The present & the future... [Archive] - The Art of Sound Forum

Reid Malenfant

22-07-2010, 11:16

With the ever present possible threat of extermination from a certain Dalek :lol: i thought i'd better get some pics up of my present system & future components :)

First of all the whole system is in a state of flux, there are bits & pieces all over the place & not where they should be. I had some serious issues with some weird earth loops that totally messed up the firmware on a couple of DVD players with HDMI connected. I fact one player (Denon DVD 2910) will no longer output via HDMI or DVI :( Right now the AV components are sitting in front of the TV & i'm listening to mixed down stereo on a couple of Mission 780s...

To the HIFI.

First up here is my DIY rack, there are quite a few components so i had to make it 2 components wide. The whole thing is made from 18mm MDF apart from the shelves which are 15mm. I designed it so that every shelf is adjustable & nearly every component sits on it's own paving slab (suitably painted) & these are isolated from the shelf & rack via 12mm thick felt in each of the 4 corners. There are glass doors on the front of the rack & these have rather nice seals to prevent dust ingress. Unfortunately it doesn't work too well right now as i need to install some fine material (like speaker grille cloth) on a frame & cover the ventilation holes at the base of the rack. The door frames were made using secondary double glazing fittings available from DIY stores, i cut the glass to fit.

If you are wondering about the colour scheme it's painted this colour to match the walls :drinking:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/Rackleftside-1.jpg
Notice there is a rather large hole near the base where a DVD player should be sitting :doh: Also another rather large hole where a Pioneer CTF950 cassette deck will be residing when i get things as i actually want them.

Here's the right hand side. Again this will all be taken apart as the HK AVR5500 will be removed along with the Classe DR5 & Extron video scaler & other bits will be going in instead :)

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/Rackrightside-1.jpg

My pride & joy, the Krell DT10 transport. I picked it up off of fleabay just as the recession kicked i hard for about a 20th of the original new price :) Works beatifully & makes my previous transport (Theta Data Basic) sound like it was a midi system :eek:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/KrellDT10-1.jpg

Moving on to the modified Yamaha NS1000M speakers. Well i guess they really shouldn't be called that any more, the only common denominator is the crossover & original drivers. The 12" is now inside the main enclosure in a 4th order bandpass alignment, this covers from approximate 30 - 110Hz. The 12" is fed directly from one channel of a Musical Fidelity P150 at present. The other channel drives a 7" Audax which is connected to where the yam 12" would be on the Yam crossover & the other drivers in the usual positions.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/NS1000Mmodified1-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/NS1000Mmodified2-1.jpg

The crossover is built into the stand & wired up to the speakers. I used some fairly heavy 6mm brass threaded rods to do the connections. The enclosures are 36mm thick & extensively braced & weight in at about 140lbs with the drivers. To keep the enclosure as narrow as possible the 12" was tilted to an angle approaching 45 degrees, it's accessable via a removable panel on the rear of the speaker.

I'll get some more stuff up a bit later, loads to do unfortunately ;)

Bests to all, bye for now...

Reid Malenfant

22-07-2010, 17:15

Onwards...

Here is one of the electronic crossovers that splits below 110Hz to the 12" driver & above this to the P150 channel driving the original Yamaha crossover feeding the front mounted drivers. All home designed including the circuit & just for good measure it's even built on prototyping (vero) board :lol:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/Electroniccrossover1-1.jpg

Notice the rather large heatsink ;) The reasoning behind this was that eventually i was going to have a relay controlled volume control downstream of this crossover & i wanted it to be able to drive a very low resistance to minimise noise. The consequence of this is that it runs at quite a high current as it's single ended class A & the heatsink needed to be big to keep it reasonably cool.

Inside couple of shots..

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/Electroniccrossover2-1.jpg

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/Electroniccrossover3-1.jpg

I even went so far as to test a load of capacitors out on my LCR bridge to get tolerances below 0.5% for a dead accurate crossover. Operational amplifiers were used as an input buffer & these drive a differential amp which drives a mosfet on the output. The mosfets load is a transistor used as a constasnt current to get the single ended circuit. As the op amp is driving a transistor base it sees a very high impedance so it will itself stay in class A, all good news sonically :) These have been working happily every day for well over 5 years or so..

Here is a rather dusty P150 that is used to drive one complete speaker.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/P150-1.jpg

Doesn't sound like a Krell but it's not too bad, i guess that's down to the circuit design & the fact that it's biased pretty high also. Not unpleasant on the ears in the upper registers which a lot of amps can be driving NS1000 speakers :trust:

Here is a Paradigm sub that is used to fill in below about 30Hz where the main speakers begin to roll off. In room it's pretty good down to roughly 15Hz which is rather nice, pity it's a reflex though :rolleyes: Looks like it needs a dust as well :lol: The old JVC integrated is used to drive a pair of Mission 780 speakers & these are used on the AV gear (at present) & my laptop PC to play music such as MP3 stuff.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/Paradigmsub-1.jpg

My poor Krell KSA250 that is doing nothing at the moment (thankfully) due to it being summer & me having no wish to install air conditioning ;) The Parasound is pretty similar actually.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/KSA250AMDsatrest-1.jpg

Acoustic Mass Dampers removed as i don't want to punch holes in the carpet or for that matter blunt the AMDs.

Here is some of the future stuff that will be installed. The PS Audio P600 Power Plant, Audio Research MP1 pre amp (with cobweb - not a scratch though it made me look :rolleyes: ) & the aforementioned Parasound HCA1206.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/PowerPlantMP1HCA1206-1.jpg

I'm mainly a music person though i'm very partial to movies & good documentaries. I never watch TV & therefore don't have a TV license (not easy to explain to TV licensing when you buy a new TV let me tell you :rolleyes: ) & i'm still dealing with the bums right now & waiting for an inspection visit.

So here are a few AV bits. First up the soon to be replaced centre speaker & bass unit.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/Centrespeakersub-1.jpg

I have a nice new & unused Paradigm Signature Series C5 V2 to go in there which will thankfully lower the TV as you'll see i need to shortly...

Here is the Philips 56" superwidescreen TV licensing was getting all upset about when i purchased it about a month back. You can see it's encroaching on the projector screen :( Screen is 120" & i use a Mitsubishi HC5000 full HD projector with it.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/TVprojectorscreen-1.jpg

The hopefully soon to be moved BD & DVD players as well as 5 input 2 output HDMI switcher - all going in the rack :) They'll also get used for multi channel music. I have quite a few DTS encoded 5.1 releases from FAX records that sound marvelous when run through a 5.1 system.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/BDDVDplayers-1.jpg

To say i like this TV is a serious understatement. With cinemascope BDs & DVDs there are no black lines top & bottom, the screen shape seems to be a lot more natural even after a few minutes of viewing & of course it scales up the 800 odd lines from a cinemascope BD to 1080P as well as scaling horizontally to 2560 pixels. I even prefer watching a lot of full screen films such as Avatar scaled up with the top & bottom cropped, it does that good a job. My Toshiba hasn't been switched on since the Philips arrived.

One screen shot...

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Audio%20Video%20system/Screenshot1-1.jpg

& that's all for today folks :)

Bests to all, bye for now..

The Vinyl Adventure

22-07-2010, 18:59

Someone sat on ya tv matey, it's all squashed! ;)
That's an aweful lot of interesting kit you got there, my missis would chuck a bloody nut if I tried to get half of that into our living room!

DSJR

23-07-2010, 09:19

Good God man, you've got it bad :D

I didn't like the KSA250 when I last heard one - very uncharacteristically harsh as I remember and not a patch on the KSA80 or FPB300 we had at the time... Mind you, after a few years driving 1 Ohm Apogees, it may have cooked itself well out of spec...

Marco

23-07-2010, 09:37

Nice system, Mark, but why is it all inside your fridge? :scratch:

;)

Marco.

Joe

23-07-2010, 09:54

Nice system, Mark, but why is it all inside your fridge? :scratch:

;)

Marco.

Cryogenics?

Reid Malenfant

23-07-2010, 13:53

Someone sat on ya tv matey, it's all squashed! ;)
That's an aweful lot of interesting kit you got there, my missis would chuck a bloody nut if I tried to get half of that into our living room!
2281 at the squashed TV. Honestly it's kind of difficult imagining how big a standard widescreen TV would need to be to give the same screen area with a 2.35:1 or 2.40:1 signal. You are looking at about 70"+. I find myself deliberately looking for cinemascope films which is totally the opposite to what i was doing with my 42" Toshiba ;)

I'm sure if i had a missus that i'd still get away with it as i have another front room, this one is dedicated to AV so it's not like there would be too many complaints. As it happens though no-one is complaining about anything round here except myself 2282

Ta for popping in :)

Good God man, you've got it bad :D

I didn't like the KSA250 when I last heard one - very uncharacteristically harsh as I remember and not a patch on the KSA80 or FPB300 we had at the time... Mind you, after a few years driving 1 Ohm Apogees, it may have cooked itself well out of spec...
Ah well that is quite possibly the case ;) I was lucky to get a mint KSA250 that had just had a slight problem sorted (DC offset on one channel was a tad high) & had a full service from a Krell technician at a reasonable price i might add. From what i was told the same kind of service would have been somewhere near £1500.00 from Absolute Sounds in London :eek: As it is i bought it after it had been used for less than 20Hrs after the service as the chap that sold me it no longer needed a monster like this as he'd just sold his Sonus Faber Extremas.

A friend of mine with a KSA80 has been trying to pry it out of my hands having heard it as he prefers it over his KSA80 & now needs more power to drive his ATC SC20SLs'.

I think you might be correct in assuming it needed a good service to bring it back on spec ;)

Thanks for posting :wave:

Nice system, Mark, but why is it all inside your fridge? :scratch:

;)

Marco.
PMSL With all this kit it'd be a real nightmare to keep everything dust free & clean so i built the "fridge" :whistle: As i mentioned it needs just a little work & i'll have virtually a dust free environment for all the kit. Dust can't get in at the top simply due to the way the whole cabinet is vented, i wish i'd had a digital camera available when i built the thing (& a PC & a nice forum like this one) so you could see my thinking. I'll get a few more pics of the fridge when i remove everything & before i put all the new kit in so you can see a bit more of what's going on ;)

I like the name fridge, well thought out ;) Cheers for popping in :)

Cryogenics?
2281 Not far off as it does have inbuilt fans for when things warm up ;)

Like the others, ta for posting 2283

Bests to all...

Alex_UK

23-07-2010, 14:43

Smilies of the year award goes to... Mark!

Reid Malenfant

23-07-2010, 15:06

Smilies of the year award goes to... Mark!
LOL, Cheers Alex :) Loads more where they came from, they'll no doubt be introduced gradually, but that's enough for now...

Ali Tait

23-07-2010, 17:51

Wow,some amount of good kit you have there! Have you ever been into valves?

Reid Malenfant

23-07-2010, 18:24

Wow,some amount of good kit you have there! Have you ever been into valves?
I must admit to never owning any valve gear, however that doesn't mean i haven't been blown away when listening to some nice valve amps ;) I have some very pleasant memories of sitting down & listening to some incredible performances via a pair of Jadis JA200 monoblocks 2294

The thing with me is i do like to turn things up on the odd occasion (read quite often LOL - no missus & a detached house....) & unless i invested in something like i just mentioned i'd soon run out of headroom unless i changed to some much more efficient loudspeakers.

Unfortunately i fell in love with Yamaha NS1000s' the very first time i heard a pair & something i didn't mention earlier (because i forgot :doh: ) is that i own 3 pairs of them. The pics of the single speakers i use at the front at the present are destined to become rear speakers in my AV setup.

The new front speakers will consist of 2 x 15" per channel for bass between 13 - 100Hz or if i feel like really going nuts 25 - 100Hz @ 122Db. The upper bass/mids will be 2 x 9", mids 2 x Yam 2.75" beryllium mids & treble 1 x 1" yam Beryllium dome per channel in a B,M,T,M,B arrangement. Or if you like a D' Appolito gone mad 2295

As you can imagine this will require quite a few amplifiers as i intend to use an electronic crossover to feed individual amplifiers (which i already own). I guess i could one day swap out certain amps like the mid & treble amps for valve equipment & see how they sound, right now though it's not in the budget so to speak ;)

I do love class A amps though & it has been known for me to design & build my own amps (ex electronics engineer). Right now i just happen to have a rather large box full of components to build 6 x single ended class A power amps which i intend to use to power the main speakers, but that's another story for another time ;)

Bests to you..

