Summits, one day perhaps I can upgrade my Vantages to those beauties. All in good time. May I ask what your using for the video side of things,... projector, players, screen?

Also, can you tell us more about the room itself, size, acoustic treatments? I think the room is often one of the most overlooked parts of a setup and it seems like you have an exceptional home theater room there!

Also, did you experiment with bringing the summits off the front wall a bit? I find that my martin logans actually sound the best a good 4-5 feet from the front wall. I love electrostats but I find that they need "more room to breath" than my standard speakers. Would like to hear your experience with this.

Happy Holidays!

[Mr_BT]

It's problematic room (which one isn't? . It's located in the basement and dimensions are 18x14x7. Thanks to Summit ability to adjust sub 25Hz and 50Hz I managed (with some help of great RoomEQWizard) to make somewhat listener friendly room. Somewhat.....bass traps in front L&R corners helped a lot. However, what you see on pics in front room corners is just a Khauf large pacs of insulation, equivalent of Owens corning 703, not yet cut into triangular pieces nor placed in corner and nicely masked with fabric to please an eye as it should. It's just stuck in the corner like this but it does it's work. I promised myself to finish bass trapping long time ago......just being lazy...and I have more than four corners . I have no diffusion at all and I'm not even sure it's all that necessary. There are 2" OC 703 various sizes panels (24x24 or 12x48) and the big one 2'' 48x72 OC703 right behind my listening position. Also four 16x48 cut outs in ceiling filled with Roxul mineral wool. Reflective floors covered with rug completes the picture.

Given nature and size of the room, experimenting tediously with front speakers placement I come with final optimal result of 3' from back wall and 4.5' from side walls. I know, with ML even a couple of inches can impact sound tremendously in such a room and make sweet spot disappear. Summits with such proximity(3') of front wall would require an absorption or diffusion behind them, so I installed absorption panels right behind the Summit's panels. Also speaker vertical angle as default didn't let much of adjustment so I have elevated rear spikes so the panel is more(almost) vertical to the listener and it helped with more "in room" presence of orchestra and made wider and deeper soundstage.

With Martin Logan electrostatic speakers it can be really good or pretty bad. A combination of factors like: placement, right amplification and acoustic treatment can have a crucial impact on final result and much more than normal cone speakers.
Personally I think it's better to have small(ish) room with properly done acoustical treatments than larger room without any.

I'm not that demanding when it comes to watching movies. My room serves mainly as music listening room (stereo and m'channel). So I took a 1/4 nap roller with some Sherwin Williams paint (got the idea from the net), painted my 100" screen and I'm very happy with result.....
I don't care much about "Theater" function of my room. There are not many (maybe just five per year on average) movies coming out every year worth spending/wasting time watching it.

[admin]

It seems like you put a lot of effort and experimentation into that room. I completely agree that Martin Logans (planar speakers in general) are more difficult to place than typical cone speakers. It took me awhile to settle on the correct positioning. Interestingly, I also found that tilting the panels more forward (making them more vertical) helps with my Vantages. My room is descent size and I have not had problems with diffusion. This may simply be due to the fact that I have a cathedral ceiling and the back of the room is angled so it's not the typical "box" room. I also found that strategic placement of acoustic treatments has also helped refine the sound (especially at places of 1st reflection).

Very nice job overall, congratulations!

[Mr_BT]

Finally, over the weekend I forced myself to grab soldering iron and do some XLR>RCA connectors to be able to use my long time forgotten Behringer DEQ2496 to EQ both subs.
Here are the results before and after EQ. Most of the problem was concentrated in 40Hz region.
The results are quite pleasing. From "spectacular" lower end I went to much more harmonious and uniform whole spectrum of frequency response. Well implemented lower end has a tremendous effect on how especially mid range is presented. In my case greater spaciousness and appearance of "hidden" mid range details happened after just EQing lower end.

Used REW with Behringer EMC8000 for measurements.

NO EQ

xxnoeq.jpg (44.81 KiB) Viewed 4413 times

both subs EQ

xxbothsubs.jpg (43.38 KiB) Viewed 4413 times

[admin]

Wow, that is pretty awesome. Very nice and it's amazing how flat you got it all the way down to 20 hz! No easy feat. Congrats.

[Mr_BT]

Some more additions to my system.....

well..... I am all vinyl now....just dont understand why I've waited so many years......



Modification in progress of Musical Fidelity V-LPSII phono and X-10V3 tube buffer:
V-LPS received all nice ELNA caps and also at first stage crappy $0.99 op amps were replaced with OPA627AP and finally settled with Burson all-discrete opamps.

Tube buffer got all new boutique caps and also awaiting new tubes....

[admin]

Wow, that is beautiful. Congrats on the setup as it must sound great. Question: Do you plan to run the music fidelity without the covers permanently or that's just temp?

[Mr_BT]

Wow, that is beautiful. Congrats on the setup as it must sound great. Question: Do you plan to run the music fidelity without the covers permanently or that's just temp?

I like a look of bare naked and exposed electronics.....here I said it.....