Ali Tait

23-07-2010, 18:52

Mike here also has a pair of Yammies,and a while back I visited for an evening along with an original WAD 300b PP amp,which Mike was interested in.I have to say that was a match made in heaven! (Not me and Mike,the Yammies and the WAD! :lol: )

I'd never heard the 300b sounding better.I think he's still happy with it!

Reid Malenfant

23-07-2010, 19:18

2297 You are dead right, the Yamahas love class A or valve amps in general ;) They really didn't go down too well with the general public when they were first made available over here simply because they showed up the shortcomings of most of the amplifiers that most people were using.

You just need to remember that joe average hifi guy was using class B amps with bextrene or polypropylene bass mids & soft dome tweeters which really didn't show up the nasties produced from crossover distortion. Connect the NSs' up & it was a recipe for disaster :lol:

Funny though, the Americans loved them & bought them left right & centre. Must be because they were running decent class A amps or valve gear rather than muscular class B stuff.

I can honestly say that the very first time i heard a pair on good equipment i had one of those jaw dropping moments. I wasn't alone as i happened to go along for the listening with a good freind. It must have been less than 20 seconds of listening to them that we both looked at each other with a look of total disbelief on our faces ;) So i bought them & another two pairs. Thankfully i knew the shop owner & got all 3 pairs at a very good price :)

Ali Tait

23-07-2010, 19:26

Yes indeed they are very good speakers.I prefer statics these days though,don't really get on with boxes these days.Since having the statics,I can always hear the box now.

Reid Malenfant

23-07-2010, 19:43

Indeed, when i bought the KSA250 i auditioned it on a pair of ESL63s & it sounded wonderful :) The chap was a little afraid of turning it up though, can't say i'm surprised :lol:

Electrostatics are great but like anything else they have there shortcomings, like lack of deep bass unless the panel is large. Add a clean sealed box sub & i guess you could have a match made in heaven ;) No surprise that Martin Logan appear to be well received..

Next speakers will be 18mm MDF sandwich with 6mm of dry sand between 2 x 18mm layers of wood. This should eliminate any sound eminating from the box & i'll also make all panels so they aren't at the same angle to eliminate any standing waves & prevent reflection through the driver cones.

Below 100Hz it's just a question of making it stiff as all hell, loads of bracing :smoking:

Ali Tait

23-07-2010, 20:34

Well I have two pairs,both kits from ER Audio-the ESL III and the top of the range Acorn.I bought both of these built beautifully from a friend who used to be the UK distributor.The III's have a cone sub built in to the base,which can be run from an active crossover,but to be honest,the panels sound better without them,they just can't keep up with the speed of the panels.Both are large,with the Acorns over two meters high.Both do good bass,but the Acorns are better in this respect.Some pics of the III's-

Alex_UK

23-07-2010, 21:54

Techno Commander

23-07-2010, 21:57

:lolsign:

Alex_UK

23-07-2010, 22:01

Just noticed even the title of the thread fits... I know I'm right! ;)

Ali Tait

23-07-2010, 22:03

Marco

23-07-2010, 22:53

Ali Tait

23-07-2010, 23:15

Aye,it's the demon vodka!

Marco

23-07-2010, 23:26

Lol - I think that's the closest we've ever had of a picture of your system, so how about doing a proper one for The Gallery? :)

Marco.

Ali Tait

23-07-2010, 23:30

I could show you,but then I'd have to kill you...

Marco

23-07-2010, 23:34

Hahahaha.... I always thought you were a secret agent (the Warlord badge on yer Christmas jumper gave it away), but maybe you're just shy! :eyebrows:

Marco.

Ali Tait

23-07-2010, 23:48

Well at least it wasn't the Gaylord badge like on yours...

Marco

23-07-2010, 23:56

:lolsign:

We defo need a pic of your system in The Gallery, though!

Marco.

Ali Tait

24-07-2010, 00:13

Aye you are right,I've never done that.Mind you,I've never put my name at the bottom on my signature either!

I must be the longest ever to have escaped the thought police! :lol:

Marco

24-07-2010, 00:29

Lol - you don't need to: it says 'Ali' on your user name!

If it was 'Xerox 471189', or something like that, it might be different ;)

Marco.

Ali Tait

24-07-2010, 00:32

How do you do,my name is Sue...

Marco

24-07-2010, 00:58

And my I ask if 'Sue' has a hairy arse? :lol:

Marco.

Ali Tait

24-07-2010, 01:05

Not only that,but it's a ginger hairy airse!

Marco

24-07-2010, 01:10

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/7681/kennethwilliams.jpg (http://img138.imageshack.us/i/kennethwilliams.jpg/)

Ali Tait

24-07-2010, 01:14

:lol:

Reid Malenfant

24-07-2010, 15:39

Mark, after reading all the above, I'm pretty sure I have an accurate mental picture of what you look like...

http://static.reelmovienews.com/images/gallery/doc-freaks_262x276.jpg

Am I right? ;)

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
2322 Only when i gas weld & drop an Acetylene cylinder on my foot 2323 2324

Very good indeed, i like it :lolsign:

I can see we are going to have fun & games here 2325

Reid Malenfant

15-12-2010, 18:11

3227

Just picked up a spare Philips CDM3 laser mechanism for the Krell transport this afternoon. Nothing wrong with the one in it at present but there is nothing like being prepared :eyebrows: I'd hate the idea of trying to locate one & not being able to :eek:

Hopefully that'll keep the old girl spinning for many years to come yet 3228

Meanwhile it's beer o'clock 3229

John

15-12-2010, 19:20

No idea how I missed this one Your system is as insane as I imagined it to be....well done

Reid Malenfant

15-12-2010, 19:29

:lolsign: You aint seen nothing.... Yet :eyebrows: As soon as i get room to work on stuff a lot will get changed for better kit.

Take it from me John it's quite easy to miss a fair bit on here, though things are kind of slow this evening (so far) which gave you the opportunity to experience the madness :cool:

As Alex will find out next year (& anyone at Melton Mowbray) i actually don't look like the mad prof out of Back To The Future ;)

Welder

19-12-2010, 12:43

Interesting kit Mark.
Oh arr, you’ve got a bad case of audiophilea alright, no doubt about that :lol:

TBL

22-12-2010, 17:55

I'm sure if i had a missus

Well at least that explains all the dust. :)

Reid Malenfant

22-12-2010, 18:14

Well at least that explains all the dust. :)
Adds valuable damping ;)

:lolsign:

Reid Malenfant

05-01-2011, 16:41

Just had the shock of my life when a courier turned up with a couple of bits of kit for me :eyebrows:

I have never seen anything like this packaging before, not for HiFi equipment at any rate. It's built like it's designed to take a nuclear blast as standard (more of that in a bit :lol:)

I'll get some pics up of the equipment itself when they go in the rack (trust me, that'll be very soon indeed ;))..

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS/Image5-1.jpg

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS/Image7-1.jpg

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS/Picture008-1.jpg

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS/Image6-1.jpg

A few pics of Trinity & Beyond - The Atomic Bomb Movie :eek: Old footage so don't expect miracles...

A 280mm shell :scratch:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS/Image1-1.jpg

A pretty big gun :eyebrows:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS/Image2-1.jpg

Ok, who set it off then? :mental:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS/Image3-1.jpg

What the f*ck was that? :eek:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS/Image4-1.jpg

That's what 15 kilotons looks like from over 20 miles away :stalks:

Techno Commander

05-01-2011, 16:52

Ooh flight cases.:eek:

I am going to hazzard a guess, they arent a pair of 1210s.:)
More importantly, has whoever you got whatever from, got any more left?

Reid Malenfant

05-01-2011, 17:50

Ooh flight cases.:eek:

I am going to hazzard a guess, they arent a pair of 1210s.:)
More importantly, has whoever you got whatever from, got any more left?
Yes, but they aint cheap :eek:

Those are the standard cases that the equipment comes in, quite something considering just about everyone just double boxes things :eyebrows:

You might as well know what they are as you'll see pics soon enough :)

dCS Delius DAC with IEEE1394 (firewire)
dCS Purcell Upsampler also with IEEE1394

:cool:

Ali Tait

05-01-2011, 18:21

Guessed that from the dcs sticker on the case! Let us know how they sound.

Reid Malenfant

05-01-2011, 18:26

Sure thing Ali, i might be a tad busy going through a load of CDs once again though :lol:

In fact i'm damn sure i will :)

Reid Malenfant

10-01-2011, 20:02

Had enough waiting for blasted deliveries, the Purcell & Delius will be going in the rack tomorrow no matter what :eyebrows:

Looks like i'll be having a bit of a cable shootout after i get used to the standard Firewire cable that's supplied with them. I only need the one but each unit comes with it's own :scratch:

I'll give it a few days & some choice CDs i know very well & then the fun will begin :lol:

So far i have the standard cable that looks to be about 2M long at a guess, a 1.8M Belkin, a 1M IXOS & on the way is a 0.6M Oyaide (big thanks to Chris [technobear] for pointing me in the right direction).

Logic states that the shortest (all things being equal) should be better, it also looks rather tasty as well but that's beside the point. It's what my ears tell me that matters ;)

Pics tomorrow if i can drag myself away from listening :D

Reid Malenfant

11-01-2011, 12:59

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH :steam: :steam: :steam: :steam: :steam: :steam:

Just stripped out a load of stuff from the rack & discovered the blasted balanced output cables that need to connect to the output of the Delius are too bloomin short!!! :steam:

Message to self! Mark, read your signature :rolleyes:

Well that's that then :doh: Looks like i need to purchase some 1M long balanced interconnects (on top of the ones i recently bought which are in some aircraft hold possibly :mental:). So i have decided to wait until certain things get here & then strip the whole rack out & clean it all up & then put humpty dumpty back together again but improved...

Bits going in

2 x Belkin PF40
dCS Purcell
dCS Delius
Audio Research MP1 multi channel pre amp
Panasonic DMP-BD80
Denon DVD2930
Octava 5 x 2 distribution amplifier
Pioneer CTF 950
PS Audio P600 (on top of rack)

Bits coming out

Classe DR5 pre amp
Monarchy Audio DAC
Monarchy Audio DIP 24/96 (maybe)
Harmon Kardon AVR5500
Carver M1.5T
Extron scaler
TV associated gubbins

At least i still have music :cool:

MartinT

11-01-2011, 14:00

Good grief, man, my system is a model of calmness compared with your upheavals. Cables that are just too short are a pain, n'est pas? Using a Krell KSA-250 as a coffee table, eh? That's class (A)!

Reid Malenfant

11-01-2011, 14:25

Good grief, man, my system is a model of calmness compared with your upheavals.
:eyebrows: Good job it doesn't happen very often then Martin ;) Last time anything changed was at least 2 or more years ago, i'd like it to be longer next time but i don't have high hopes :doh:

E2A:- Thankfully the cable problem will now be sorted out inside of a week. Having had a look round on fleabay at all the different balanced interconnects a thought occured to me :scratch: Eventually this whole system will go balanced right through to the power amplifiers as the cable runs won't be the shortest. So having remembered i checked Maplin out for decent balanced cable a while back I went back & bought 50M of their best two core screened cable (http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=26923) (which looks to be vastly better than some stuff on fleabay).

As standard it's £4.64 per Metre which isn't bad considering the nutty costs of a lot of stuff, but buy 50M & the price drops to the equivalent of £2.32 per Metre :) It's a cracking cable with foam dielectric, twisted centre cores, a foil screen & heavy braided screen on top of that. Colour isn't blue, it's pearlescent white.

I'll combine this with a load of black anodised (gold contacts) Neutrik connectors that i have here, just means i'll need to buy more of those in the future. I'll get a quality pair of stereo 1M cables for approximately £20 :eyebrows:

That'll do me nicely....

Reid Malenfant

23-01-2011, 16:06

I finally manged to get the dCS kit installed even though it's only going to be on a temporary basis. Right now i'm spinning some familiar tunes & thoroughly enjoying things, even though i'm also running in some brand new cables into the bargain :rolleyes:

As it is right now the Monarchy Audio DIP 24/96 is still connected in between the CD transport & the Purcell upsampler, i'm not sure if it's going to stay this way. Connections between the Purcell & Delius are via the Oyaide 60CM firewire cable & the word clock output of the Delius to the Purcell which puts the Delius in "master mode". Again i'm not sure this will remain the same either as every so often something loses the plot :eyebrows: There is a slight pause in proceedings (a second every 10 minutes or so) & i have a feeling this is due to the Krell transports clock not being at precisely the same frequency as the word clock output of the Delius. Upscaling is via DSD as things are wired right now.

I think i'll rewire it shortly to use the AES3 connection (dual AES/EBU) & upscale to 24/176.4 as then no word clock is used & the clock is retreived from the transport itself & these slight pauses in proceedings should be eliminated at a guess ;)

How does it sound, well considering i'm burning in a brand new set of balanced cables it pretty good already (only been listening for less than 1 hour). Bass has more weight & depth, treble does seem to have greater extension & lots more air. The whole soundstage is improved with near on pinpoint positioning of sounds in the presentation. The whole lot just sounds more analogue & less digital in all honesty :eyebrows:

Time to dig out some stuff with vocals on it & see how voices sound, meanwhile here is a pic ;)

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/dCS%20kit/PurcellDelius-1.jpg

I'm quite happy with the already noticeable improvements over the Monarchy Audio DAC, things can only get better :cool:

E2A:- These slight interuptions are getting further apart, something is warming up & clocks are getting closer together. I'll leave it connected via the firewire connections this evening & see what happens...

Welder

23-01-2011, 16:53

Reid Malenfant

23-01-2011, 17:01

Looks the dog’s bollocks Mark. Pleased it’s working out for you :)
Not exactly cheap is it :eek:

Oh arr, if you want your music to sound analogue why don’t you just buy a bloody record player like the others :rolleyes::lolsign:
Not cheap no, but definately worth what i payed imo & that's only a couple of hours in listening to it all. It's scarily good John :eyebrows:

As for a record deck i have one sitting underneath the dCS kit :ner: There is no comparison to this though imo, i'd need to spend more on a record deck that these to get anywhere near this sound quality :lol: No, my £3,350 went in the right place ;)

Reid Malenfant

04-02-2011, 20:18

Things are about to get pretty grim around here as i'm about to strip the rack out :rolleyes: This means i'll be reduced to whatever i can cobble together to listen to music until things go back together :doh:

I think i'll have a bit of a blowout tonight & tomorrow & then gut the thing on Sunday :eyebrows:

Not sure how long it'll take me to get everything back together again, it's probably more complex than Humpty Dumpty tbh as i'll be making new mains cables as i go along. I have 30M of Mark Grant DSP 2.5 screened mains cable, 17 Kaiser IEC connectors & about 30 brand new mains plugs as well as heatshrink & lord knows what else to do the job.

The end result should be worth it though as all front end kit will be powered off of a PS Audio P600 mains regenerator & all kit after this will be running via screened mains leads including the nifty figure of 8 connector jobbies :)

The P600 will feed a pair of Belkin PF40 conditioners, this sounds odd i know but there is method in my madness even if the manual states not to do it!

3675

The American version of the P600 has a pair of amplifiers in bridge mode to directly power the 110 or 120V equipment resulting in very low output impedance. However on this side of the pond our P600s weigh in at 110lbs each due to the dirty great big transformer slapped on the amplifiers output to raise this to 220 - 240V, this will raise the impedance a damn sight more than any small filter in a conditioner & it'll cause phase shifts & lower the performance :eyebrows: There is no feedback from the transformer secondary that i know of, therefore the output will be subject to transformer regulation as well..

The idea of installing 2 PF40s is simply to isolate power supplies from each other so they cause less interference to each other. I have all sorts of kit & some makes use of SMPS such as my BD & DVD player, not sure about the dCS stuff but it wouldn't surprise me either. Nothing draws any more than 30W so in certain respects mains impedance is out of the window unless it's stupidly high (which it won't be). I already know the benefits of the PF40 & am quite happy to have the benefits even if mains impedance is raised a tad :D

The PF40 runs happily on balanced mains even if it says silly things like no earth & incorrectly wired, i have already installed one with an American type 3 pin mains plug just to make sure before going ahead with all this :cool:

See you all on the other side :cool: I might be a tad busy from Sunday morning onwards, but i'll be about :eyebrows:

Techno Commander

04-02-2011, 20:27

Good luck and have fun. :)

Reid Malenfant

04-02-2011, 20:40

Cheers Andy, i might need it ;) If i forget anything it might mean stripping a whole side down again :eek: Hours of work, maybe a day, this is why i don't often change things :eyebrows:

It's not like i can get to the back of stuff once it's in there :rolleyes:

Have a good weekend fella! ATB

MartinT

05-02-2011, 12:33

Good luck with that, Mark. It's usually fun once you get it back together again. I find that intuition and learning means that you gain improvements along the way.

Reid Malenfant

05-02-2011, 12:42

Cheers Martin, i'll probably need it ;)

Whilst everything is out i'll get some pics taken so if anyone fancies making their own rack similar to this (but probably a different colour :D) they'll have some ideas on how to go about it :)

Nothing like a possible bit of inspiration..

John

05-02-2011, 17:50

Not cheap no, but definately worth what i payed imo & that's only a couple of hours in listening to it all. It's scarily good John :eyebrows:

As for a record deck i have one sitting underneath the dCS kit :ner: There is no comparison to this though imo, i'd need to spend more on a record deck that these to get anywhere near this sound quality :lol: No, my £3,350 went in the right place ;)

Not sure if would Mark the 1210 maxed out would cost the same and the Salvation a £2300 with arm :lolsign:
Still Lovelly bit of Kit

Reid Malenfant

05-02-2011, 20:37

Ah, ok John, so allowing for a good cartridge about the same sort of price then ;) I only have a few hundred records though & probably 2000+ CDs so as Marco says at the end of the day i think i'd get better SPPV going the digital route :)

Nice thought though, i do like the look of the Terminator but i just can't justify it with so few records :( The biggest upgrade the Aiwa will see is a low hours Denon DL103 & new phono amp in the not too distant future, i may even go mad & make an external PSU for it :eyebrows: Only when everything else is done & dusted though..

Enjoy your weekend chap :) ATB!

Reid Malenfant

08-02-2011, 16:03

Good luck with that, Mark. It's usually fun once you get it back together again.
I do need it :eek: Yes it'll be great - when it gets back together :doh:

Cheers Martin, i'll probably need it ;)
Well i'm in the middle of my worst nightmare :eek:

This would actually be funny if it wasn't so serious :eyebrows: I need to plug all the mains cables into one of the PF40s before i carry on stuffing bits in the rack, the only problem is i don't know precisely where everything is going quite yet so i have no idea how long to make each mains lead & what socket to plug it into. That all depends on whether the equipment uses an SMPS or linear power supply :rolleyes:

Looks like a load of measuring of equipment & rack & shelves/paving slabs is in order & some close as possible guestimation :D

Now you might understand why i said i don't change things around that often :exactly:

I reckon i'll get the thing sorted by the end of the week, maybe....

E2A:- After a load of thought & lots of measurement i think i can finally move forward :) Looks like i'm actually not going to have room for one bit of kit though :rolleyes: The sacrificial cow will be the CD recorder... I'll only ever need it to record from an analogue source & i won't be doing that too often, so i'll connect a set of RCAs to the record out of the MP1 & feed them out of the rack & insulate them ready for use. Handily the Belkin PF40 has a socket on the front panel behind a cover so when i need to record anything i can plumb into that supply :)

Looks like it's all systems go, i have all the measurements i need to cut the mains cable, where everything will fit & what socket each bit of kit will need to connect to. May be operational in 4 or 5 days now as there is still a ton of work to do, but at least i know what the hell i'm doing now :cool:

MartinT

09-02-2011, 07:09

Ali Tait

09-02-2011, 07:16

You might want to short out that unused pair of i/c's Mark. You may get hum otherwise.

Reid Malenfant

09-02-2011, 13:30

You need one of these:
http://www.brother.co.uk/g3.cfm/s_page/215760/s_level/223400/s_product/PT1290DTZU1

There's nothing like properly labelling your cables so that you know what the hell you did six months from now.
I'd tend to agree with that Martin, what i have got is a load of stickers that were supplied with the PF40s with different labels on them. I guess i could use those :) Good thinking that man, though in certain respects it makes little difference due to the nature of my rack. You see the problem is if i want to extract something or get to the back of a piece of equipment i literally have to remove everything above it to do so :doh: Now while this appears to be a bad idea it actually prevents me from box swapping very often :D Not only that it forces me to be much more careful about cable routing as i have to install every cable when each bit of kit goes in & route them in the correct general direction to where ever they are going.

It's a pita but it keeps the grey cells occupied :eyebrows:

You might want to short out that unused pair of i/c's Mark. You may get hum otherwise.
Possibly a good point Ali, i think i have a way round this without shorting them out, i'll just screen them with a modified dual phono back to back connector :)

Mean while it's back to making loads of MG DSP 2.5 mains cables :doh:

Reid Malenfant

11-02-2011, 16:19

Mean while it's back to making loads of MG DSP 2.5 mains cables :doh:
Having finally finished making all these cables up i have even more respect for Mark Grant & his cables & pricing ;) In all honesty the only part of putting these cables together that might possibly be mechanised is removal of the outer clear insulated jacket & possibly the insulation on the three mains conductors themselves :scratch:

The whole of the rest of the operation could only be done by hand imo. From seperating the screen to finding the drain wire, cutting back the foil screen & then the thin plastic insulator as well as actually fitting the mutiple heatshrink sleeving & finally the plugs themselves must all be done by hand :eek:

To get anywhere at a reasonable speed required me to set up a mini production line where i did a task or two to each cable & once all where done i moved onto the next work to be done & repeated this on all cables once again :eyebrows:

Thankfully that is over & done with, if you happen to read this Mr Grant i think your mains cables are very reasonably priced :cool:

Next up is cut a load of Phono plugs off of 3 sets of component video cables & fit XLR connectors, once that's done i can actually get everything into the rack & set up 3722

Back with pictures in the not too distant future :)

Alex_UK

11-02-2011, 16:44

Can't fault your dedication to the cause, Mark. You mad fool! :eyebrows:

I'm sure it will all be worth it in the end, I'm obviously not afflicted enough yet, I couldn't even begin to comprehend getting into what you are doing, so :respect:

Good luck with the rest of it - and don't forget I will know where you live in less than a month, so I will be expecting an invite back again to hear your creation! :)

Reid Malenfant

11-02-2011, 18:12

Good luck with the rest of it - and don't forget I will know where you live in less than a month, so I will be expecting an invite back again to hear your creation! :)
Cheers Alex, you are more than welcome to stop by either on the way to Scalford or on the way back fella. I was going to suggest such a diversion anyway as it kind of woudn't really make sense being here & not coming in for a listen :D

I look forward to it, now just to get it all back together & working :cool:

Alex_UK

11-02-2011, 18:39

Cheers Alex, you are more than welcome to stop by either on the way to Scalford or on the way back fella. I was going to suggest such a diversion anyway as it kind of woudn't really make sense being here & not coming in for a listen :D

I look forward to it, now just to get it all back together & working :cool:

I'll be picking you up too early for a listening sesh, so let's see how pissed you get on Marco's Amex card first - I might leave you there to share his room if it looks like you'll pebble-dash my upholstery on the way home! :lol:

Reid Malenfant

11-02-2011, 18:42

:D I don't get sick on beer Alex, i drink every evening remember :eyebrows:

Good idea, on the way back would be better :)

Reid Malenfant

12-02-2011, 16:11

Finally some pictures :eyebrows: As i have completed altering the component video cables i guess i can actually start getting more stuff into the rack at long last :) Shouldn't be long now, though i'm not without music so no rush & i'd prefer to get it right first time :eyebrows:

First up here is the rack devoid of life :D That is except for a P600 Pwer Plant holding it to the floor, all 110lbs of it :eek:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image1-1.jpg

For those that might be interested i took a picture of one of the pillars. This one is the central rear pillar, as you can possibly see it's a sandwich of MDF glued & screwed together. The whole reason for this is simply so i can position the shelves anywhere i want & then lock them in place. Each shelf has 4 bolts & most importantly square nuts that slot into the rectangular slot at the top of the pillar. Once the nuts are inside that slot they move up & down freely, the outer slotted section is too narrow to allow the nut to escape so they lock in place once the bolt is tightened :)
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image2-1.jpg

A couple of ventilation fans that were used when the Harman Kardon AVR5500 was in use. The air is blown along from the centre to the outside & than directed back towards the centre nearer the outer edge of the rack & exits via a load of round holes on the front & rear of the rack. This helped reduce fan noise to non existant levels ;)
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image3-1.jpg

Here we have some of the shelves. To get them all exactly the same size i made a jig to assemble them, i also had to make sure that the rack was built to very close tolerances. Plenty of open space for ventilation of equipment.. I placed 4 x 1/2" thick felt pads near the corners of each shelf & then a concrete slab on those, works a treat..
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image4-1.jpg

Here you can see the all important square nuts that drop into the slots on the pillars :eyebrows:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image5-1.jpg

This is where i'm at right now :rolleyes:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image6-1.jpg

Here is a rather big pile of cable, i'll actually be using more than this :doh:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image7-1.jpg

The now modified component video cables fitted with XLR connectors on one end. These will connect from the two Behringer 4 way mono crossovers to the power amps on the other side of the room. I used 3 x 10M sets to make an 8 way set of cables & as i stripped one cable off i realised i had the perfect cable to connect from the ARC MP1 to the centre channel power amp :lol:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image8-1.jpg

Some homemade Mark Grant DSP 2.5 cables..
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image9-1.jpg

More Mark Grant, this time his G1000HD (http://markgrantcables.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=40_3&products_id=181) BNC to BNC for the word clock connection between dCS Purcell & Delius :)
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image10-1.jpg

Two sets of balanced Atlas Navigator cables, so glad i got two pairs as i'd be stuffed if i hadn't. These will connect from the dCS kit to the ARC MP1 & from the MP1 to the Behringer crossovers.. Not sure about the purple colour :scratch:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image11-1.jpg

Finally a cable i got from USA, this will connect the phono stage (when i have built it) to the MP1. I used this when running the dCS stuff a while ago, nice neutral sounding cable :)
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image12-1.jpg

I guess i'll be back with more pics once installation is complete, ATB :cool:

Techno Commander

12-02-2011, 16:16

Looking good. :)

Alex_UK

12-02-2011, 19:22

Getting there fella! Spaghetti for tea? :)

MartinT

12-02-2011, 22:12

Blue your favourite colour then, Mark? :)

Alex_UK

12-02-2011, 22:45

I must admit it reminded me of this... ;)

nqA8NWnnJcc

Reid Malenfant

13-02-2011, 20:40

Getting there fella! Spaghetti for tea? :)
Jeez, yeah i'm getting there but managed to conveniently forget a couple of cables already :doh: Luckily it wasn't too difficult to fit them thankfully ;)

Blue your favourite colour then, Mark? :)
:D How can i explain :scratch: There are four walls in this room & the opposite ones are the same colour. I have two blue walls & two white walls, i guess both would have been too overpowering on there own. I simply made the rack & painted it the same colour as the wall ;) Blue & silver (think equipment) go together as does blue & black, so at the end of the day it looks ok :eyebrows:

I must admit it reminded me of this... ;)

nqA8NWnnJcc
:lolsign: It's not a glowing blue Alex as you'll see shortly, however the lighting in here is pretty well subdued so it might well appear a tad brighter under normal lighting conditions (which will never happen)...

Good vid btw, that yellow was awesome/awful :eek:

The rack is half filled & the easy stuff (i think) is left to stuff in there :) Setting up the crossovers etc will be the PITA but i have multimeters & a couple of oscilloscopes to do the job as well as a function generator... I guess it'll all be rocking by mid week :)

Reid Malenfant

14-02-2011, 19:57

Ok here is where i'm at right now... I have three units to stuff into the rack, the blu ray player, the SVHS video recorder & the phono stage when i get it built :doh:

Everything appears to be working 100% on balanced mains thankfully, i have been testing stuff as it has been installed just in case :lol: In some instances it looks like spaghetti junction in there but if you could see the huge pile of cables that came out of the rack you'd soon appreciate how much simpler this install has been, i kid you not :eyebrows:

I can't install the video yet as i need to have access to the pre amps input so i can set the crossovers up with a function generator, multimeter & oscilloscope. I'm hoping i get this done tomorrow, but it must be done correctly. That means plumbing in the KSA250 & HCA1206 to the output cables from the crossovers & taking voltage readings on the output of the power amps, because the gain of the two amps is going to differ :rolleyes:

I also don't want to install the blu ray player yet as i'm listening to music on it as i type, once all is good to go i think i'm in for a bit of a shock :D

Anyway, here are the latest pics... There won't be many more for a while once everything is done..

Here is Spaghetti Junction, also know as the back of the Audio Research MP1 pre amplifier :eyebrows:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/OMG-1.jpg

Lots of pretty lights - it must be christmas, all appears to be working... Picture is blurred due to low light & no flash.. Some strange geezer reflected in the pic :mental:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Loadsalightslol-1.jpg

Ah, that's better :)
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Doorsopen-1.jpg

Here are the 9 cables feeding audio to the front channels, well they will be soon enough. 4 way left & right & a single centre channel.. The thick blue cable top right is Mark Grant G1080 HDMI cable to the philips TV & the silver cable is to connect the USB/SPDIF convertor on my lappy to the input of the dCS Purcell :) Grey stuff is 2.5mm twin & earth power to the rack itself..
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Spaghetti-1.jpg

That's it for now, i'll be back soon i hope with good news :cool:

MartinT

15-02-2011, 07:05

Nice custom rack, Mark. That looks like a lot of work and your gear looks very happy in there.

I still think you need a reduction formula: do you really need it all? ;)

Reid Malenfant

15-02-2011, 19:06

Nice custom rack, Mark. That looks like a lot of work and your gear looks very happy in there.

I still think you need a reduction formula: do you really need it all? ;)
Cheers Martin, yes it was quite a bit of work but entirely worthwhile ;) It prevents a lot of dust getting to the equipment, though it'll nearly stop it altogether when i install speaker cloth type material over the grille at the front bottom of the rack & stuff all cable holes with foam. It obviously prevents a great deal of vibration getting to the equipment as well :eyebrows:

As for losing stuff i might be able to but only one thing really... If the blu ray player sounds as good as the Denon DVD player spinning 5.1 channel DTS encoded music & if it can play MP3 CDs as well etc, i guess i could lose the Denon...

That's about it though :D

Now don't you go mentioning universal players :lol:

Welder

15-02-2011, 19:35

Looking good Mark. Rather you than me with all those cables! :eek:
You must be getting a lovely sound out of that lot :)

MartinT

15-02-2011, 19:36

Now don't you go mentioning universal players :lol:

LOL - the trouble is, with each emerging new standard it becomes more difficult to achieve a truly universal player. I have an SACD/DVD-A/DVD-V player with no video circuits, and a Blu-ray player with no SACD playback capability. Guess I'll stick with two :)

Reid Malenfant

16-02-2011, 16:42

Looking good Mark. Rather you than me with all those cables! :eek:
You must be getting a lovely sound out of that lot :)
I really couldn't tell you right now :D I have just spent the last hour setting the crossover frequencies on both xovers, talk about bloody fiddly to get it precise :rolleyes: What's needed is some fine tuning control, but as it is both are now within 0.5% of exactly where i want the frequencies to be :)

110Hz bass to lower mid.
500Hz lower mid to upper mid.
5KHz (original NS1000M is 6KHz) upper mid to high. I figure with a much steeper slope i can lower that one a tad, i won't go any lower though as it'd be entering the most sensitive part of our hearing.

Next is connect the power amps for the stereo channels & set the outputs correctly :doh: I might be listening to it this evening :cool:

LOL - the trouble is, with each emerging new standard it becomes more difficult to achieve a truly universal player. I have an SACD/DVD-A/DVD-V player with no video circuits, and a Blu-ray player with no SACD playback capability. Guess I'll stick with two :)
Well there you go :lol: Same here for now...

Reid Malenfant

16-02-2011, 18:09

Next is connect the power amps for the stereo channels & set the outputs correctly :doh: I might be listening to it this evening :cool:
Not a chance in hell :lolsign: Just realised i need to swap a couple of phono connectors for XLRs & then of course disconnect a shed load of wiring & amplifiers & then connect up the new amps...

It'll be tomorrow as it's now beer o'clock :cool: No worries as i have music ;)

No way am i going to attempt anything while i'm drinking 3780

Reid Malenfant

17-02-2011, 16:55

I have spent all day at it & finally I have an active sound system :)

No really comments from me yet as sooooo many cables are running in as well as a 3KW amplifier :eyebrows:

Well nothing other than :wow: That'll have to suffice for now...

Going to be one big music sesh tonight :D

John

17-02-2011, 17:02

Great Mark I hope you enjoy the rave tonight Lol

RochaCullen

17-02-2011, 17:05

The excitment is palpable. Hope all goes well.

Nathan

keiths

17-02-2011, 17:14

Wow - that was a marathon. :respect:

Had everything out of my rack today. Cleaned all the contacts, added a few ferrite clamps around some mains cables, tidied up the cable routing and replaced the mains cable on my turntable. Took nearly an hour :eyebrows:

Enjoy the fruits of your labour tonight :cool:

Reid Malenfant

17-02-2011, 19:05

Great Mark I hope you enjoy the rave tonight Lol
Just settled down after finally connecting up the Paradigm DSP-3400 subwoofer :) Still not tidied up yet, i'll do that tomorrow ;) Once i do i'll get some nice pics of the room & setup on here...
:rave:

The rave has begun :D Actually i think i'll stick a load of vocal stuff on as i need to make sure everything is set correctly.

Cheers John :cool:

The excitment is palpable. Hope all goes well.

Nathan
All is going very well indeed, thanks Nathan :) This is going to take some getting used to, that oldie about hearing new stuff is raising it's ugly head every few seconds. Everything is lightning fast now with no passive crossover storing power & smearing stuff, this is highly addictive :eyebrows:

ATB fella :)

Wow - that was a marathon. :respect:

Had everything out of my rack today. Cleaned all the contacts, added a few ferrite clamps around some mains cables, tidied up the cable routing and replaced the mains cable on my turntable. Took nearly an hour :eyebrows:

Enjoy the fruits of your labour tonight :cool:
Just for a giggle i'll take a few pictures of the big piles of cables i have removed from the old system, you'll get a much better idea of why this took so long :D I reckon there is half a wheelie bin full, maybe a bit more :doh:

I'm not 100% finished yet though, i have the stereo side sorted but a few more bits to go in the rack, a power amp to drive the surround speakers, one to power the centre channel....

I'll get there in the end :lolsign:

ATB Keith, i could say i wish this lot took just an hour but no chance :eek:

Thanks for popping in guys, makes it even more worthwhile :) Piccies coming tomorrow hopefully..

MartinT

17-02-2011, 20:16

Nice one, Mark. If you leave it all running overnight and deselect the speakers, you can burn-in all the cables except the speaker cables.

Reid Malenfant

17-02-2011, 20:57

If you leave it all running overnight and deselect the speakers, you can burn-in all the cables except the speaker cables.
Good point Martin :) I might just do that, it's not just cables though, the Behringer crossovers are also new :eyebrows: The Mackie M3000 power amp is as well but that would need to be switched off.

I guess the ARC MP1 might need some to as all inputs can be selected to either single ended or balanced, i'm using the balanced CD input & it was on SE previously ;)

Things are begining to get very interesting indeed with only about 3 hours on the completed system...

I'll have to attempt to program the DT10 as i have never done this before, if i'm sucsessful i'll leave it spinning overnight :)

Ali Tait

17-02-2011, 21:55

Good stuff Mark. I can relate to the active thing, that's what I'm doing at the moment. There's definately something to be said for it.

Reid Malenfant

18-02-2011, 19:38

Good stuff Mark. I can relate to the active thing, that's what I'm doing at the moment. There's definately something to be said for it.
No kidding, this is awesome :eyebrows: I'll be honest & say i was gutted years ago when i had to go back to passives, but then i got the NS1000s, all three pairs of them :D Well active speakers using NS1000M drivers rock is all i can say :) Things are gradually improving but it's already breathtaking, i'll never go back to passive speakers in my main system :no:

I still haven't tidied up or hoovered round, i have just been listening to music for all my waking hours (except for preparing & eating dinner). I'll get that done tomorrow :eyebrows:

Thought i'd share a few pics with you all...

Here is just one of the three piles of cable of about the same size that has been removed from the system :eek:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/cable-1.jpg

Here is some more stuff that'll be turfed out, except for the blu ray player - it'll be going in the rack once given a clean ;) PF40 will go on another system likewise the DAC, box of DVDs will go somewhere :scratch: Multimeter hd it's uses setting up the Behringer crossovers..
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/stuffout-1.jpg

This also helped set up the crossovers :) Don't you just love ebay, just over £200 delivered :eyebrows:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/oscilloscope-1.jpg

Here is the back of one of the speaker stands with the passive crossover & L-Pad attenuators. The brass studs connected the xover to the speaker via cable incredibly :mental:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/speakerstand-1.jpg

Which used to be connected here... No longer, these cables go to 4 channels of power amplification :) You can see the panel that allows me access to fit the Yamaha 12" bass driver into the enclosure. It's 1.5" thick, just like the enclosure itself...
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/newwiring-1.jpg

Here is a Marks eye view of the room itself.. Still a load of tidying to do, cables all over the place :rolleyes: 120" screen on the wall, 56" TV underneath that'll be lowered thankfully with the new centre speaker that's going in there ;)
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/room-1.jpg

A closer look at my musical lady lamps :lol: They look like ceramic, but they are metal :stalks:
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/rightlamp-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/leftlamp-1.jpg

Finally the left & right speakers & stands..
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/leftspeaker-1.jpg

Wow, Mark has shelf space for more CDs :cool: At the present it's a parking lot for remote controls :D
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/room/rightspeaker-1.jpg

Reid Malenfant

18-02-2011, 21:43

A couple of interesting observations :) There are no longer any, i mean absolutely zero clicks & pops from stuff like freezers, fridges etc turning on & off. The main lights in this room are transformer fed halogens & due to the inductive load at switch off they also made a loud pop :rolleyes: No more, this mains is clean...

Looks like it's the front end that needs pampering as the power amps are fed directly from the mains.

Also there are things vibrating in other rooms :D The radiator in the living room that's joined to the kitchen/diner is vibrating like a goodun, along with something else i haven't identified :scratch:

This is fully two doors through from the room the HiFi is in.. Never noticed this before & it's not that loud right now, well it is loud but it can go a hell of a lot louder :eyebrows:

MartinT

18-02-2011, 21:53

Very nice indeed, Mark. It's all coming together rather well.

Regarding pops and clicks, I'm right there with you: absolutely nothing gets through to my system. Not only does it run entirely from regenerated power, but I have a Russ Andrews, an Isotek and two PS Audio Harvesters all filtering out noise around the house mains.

I bagged a dual-trace oscilloscope from my school's science department recently, but your Fluke has me drop-jawed.

Did you make those speaker cabs for the Yammie drivers yourself? What are they made of?

Reid Malenfant

18-02-2011, 22:04

Hi Martin, cheers once again for dropping in ;)

The Fluke 4 channel 100MHz scope was another of my ebay bargains, it can be switched between analogue & digital storage so is very handy indeed :D It also came with a few added options which could also be rather handy. I just need to see if XP Pro can work with this floppy Win 3.22?

The speakers i designed & built myself, they are 36mm thick MDF with extensive internal bracing. The basic speaker with drivers installed weighs in at about 63Kg, if you add the stand & the sand you end up with rather a bit more as i know you can imagine :eyebrows:

Once again, have a good weekend Martin :)

Alex_UK

19-02-2011, 00:07

I don't really have any words! Look forward to a listen sometime!

Ali Tait

19-02-2011, 07:18

Nice job on the speakers Mark. I note the top and mid Yamaha drivers. Did you not use the woofer too?

John

19-02-2011, 07:43

I love to hear your system sometime Mark I reckon once it all beeded in the scale of this system will be frightening
I sometimes think about going active myself The crossovers on mine are pretty simple and having the glowmaster power my speakers 95db I have plenty of scale and speed If I compare mine with say the Bastanis that have no crossover just treated with a special paint mine sound so much faster and dynamic

Reid Malenfant

19-02-2011, 10:05

I don't really have any words! Look forward to a listen sometime!
Won't be long now then Alex ;) Less than a month..

Nice job on the speakers Mark. I note the top and mid Yamaha drivers. Did you not use the woofer too?
Hi Ali, yes i did use the Yamaha 12" :) If you scroll back up to the picture of the rear of the enclosure you'll see that black panel. Now imagine removing that & sliding in the 12" at that near 45 degree angle with the magnet towards the bottom left hand side & you might work out how i managed to fit a 12" driver into a 12.75" wide enclosure with 1.5" thick walls :eyebrows: I did have to remove the standard steel grille though..

I love to hear your system sometime Mark I reckon once it all beeded in the scale of this system will be frightening
I sometimes think about going active myself The crossovers on mine are pretty simple and having the glowmaster power my speakers 95db I have plenty of scale and speed If I compare mine with say the Bastanis that have no crossover just treated with a special paint mine sound so much faster and dynamic
Hi John, you are just about bang on the money when you say the scale will be frightening - it is :eek: Even at very low volume the system has a weight to the sound that is palpable, the volume capability is now a lot higher than it was previously as each driver has it's own amplifier. This should liberate a good 6 to 10Db in headroom over the previous semi active setup, it goes louder than i'm willing to listen to it is about all i can say :D

If you are ever in the vicinty get in touch & pop round for a listen :)

Techno Commander

19-02-2011, 11:17

That is seriously looking good Mark. :)

Ali Tait

19-02-2011, 12:12

Nice idea. Does it work well then? I notice a sub in one of the pics, do you use that too?

Reid Malenfant

19-02-2011, 12:28

Cheers Andy, looks even better now i have just sorted out the cable routing :)

Yes Ali it works a treat chap, much more solid bass than the standard NS1000M & down to about 30Hz, the 4th order bandpass gives an extra 4.5Db output over the standard sealed box (at 30Hz that's equivalent to doubling the physical loudness due to the way our ears work). The sub is also used set to it's lowest xover frequency of 35Hz :rolleyes: As soon as the warranty runs out i'll alter that, in fact thinking about it it already has :scratch: Time i took a look inside i think :eyebrows:

The sub is set a tad low so it integrates better due to the xover being a bit high, but it takes the in room response down to about 17Hz :)

synsei

19-02-2011, 19:28

Bloody hell Mark, I hope you warned Powergen before the big switch-on so they could increase their generating headroom... :lolsign:

Nice to see more pics of the Yammies Mark, I hope the Celestions look as good when you finally have time to get to grips with them... ;)

Looking forward to hearing your modest little system when I pop over... :stalks:

Nice job there bud... ;)

Reid Malenfant

19-02-2011, 19:50

Looking forward to hearing your modest little system when I pop over... :stalks:
Have you heard from our friend with the rather large stone slabs? :scratch: Just asking as i can't even remember what his forum monika was :eyebrows:

Funny you should mention the electricity consumption, things are quite warm in here & i'm actually wearing no jumper, just a T shirt :eyebrows: It's that P600 Power Plant Dave, i swear the thing is biased high as it's pretty bloomin warm & only supplying 80W to the front end. I reckon it's dissipating about 300W at a guess :eek: Think i'll take a look inside & see what the quiescent current is :rolleyes:

The Parasound is just warm, the Mackie a little warmer until the fans kick in on low speed & chill it out for 30 or 40 seconds, it's this P600 that is attempting to imitate a Krell power amp that's cooking the place :D

You are welcome over any time fella, stone slabs or not ;) At least this room is a load more presentable than it was, now for some extra seating :hmm:

Good to see you about by the way ;)

Welder

19-02-2011, 20:41

Oi Mark, want a few tips on bypassing the lekky meter :lolsign:

Reid Malenfant

19-02-2011, 20:52

Oooh John, you are awful, but i like you :eyebrows: No Dick Emery emote :doh:

Having a laugh, you go down the local pub & put a quid in the jukebox & see how many tracks you get :rolleyes:

Simple innit, i just turn down the radiator in this room :cool:

synsei

20-02-2011, 00:53

Have you heard from our friend with the rather large stone slabs? :scratch: Just asking as i can't even remember what his forum monika was :eyebrows:

Funny you should mention the electricity consumption, things are quite warm in here & i'm actually wearing no jumper, just a T shirt :eyebrows: It's that P600 Power Plant Dave, i swear the thing is biased high as it's pretty bloomin warm & only supplying 80W to the front end. I reckon it's dissipating about 300W at a guess :eek: Think i'll take a look inside & see what the quiescent current is :rolleyes:

The Parasound is just warm, the Mackie a little warmer until the fans kick in on low speed & chill it out for 30 or 40 seconds, it's this P600 that is attempting to imitate a Krell power amp that's cooking the place :D

You are welcome over any time fella, stone slabs or not ;) At least this room is a load more presentable than it was, now for some extra seating :hmm:

Good to see you about by the way ;)

I can't remember the chaps name either and I haven't heard from him since before xmas. I could really do with a couple of slabs under my Roger's, and I've also just bought an Airedale 120w Active sub which will definitely need somet under it as it is using the floor as a pretty good sounding board just now... :eyebrows: ;)

PM your addy to me Mark and if the time is right, I could bring the Celestion's with me. Cheers... :)

Reid Malenfant

28-02-2011, 22:13

PM your addy to me Mark and if the time is right, I could bring the Celestion's with me. Cheers... :)
A little bit early for that i'm afraid Dave, still not sorted this end for getting stuff including my own work done :doh:

I don't know many people with 110" screens, in fact i don't know anyone :lol: The screen on my wall is 120" & was set up to run with a Sanyo PLV-Z2 720P projector which filled it nicely. Since then i sold it to a freind who has put thousands of hours on the thing, it's due a new bulb but he keeps suggesting i upgrade yet again so he can snaffle my 1080P projector :D

Not happening for a good while i'm afraid as this is good enough & i'm not made of money ;) So anyway, this is what having a 110" picture looks like on your wall. Please bear in mind that the picture was paused (which doesn't help) & that you are looking at only 1100 pixels in width (for the full picture) when the projected image is 1920 pixels wide...

However, having this in front of you is some kind of experience! What might be small on a 42" TV is nearly 3 times the size so it makes it much easier to see details you'd normally miss. It also makes the picture so big that you actually have to look around to see it all :D

A bit of Flood which is a BBC blu ray. You can see the Philips 56" 21/9 TV below the projected image to give some scale

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture004-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture006-1.jpg

Now to a superbit blu ray, well it might as well be :eyebrows:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture010-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture013-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture015-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture018-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture022-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture024-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Picture026-1.jpg

A few closer pics :)

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Image4-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Image3-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/projector%20images/Image2-1.jpg

I need to get the projector calibrated as it works ok with the BD player, i know the TV is bang on but i haven't sorted the PJ yet. No rush, like everything else it all takes time & i have to live :eyebrows:

MartinT

28-02-2011, 22:35

:stalks: that's a BIG screen.

Reid Malenfant

28-02-2011, 22:39

:stalks: that's a BIG screen.
Indeed Martin, just like being at a cinema only better :cool:

No interuptions, no-one in the way, no popcorn eating except by myself if desired etc... :eyebrows:

Beechwoods

28-02-2011, 23:27

http://i560.photobucket.com/albums/ss49/aos_images/smilies/confused0053.gif

OMG That's big. Mine's only 32" :stalks:

Techno Commander

28-02-2011, 23:54

Kinnell!!! :eek:

Whats da movie? :)

MartinT

01-03-2011, 06:47

no popcorn eating except by myself if desired etc... :eyebrows:

I hate that. It costs over eight quid to get into a cinema these days then I have to listen to chumps stuffing their faces with popcorn and sweets in full surround sound :steam:

Not to mention the dork who operates the projector and will not adjust the focus properly.

Rare Bird

01-03-2011, 11:37

Farkin ewl Mark thats a big un

WAD62

01-03-2011, 12:10

Indeed Martin, just like being at a cinema only better :cool:

No interuptions, no-one in the way, no popcorn eating except by myself if desired etc... :eyebrows:

And some wine and a nice smoke too...;)

I have the same sized screen (a pulldown one) but only a Sanyo Z5 (720p with a few thousand hours on the clock), the image is obviously not as good as my Viera 1080p 42" plasma but there's no substitute for scale and size...oh err missus;)

When the image fills your entire field of vision you naturally feel more 'involved' in the action.

Which 1080 projector did you opt for Mark?

Reid Malenfant

01-03-2011, 12:17

Andy, it's the extended edition of Avatar ;)

It's a Mitsubishi HC5000 Will & very good it is to :eyebrows: Considering it's age it's had very low usage, i don't think there are more than 500 Hrs on the bulb & 97% of that is on eco mode. It's getting a good bit more use now that i don't need to swap cables etc, lazy life for me nowadays in that department :)

Clean forgot about the drinking & smoking :doh:

synsei

01-03-2011, 21:26

God damn Mark, I have the same edition of Avatar, which is far and away my all-time fave movie, but watching it on a piddly 32" screen, or worse, on my lappy just doesn't do it justice. I'd gladly pay you the cost of a cinema ticket to pop around and watch it on your rig. Needless to say I'd supply the booze and vittles too... :lolsign:

Reid Malenfant

01-03-2011, 21:34

:D Dave just pop round & watch it chap ;) I don't need to be bribed to enjoy something :eyebrows:

Like i think i have mentioned on here previously the extended edition (which should have been the original release) make a good load more sense than the original version.. It filled in the blanks :)

You aren't that far away, even if i can't rebuild your speakers right now there is nothing stopping you popping over for a sesh if you want to ;)

synsei

02-03-2011, 01:28

Gotta agree with you about the extended version of Avatar, it fills the holes in the storyline that attracted some negative comments from the critics.

Cameron has previous with this: The extended versions of The Abyss (truly awesome movie) and Aliens made much more sense... :cool:

p.s. PM me your addy Mark if you don't mind and we can arrange a visit sometime. Incidentally, I'm driving to Whittelsey this Thursday to pick up a Sound Organisation rack I won on eBay, an absolute bargain @ £9.99. I think I'll give the chap a tenner though... :lol:

Reid Malenfant

07-04-2011, 18:24

Jonboy

07-04-2011, 18:38

Kin hell Mark ,i have only just caught up to date with this thread you have been a busy boy, certainly big is best;), i Got the Blue Ray Avatar disc for Chrimbo i must try and find the time to get round to watching it.

synsei

07-04-2011, 20:05

Aha, now i know where you mentioned the rack & Whittelsey which you were talking about this afternoon ;)

Great to meet you & Jo earlier Dave :) You both are more than welcome round any time i'm not busy, which is as often as possible :D

I'm pretty sure you might have a better idea how Avatar would look on the screen now that you have sat in front of it :stalks: Though it still puts a dirty great big grin on my face when i fire up the projector 4112

I really must do something about this P600 power plant, it's already getting uncomfortably warm in here & it's not even summer yet :rolleyes: Must get to working on something pretty quickly..

Cheers once again for bringing the granite slabs over, they should make a decent difference to the Ditton 66s as the floor next door is a suspended wooden floor. No idea why it's the only ground floor room in the house which isn't concrete :scratch: Can't win em all i guess...

Bests to you & yours Dave :)

No probs with the granite slabs Mark, as I said earlier, we didn't have to go far out of our way to get 'em to you and anyway, it was fantastic to meet you. I am insanely jealous of your setup. Your Yam hybrids in particular are sweeeeeet!!!

Fit a heat exchanger to your Mac and Krell and you'll be able to build igloos in that listening room of yours :lol::lol::lol:

As for the suspended floor in the other room, I'll bet you a crate of beer there's a cellar under that floor ;)

Regards

Dave... ;)

Reid Malenfant

07-04-2011, 20:13

As for the suspended floor in the other room, I'll bet you a crate of beer there's a cellar under that floor ;)
Funny that you say that as i have been thinking that myself for a good 20+ years ;)

I'll have to lift a floorboard & take a look, it'd be nice to have more storage space :D Of course i'd have to move lots of stuff before attempting it :rolleyes: I'll take a good long look at all the documentation i have for the house (goes back to the 1800s) before going nuts though. Pretty sure there isn't one tbh but i just have this sneaking suspicion...

:lolsign: ATB Dave!

synsei

07-04-2011, 20:21

I feel a new listening room coming on... :lol::lol::lol:

jantheman

08-04-2011, 09:14

synsei

08-04-2011, 10:28

Your a BAAAAAD man Ray :lolsign::lolsign::lolsign:

Reid Malenfant

08-04-2011, 10:37

Dont think anyone has mentioned it yet so I will. Great to see that all your boxes have been externally dampened. How long did it take to grow that layer of dust and do you find that it really does make a difference with resonance. :lolsign::lolsign:
:lolsign: It takes a lot of patience Ray let me tell you :eyebrows:

Actually i'm sure someone else mentioned it earlier on :eyebrows: Thing is it's all free of extra external damping now or at least since everything went back into the rack, there is no difference in sound quality unfortunately :rolleyes:

:eyebrows:

Reid Malenfant

08-05-2011, 17:17

Don't you just hate beyond anything an intermittent fault :steam:

Well a while back i was nearly pulling my hair out (be handy if i had any :eyebrows:) as the system developed a weird intermittent fault. The only way to describe it was excessive noise on the left channel which was often followed by whistling Or some odd kind of oscillation at about 5KHz :rolleyes:

After a bit of messing about i narrowed it down to the Behringer CX3400 crossover feeding the left channel. As these are out of warranty i figured it's going to be a stripdown of the rack & take a look inside, or possibly buy a new one (though i hate spending money unnecessarily). So i kind of put up with it as sometimes it was fine, other nights it'd drive me potty :eek:

Anyway it got me looking a bit more closely at the DCX2496...

Meanwhile one evening i had enough of the thing playing up so i just happened to flick one of the potentiometers on the front panel & it STFU!!! Silence, no noise, no oscillation :doh: It's behaved ever since...

As i mentioned looking a bit more closely at the 24 bit digital crossover. Right now there are just a few little niggles that could benefit this system if i could do anything about it ;) The Paradigm DSP-3400 has the lowest crossover frequency a tad too high. There is a pretty strong room mode at about 40Hz. The crossover at 110Hz isn't ideal as i have 12Db/octave acoustic rolloffs from both the bass & lower midrange drivers fed by a 24Db/octave Linkwitz/Riley crossover. There is no time alignment between the drivers.

I already happen to have a DCX2496 so i decided to see exactly what the thing could do by programming it. This was my first serious play with one, i couldn't find the blasted instructions manual so found a PDF online, did a bit of reading & off i went.

As i have a 4 way system (effectively 5 way with the sub) i had to set the DCX to mono, this gave me a possible 6 way crossover :lol: I decided to find out the lowest frequency i could set up a low pass filter to - turns out to be 20Hz... So if i set the crossover on the sub to the highest frequency i could use the DCX to get it precisely where i wanted it..

So having set it to 27Hz i proceeded to mess about with the bass driver xover. At this point i went into the EQ settings & adjusted the frequency to 40Hz where i have the problematic room mode. It turns out i can put a notch in the response wherever i want with a Q from anywhere between 1 & 10 in increments of 0.1 :) What this means is i can just about eliminate the room mode with a bit of tuning..

Crossovers can be 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th or 8th order with Butterworth, Bessel or Linkwitz/Riley responses. So i could do a much better job of integrating the bass to lower midrange drivers at 110Hz. That's that sorted to :eyebrows:

Finally each driver can have a delay added to it to time align the drivers, the minimum appears to be the equivalent of 2mm in distance & can be increased in 2mm steps up to far more than i'll ever need...

Looks like i can sort out a few niggles that are small admittedly by purchasing another DCX, i think i'm going to have to do it so watch this space :lolsign:

MartinT

08-05-2011, 18:04

Reid Malenfant

28-05-2011, 19:53

I hate intermittent faults, too. I last had it when the Ayre SACD player started mistracking on SACDs and I found it hard to pin down the problem at first. It feels good to diagnose it and get it fixed :)
They are the worst Martin, when you look for them they always behave :lol: When you don't they mess about :doh:

Anyway, i have picked up another DCX2496 on fleabay. Apparently brand new but about 8 months old, it was only removed from the box to check it visually upon delivery & never got used :) Should be pristine which is what i like (homage to Andr'e :youtheman:).

When my back is a good bit better i'll dig down to the present crossovers & replace with the programmed DCX units, 5 way to integrate the sub better & all time delay compensation for drive units taken into account.

Well, assuming it works ok that is :D

MartinT

28-05-2011, 20:29

I'm MadeOfDeadGiantStarsThatExplodedEonsAgo.

Whaddya know, so am I :)

Have you listened to Moby's take on it?

http://open.spotify.com/album/3DxUnsVpofjCNk5OF1im8J

Reid Malenfant

28-05-2011, 20:32

Yes :) I have that album :eyebrows:

Hope you are well fella, enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend ;)

Just more of a delay between me & receiving my sheet of aluminium :rolleyes:

Reid Malenfant

11-08-2011, 18:46

I wrote a nice little post before my b'stard PC crashed & i just can't be arsed again :rolleyes:

Briefly the Behringer DCX sound vastly better than the previously installed Behringer CX-3400, no doubt due to the fact that i have added delays to get all the drivers time aligned. I now have them pinned down to within 1mm & the result is pretty impressive. What was some kind of sound before is now easily discernable & the stereo image is much more cohesive than it was previously - no easy thing :eyebrows:

The Antimode 8033 (pair of - one for each channel) have made a significant difference to the bass :) There is no trace of any room modes & every bass note is easily picked out from it's neighbour. Bass does appear to be a hell of a lot faster & there is absolutely no boom what so ever, it does appear to have effectively gotten rid of the room ;)

Some pics & i'm off to listen :cool:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image1-1-1.jpg
http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image2-1-1.jpg

Yeeehaaaa :eyebrows:

I need a rest, installing that half killed me after my recent back episode :rolleyes:

MartinT

11-08-2011, 19:45

Impressive, Mark.

Tim

11-08-2011, 19:49

Whenever I see that blue in a picture, I always know who it is ;)

Those speakers look good Mark and I love the screen, bet it rocks for Sci-Fi movies.

Techno Commander

12-08-2011, 22:34

Very impressive. :)

DSJR

12-08-2011, 23:03

Good God man, digital processing, active speakers? AV??? You'll have the valve-n-vinyl lot running for the hills :D

Looks impressive sir - and watch your back FFS.....

Reid Malenfant

13-08-2011, 18:10

Impressive, Mark.
Hi Martin, cheers for popping in chap :) It actually is pretty impressive & i'm talking about the sound rather than how it looks. Frankly i don't care about that as i'm not looking at it as it's to my right. I'll get some kind of comprehensive results typed up of what the two DSP black boxes have done & i can tell you it certainly isn't subtle. I'll give it another week so i'm fully aquainted with them on different types of bass (deep, rhythmic, punchy etc) & then hit the bypass buttons & i know i'm not going to like what i used to hear :lol:

Whenever I see that blue in a picture, I always know who it is ;)

Those speakers look good Mark and I love the screen, bet it rocks for Sci-Fi movies.
Plenty on google now if you know what you are looking for :rolleyes: The screen is great Tim, i tend to watch 1.85:1 & 1.77:1 movies etc on the screen & anything over 2.20:1 on the TV as it scales up to 2560 x 1080 & gets rid of the black bars at top & bottom. I guess i'm spoilt for choice :cool:

Very impressive. :)
Cheers Andy, both the DCX2496 & the Antimode 8033 pair were definately worth the investment imo. The DCX has just about any & every adjustment you could wish for in an active crossover. The imaging from the speakers has improved far more than would be expected (by anyone that hadn't accurately time aligned drivers beforehand). It's just a question of tiny amounts of delay to line up the voicecoils so they are all the same 'distance' from the listeners ears. It makes a significant difference to what you hear!

Good God man, digital processing, active speakers? AV??? You'll have the valve-n-vinyl lot running for the hills :D

Looks impressive sir - and watch your back FFS.....
:lolsign: Yeah i don't see too many valve types posting on here, i wonder why? :scratch: I'm sure i'd get called blasphemous, after all i have upsampling to DSD from native red book CD, then 24/96 ADCs followed by 24/96 DACs & then another ADC/DAC & digital processing in the bass channels :mental:

Hang the witch :lol:

My back did ache a bit for a while after but i didn't put it out again thankfully ;)

Hope you are all having a pleasant weekend :)

Ali Tait

13-08-2011, 19:04

Aye agreed, the DCX is a good bit of kit. Nice setup Mark.

synsei

13-08-2011, 22:02

MartinT

14-08-2011, 10:29

How do you route analogue through your system, Mark? Do you still use the digital room correction?

Slippershod

14-08-2011, 15:42

this sort of signal processing does seem to be the way ahead...

wish I could:

a) afford it

and, perhaps even more importantly,

b) understand it (properly).

Reid Malenfant

14-08-2011, 18:02

It won't be long before you'll be needing to begin an investigation into that mythical cellar under the floorboards Mark, as pretty soon there'll be no space for you in that living room of yours :lolsign:
It would be lethal for me to own a setup like yours, I couldn't resist fiddling with all those buttons and switches ;)

Best regards matey... :cool:
Hey Dave, the only buttons i touch are power switches, play, open etc :lol: Once it's set up it's just press go at the end of the day ;) There are lift buttons on the DSP to fiddle with but i want my system to sound flat in the room, another reason i like pre amps with no tone controls :cool:

How do you route analogue through your system, Mark? Do you still use the digital room correction?
Everything is routed through the Audio Research MP1 pre amplifier Martin. Only the front channels (left & right) go to the DCX crossovers. These use 24/96 ADCs to convert to digital & then split the signal 4 ways @ 110HZ, 500Hz & 5KHZ. These are then converted back to analogue via 24/96 DACs & fed to the various amplifiers. Only the signal below 110HZ goes to the Antimode 8033 DSPs. So yes, in answer to your question anything analogue will also be fed through both DCX & Antimode DSPs. Just remember than only sub 110Hz has the room correction! Hope that helps :)

this sort of signal processing does seem to be the way ahead...

wish I could:

a) afford it

and, perhaps even more importantly,

b) understand it (properly).
I wish i could understand it to :lol: Seriously though it's just plug & play, the unit calibrates itself via a microphone.

Interesting actually as it does 4 frequency sweeps but they aren't constant, they are kind of pulsed. I guess it does this so it can hear how the waveform it generates whilst calibrating is decaying in the room! It knows what it's feeding the bass amps so it knows it should decay as fast as it does in the generated waveform. It then makes it decay as fast or damn near.

It can be quite odd listening to stuff as you hear bass so clearly & what before sounded one way now sounds nearly completely different & weird at times as you remember it how it was :scratch:

It's plain as day when any sub 20HZ signal is playing though, the room doesn't affect it any more.. Also no room boom at about 40Hz where it used to be annoying when anything was playing around that frequency.

Reid Malenfant

16-08-2011, 20:22

Anyone wanting a review of what the Antimode 8033 can do please click here (http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12644). I'll probably add to it as i become even more accustomed to what it does/ they do :)

At just over £200 each they are a steal imo, you'll not get cleaner bass from any speaker simply because you are listening in a room of finite size :rolleyes: All rooms have room modes & as a consequence delayed resonances. This thing appears to get rid of the room up to 150Hz...

Best bang for the buck i have ever had the pleasure of purchasing :eyebrows: I'm one happy chappie...

Reid Malenfant

09-09-2011, 19:33

Seeing as every time i try to post this my PC crashes i'll keep it very brief :eyebrows:

New amp for my subs, the old Mackie M3000 just wasn't going to cut the mustard with 4 x 1KW bass drivers...

Enter the most powerful 2 channel amplifier i have ever come accross, the Lab Gruppen PLM14000 :) 7000W RMS per channel @ 2 ohms or 2300W RMS per channel @ 8ohms (which is what i'll be feeding). Problem solved... :lol:

PLM14000 specifications (http://labgruppen.com/media/downloads/product/PLM_Series_Technical_Data_Sheet_TDS_PLM14000_V5.pd f)

Interior of the FP10000Q (http://labgruppen.com/media/downloads/product/FP10000Q_inside_highres.jpg) which is very similar from a top view :)

My pics of amp in situ...

Display.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image1-1-2.jpg

Front panel.

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image2-1-2.jpg

One mother of a mains cable (6mm^2), there is a white 13A mains cable underneath for comparison :eyebrows:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image3-1-1.jpg

The PLM with the Parasound on top, the PLM is tiny considering it puts out nigh on 8 times the total power :eek:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Image4-1-1.jpg

Perhaps if anyone wants some kind of explaination i'll follow it up as things won't crash with less windoze open ;)

Ali Tait

09-09-2011, 19:36

Holy Sh1t! that should do the trick...

Switching amp by the look?

MartinT

09-09-2011, 19:37

Blimey Mark, you'll be shutting down the heating in winter and driving the radiators from it, I guess? :D

MartinT

09-09-2011, 19:38

You've succeeded in making my Chord look like a weakling!

Reid Malenfant

09-09-2011, 19:51

Holy Sh1t! that should do the trick...

Switching amp by the look?
Sort of Ali, yes. It uses a clever circuit kind of similar to a huge class D amp to "track" the output voltage so in effect there is only a few volts accross the output stage which is class B by the way. Therefore no filter on the output is needed.

It runs as cool as a cucumber, i even went inside it to slow the damn fans due to the noise (i couldn't live with it). In the end after a bit of experimentation i ended up running both fans with resistors in series to slow them. Voltage drop was about 25% but the difference in noise was huge :)

Yesterday evening kicking out about 200W RMS per channel the maximum temp that the thing reached was as follows:- PSU 25%, DSP 30% & amplifiers 26%. All this with the fans sitting on idling speed, they can spin a lot faster ;)

It's a beast, but i can hear the difference the SMPS psu makes to deep bass & stuff below 20Hz even at moderate volume levels. Obviously once i have subs capable of 118.5Db @ 10Hz that SMPS is going to come into it's own, a 50HZ toroidal like the Mackie would be pretty useless in all honesty due to the recharge rate & capacitor voltage sag :rolleyes:

Reid Malenfant

09-09-2011, 19:55

You've succeeded in making my Chord look like a weakling!
Aye, but your Chord is much more of a work of art ;)

I forgot to mention the amp is secondhand, new they are kind of expensive :eyebrows: However it's manufacturer refurbished & it came with a rather nice 6 year guarantee, hows that for reliability :eek: Considering what it'd normally be used for (big concerts at stupendous volume) i reckon it'll have a rather easy life here :cool:

Ali Tait

09-09-2011, 20:00

Your neighbours must love you! :lol:

Reid Malenfant

17-09-2011, 21:48

Your neighbours must love you! :lol:
Never had a complaint yet Ali :lol:

I have an interesting observation for you & this probably applies to you as well as i know you are using a Behringer DCX2496 ;)

Things can be improved over standard without too much messing about, all that is needed are a few resistor changes...

I'm sure you might wonder what the hell is Mark on about, but i'm looking at what is going on in the whole system. Even when things get pretty loud (still with a bit of headroom) the DCX appears to be being fed with about -30Db level & this is after i cranked the input & lowered the output! to get the best dynamic range. These things are meant to receive up to 10V signal (balanced) without clipping...

It occurs to me that due to the lower voltage input not all of the 24 bit input is being utilised, after all, this will only be used if the full voltage input is being stuffed into it :scratch: Below the full input level the DCX will use progressively less bits of the 24 bit architecture.

I reckon what is needed is some kind of boosting to the volume level on the input (just a damn resistor change) & the very same on the output to lower the voltage level to get the full performance of this xover ;)

What i'm saying is i'd like to see the xover input hit just below 0Db when things are fully driven, rather than -30Db as i'm seeing now. It's still better than a 16 bit processor even at the levels it's being fed, but it can be vastly better if fed nearer it's peak input as it'll be using more bits!

Meanwhile i'm off with the sounds (as good as they are :eyebrows:).

Reid Malenfant

01-10-2011, 17:44

I have found someone selling schematics for the DCX2496 so i think i'll invest :cool:

On a totally different note i have been having a bit of fun. When trailer put up his thread in private exhibitions i was immediately interested the Monarchy Audio DIP interface processor as i'd been after one for my second system..

So i purchased his DIP 48/96 which is quite different from my original DIP 24/96 & he got it to me in excellent condition. Now knowing the original DIP is simply a jitter reduction device & it allows an S/PDIF to output to AES/EBU etc i thought it best to connect that to system #2. The reason being is that the 48/96 is not only a jitter reducer but also an upsampler in it's own right. This would lead to problems on system 2 as the DAC is only dual 20bit ;)

Anyway, i heaved the lid off to check what the upsampling was set to (48KHz as it happens) & took a look about. Very nice bit of kit with a couple of very serious looking metal can quartz crystals & a CS8420 upsampling chip. Each crystal has a different frequency, one for 48KHz & the other for 96KHz sampling rates & these are user selectable. I thought it best to leave it set at 48KHz. Interestingly the crystals allow the upsampler to do 256 X oversampling of each frequency..

To the good bit. Come the listening session that evening & everything powers up as normal, except that on the front of the Purcell upsampler it now reads 48>DSD rather than the usual 44.1>DSD. Get some tunes going & my gosh, what the hell is going on here?

Everything was clearer than i remember it with better imaging & sounds appearing to leap out of the speakers :eyebrows: It would be fair to say that everything had improved in one way or another, there wasn't one bit of the frequency spectrum that didn't sound more integrated & in a way stronger/cleaner.

So if anyone was looking at the stuff that i was listening to a few days ago you'll know i was listening to some unusual stuff for me :eyebrows: It was simply because i needed some kind of reference so i could compare things. I had a hell of a lot of fun that evening & i'd found a definate upgrade to my system, though for the life of me i just don't know how it was happening :scratch:

I mean the chain of components goes like this:- Krell CD transport > DIP 48/96 upsampler (24bit 48KHZ out) > dCS Purcell (24/48>DSD)...

Only conclusion i could come to with some rational thought is the 24 bit rather than 16bit from standard CD input to the Purcell :confused:

Here comes more fun :lol: The next day i decided to find out what would happen if i changed the DIP 48/96 to 96KHz sampling...

I then listened to a few CDs again that i had the day previously & then promptly forgot about that & dug out other stuff.. What i now have is the most holographic imaging i have ever heard in this system, i don't know how or even pretend to know, but things are staying as they are right now!

The only way i can even attempt to describe it is if i said that previous to adding this little box my CDs sounded like a standard DVD looks on an HD TV with no upscaling & now they sound like Blu Ray looks on the same HD TV, it really isn't subtle :eyebrows:

I'd love it if someone could even attempt to explain it, someone please try as i'm all ears :cool:

So here we are with the little box of tricks & that weird 96>DSD :mental:

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Picture001-1.jpg

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/Rack%20rebuild/Picture004-1.jpg

synsei

01-10-2011, 21:29

Have you tried running the Monarchy Audio DIP straight into the Delius? Just a thought ;)

Reid Malenfant

05-10-2011, 16:48

Have you tried running the Monarchy Audio DIP straight into the Delius? Just a thought ;)
Nooooo, but now you know why ;) It's a nice complement when someone says that your system simply doesn't sound like digital at all :)

Good to see you today fella & cheers once again for sorting out the XPS keyboard difficulty :cool: That's a beer i owe you...

synsei

05-10-2011, 20:03

No worries Mark, I'm glad I could help bud :thumbsup:

I've sat and listened to all sorts of music on all sorts of equipment over the years and on the right day, in the right mood, a passage in a particular piece, a song or even an entire album can have the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. Today, despite the two of us having plenty to natter about, there were several occasions where we both stopped in our tracks, dumbstruck at what we were experiencing.

The first was during Come To Me High from Rumours, Seasons Of My Soul. I have never heard a cymbal sound so natural and real as I did whilst listening to this wonderful album on your system today, except during a live performance of course. As we worked our way through that album there were times when I was thinking, "it just doesn't get any better than this..." There's a little bit of magic resident in your system Mark, and it has taken the Monarchy Audio DIP to bring it to the fore.

For reasons I find difficult to understand considering the quality of the accumulated kit in your listening room, it hasn't exactly bowled me over on previous visits. Not that it was sounding bad you understand, far from it actually, it's just that it was of a similar level to what I was experiencing on my own more modest system at home. I feel the MA DIP has made a huge difference to your system by unlocking its full potential. I've heard some great kit in my time but today I was totally blown away by what I was hearing. As you pointed out yourself, we could hear Rumour's lips parting as she opened her mouth to sing, her every breath, the timbre of the snare as the brushes swished around on the drum skin, each individual element of those brushes. I could hear the bassists fingers brushing the strings of the bass guitar, and the ambience of the studio was palpable. I even heard a musicians chair or stool creak at one point :lol:

I'd be the first to admit that I'm a bit of a HiFi purest, preferring to have the bare minimum of components in the signal path to lessen the effect the electronics can impart on the music. I now realise, from a digital standpoint at least, that the purist approach is not necessarily the answer. That there are remarkable boxes of tricks that can take the Red Book standard and rip it into shreds then reconstitute it as pure magic... :cool:

Reid Malenfant

05-10-2011, 20:32

Ha ha ha, funnily enough i'm not in too much of a disagreement with your assessment ;) While the dCS Purcell & Delius did improve things over the original Monarchy Audio dual 20bit DAC, it has only been since the DIP 48/96 has been installed that a rather bigger improvement has been noticed :)

As you pointed out yourself, we could hear Rumour's lips parting as she opened her mouth to sing, her every breath, the timbre of the snare as the brushes swished around on the drum skin, each individual element of those brushes. I could even hear the bassists fingers brushing the strings of the bass guitar, and the ambience of the studio was palpable. I even heard a musicians chair or stool creak at one point
Yes, i neglected to mention the intricate fret work of the bass player as i didn't want to interupt the proceedings any more, i already had all my arm hairs at full attention :eyebrows:

Hey, i'm sure a second Purcell outputting 24/96 to the one already here which converts to DSD would be better, but i'm not that rich...

From now on i'll concentrate on the one area i can make a serious difference, but it won't be happening until next year now - the speakers :)

As i say, great to have you round Dave. I can't wait to have you here when the new speakers are built :)

Bests to you & Jo... I'll sort her out all that non needed stuff i mentioned ASAP ;)

realysm42

05-12-2011, 13:09

I'll never moan about the state of my 6 cables again lol!

What a setup; are you satisfied with it all now? You strike me as the type that never settles...

Reid Malenfant

16-12-2011, 19:37

I'll never moan about the state of my 6 cables again lol!

What a setup; are you satisfied with it all now? You strike me as the type that never settles...
:rfl: Just upgraded the DVD & Blu Ray players, both are now replaced with an Oppo BD95EU with zone free mods for blu ray. That also makes it region free on DVDs.

So the answer is no, not yet ;)

I have a new set of speakers to build next year & a set of 6 monoblock power amps.

I think at that point I'll stop & just let it all wash over me :eyebrows:

Pics of new kit coming sooner or later. The Oppo is serious value for the money imho, it's a fabulous bit of kit & from what I have already seen & heard I just don't know how they have crammed so much picture & audio quality into a single box for the money :cool:

Frankly I'm quite staggered at what it does & I haven't investigated everything yet, but as far as I'm concerned I already have more than good vfm :D

MartinT

16-12-2011, 19:46

If I was in the market to replace my trusty BDP-S300, Mark, I'd look seriously at the Oppo. I take on board your comments about picture quality, but of course I already have an SACD/DVD-A player for audio so perhaps after I win the lottery?*

*I have won twice in two weeks on Euromillions: £2.83 and £2.20. At this rate, it should only take another 350 wins or so!

Reid Malenfant

16-12-2011, 20:12

*I have won twice in two weeks on Euromillions: £2.83 and £2.20. At this rate, it should only take another 350 wins or so!
:lol:

Yes I'm still going through different formats that this beastie can play & I'm over the moon with everything it has done so far.

In all honesty I just wanted to save myself having to go through the processor route to extract the full DTS-MA & Dolbly Digital-True HD from BDs rather than just the lossy part of the codec, but it does everything else vastly better as well.

I need to get to know all my blu rays again, I'm not kidding! The picture quality is simply staggering :D I know when Dave (synsei) came round he commented that it was better than being at a cinema, I wonder what he'd think now :eyebrows:

By the way, there is a nice picture of a record deck, arm & cartridge spinning the black stuff as a splash screen when playing audio discs as you'll no doubt see shortly. It also extracts info from CDs that I didn't know was there.

synsei

16-12-2011, 22:18

From what I've read Mark it is a stonkingly good CDP as well, how does it compare to your Krell?

Reid Malenfant

16-12-2011, 22:24

From what I've read Mark it is a stonkingly good CDP as well, how does it compare to your Krell?
The Krell with the extra bits beats it on CD playback, but for the money there is nothing to touch this thing Dave, well nothing I have ever come accross :eyebrows:

Doesn't matter what I spin, either audio or AV I'm constantly amazed & impressed at what it does...

You need to come round & watch Avatar again m8, I'm not joking :eyebrows: It's now out of this world!

MartinT

16-12-2011, 22:26

Who are Oppo? Where is the player made and is it an OEM machine?

Reid Malenfant

16-12-2011, 22:32

Who are Oppo? Where is the player made and is it an OEM machine?
American I think Martin, as for the rest of it I don't know, sorry chap ;)

I could be out by a country mile again though :eyebrows:

I just thought of another test for this thing... About to spin a BBC 1080i blu ray (even though I really don't want to stop this disc) :eyebrows:

synsei

16-12-2011, 23:04

You need to come round & watch Avatar again m8, I'm not joking :eyebrows: It's now out of this world!

Name the day and I'll be there ;)

Macca

17-12-2011, 10:34

Who are Oppo? Where is the player made and is it an OEM machine?

Oppo are a Swedish company.

MartinT

17-12-2011, 10:45

I have won twice in two weeks on Euromillions: £2.83 and £2.20. At this rate, it should only take another 350 wins or so!

Would you believe it - I've just won another £2.80!! That Oppo is getting ever closer...

MartinT

17-12-2011, 10:46

Oppo are a Swedish company.

Thanks, Martin, that's better info. Now then, I wonder who manufactures it because I'd lay money it's not built in Sweden.

Macca

17-12-2011, 11:22

I would love one of these but I am tight and a grand is just too steep for me. A pal of mine has their original universal player (no blu-ray) and I have been trying to buy it from him for years (you just do not see them second hand) as he only uses it to play DVD - but he won't sell :steam:

It is fantastic CD player and with SACD and DVD-A it is awesome - Gaucho on DVD-A! - my jaw hit the floor on the opening bars, no kidding. Sounds like the new version is at least its equal

MartinT

17-12-2011, 11:59

Gaucho on anything is superb. I have the CD and SACD but the vinyl whips them both.

Macca

17-12-2011, 12:05

Mark Grant

17-12-2011, 13:17

Oppo are a Swedish company.

:)

OPPO are a Chinese company, there was once a distributor in Sweden called OPPO shop.

The European distributor is now OPPO BD UK Ltd and they are based in Norwich UK with Authorised dealers in many European countries.

The factory is in China and although I have never seen it myself yet it is HUGE and OPPO are a very high tech manufacturer.

Most of the details are very commercially sensitive which is why you wont see any details or factory photos online anywhere.
( I only know little snippets of OPPO information which is OK and all I need to know :) )

An OPPO telecommunications site:
http://www.oppo.com/

Google translate of that site:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oppo.com%2F

Hope that helps explain and if anything above causes a problem for anyone at OPPO let me know and it will be edited/deleted.

DSJR

17-12-2011, 13:22

True :) - my vinyl copy has a little groove damage on one track which I cannot live with so I am reduced to the CD version at the moment. Try finding an orginal vinyl Gaucho at a sane price - impossible.

The UK copies weren't anything like as good as the US ones for whatever reason and in this instance, the CD "should" be authorised by the artists/producer as being the closest to what they intended from the production - with luck, as they worked very hard on the original US vinyls and I'm hoping they wouldn't have allowed just any old "flat" transfer to be released..

MartinT

17-12-2011, 13:42

OPPO are a Chinese company

Many thanks for that info, Mark.

MartinT

17-12-2011, 13:44

The UK copies weren't anything like as good as the US ones for whatever reason

Hmm, my vinyl copy is on MCA and made in Great Britain. Stampers A2/B1. As I said, it really is superb.

Reid Malenfant

11-02-2012, 19:55

Blimey, what a discussion :eyebrows: So Oppo are Chinese, but then so is just about everything else built out there... May not have been designed in China though unlike the Oppo.

Frankly it could be Martian, I'd still love it to bits because it does an exceptional job :D

I have a confession to make (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/200708059275?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649), I just couldn't resist it & I have never seen an amp look like it has literally been removed from the box for the first time when I pulled it out of the double boxes. Original owners manual, double boxes & all packaging & a sealed bag of colour coded gold plated banana plugs :D

Perfect amp to drive my centre speaker actively... Real pics to follow soon :cool:

I also managed to win an auction for 200 x 80V 5600uf capacitors that I know I can make fit in the amp to increase the storage capacitance. While 150,000uf might be something to crow about, it's split between 5 seperate channels (with seperate transformer windings & rectifiers). So in reality there is 15,000uf per rail & 30,000uf per channel. This is why the 4 ohm output is a tad wimpy. Though that will soon change with the addition of another 33,600uf per channel :eyebrows:

MartinT

11-02-2012, 22:26

Nice one Mark - you will be Jerry's hero for buying a Parasound amp. Any John Curl design is to be taken seriously. How does it sound?

Reid Malenfant

12-02-2012, 17:31

I already use a Parasound HCA1206 on active duties for my front left & right speakers Martin :) It's not as though I was taking a shot in the dark so to speak & I love what the 1206 does & I guess what it doesn't do directly driving those beryllium drivers..

There is absolutely no grain or other metalic nasties that cheaper class B amps appear to evoke even with the drivers being driven passively via the Yamaha crossover, let alone directly :eyebrows:

I have obviously tested the 2205, had to let the thing get to room temperature before hitting the power button as it was kind of chilly & there is no small amount of alloy there! I only tested each channel at once just to make sure all is as it should be, & it is. I should expect it'll sound like the 1206 but on steroids :lol: It definately has a good bit more class A power as it gets kind of warm doing nothing, so a bonus there.

What I did hear from a Denon universal player & tiny Braun 3 way speaker sounded very nice indeed, even if it was a mono channel. I could test it that way as each input has a volume control, very handy for easy testing!

No idea if I'll get to test the thing properly for a while, I just grabbed the thing as soon as the seller came up with fully insured delivery at a reasonable cost :D

It's just about perfect for what I want it to do as well, I just need to eek about another 100W RMS out of two channels & then it will be. The extra capacitance should easily see to that.

Ultimately it'll drive my centre speaker when it's built :mental: One channel each driving a couple of Peerless XLS10, another driving a pair of 7" carbon fibre bass/mids & the other two channels driving Yamaha beryllium midrange & treble drivers respectively.

I'm sure it must seem crazy having 1.5KW of amp driving a centre speaker :rfl: The thing is though in reality it'll never break into any kind of sweat as I just won't be able to listen to it at a level where it would be driven hard. The result is a longer lasting amp & much lower levels of distortion from the speaker than something smaller being driven hard.

Which is just the way I like it :)

I'll see about getting some pictures tomorrow.. Too busy today.