My Constant State of Change System...

Just reinstalled the IsoAcoustics iso-200sub isolators under the JL's. Man, putting the subs on these and getting them off the suspended wood floor, it's like the subs gained a solid 3+ dB of output below 30 Hz, now easily pumping out very usable output below 20 Hz. I actually had to turn the gains down a touch. Apparently, the suspended wood floors soak up a lot of that low frequency energy. I listened to the Greyhound soundtrack (Tom Hanks movie) the other day with these subs, and there was plenty of deep bass, but not like now. Now it's really deep.

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And of course, my "little" music girl, Charlie.

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Nice chilled out space that, Charles (love the puss, what's his or her name?), and no doubt a great place to enjoy some great sounding music and movies!:cool:

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Nice chilled out space that, Charles (love the puss, what's his or her name?), and no doubt a great place to enjoy some great sounding music and movies!:cool:

Marco.

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Thank you, and her name is Charlie.

Love cats, mate. And I'm sure she enjoys that lovely living space as much as you:)

Give Charlie a nice treat for me!

Marco.

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Originally Posted by Marco

Love cats, mate. And I'm sure she enjoys that lovely living space as much as you:)

Give Charlie a nice treat for me!

Marco.

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As long as there's music playing (which the system is always up and running 24/7), she's out here chilling in the room. And if I'm here, she's typically right along side me wrapped around my arm.

I gave her a couple of treats a little while ago actually, along with the other 5 kitties. They're very spoiled. LOL

I did a few more things recently... Sold the Music Hall mmf-7.3 turntable and Schiit Mani to my oldest brother, drove 130 miles round trip to pick up an absolutely mint Emotiva XPA-2 Gen 2 amplifier, installed taller shelf poles and cross braces for my Vulcan rack to make room for that huge amp, and removed all of the cabling coming from and going to the stack of cassette decks in the back of the room for now.

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Removed those trim pieces on either side of the face. I think it looks much better.



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On Christmas Eve, one of my brothers came over with his Emotiva XPA DR-2 amp for me to try out in my system for a while, being able to directly compare it to my Emotiva XPA-2 Gen 2. He just purchased an integrated tube amp and also just ordered a Doge Audio tube preamp that he's waiting on to be built. So in the meantime, he's letting me run the DR-2 in my system. Plus this is a comparison I wanted to do anyway, just for fun.

And with either amp in the system, my kitties still enjoy hanging out in here chilling to old jazz, classical and old rock. Well, any music really. LOL

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Still looking good Charles. :)

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Originally Posted by Barry

Still looking good Charles. :)

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Thank you, Barry.

Great looking system , I see your cat is enjoying it too :D

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Originally Posted by Audio Al

Great looking system , I see your cat is enjoying it too :D

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Thanks, Al. There's always at least one kitty in here with me.

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Originally Posted by cube-tube

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Those Martin Logan’s are absolute beasts :wow::clapclapclap:

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Originally Posted by Jac Hawk

Those Martin Logan’s are absolute beasts :wow::clapclapclap:

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Thank you sir. They certainly are!

This past weekend, my brothers were over and we sat for nearly 9 hours straight watching concerts, including Phil Collins, Genesis, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, Brit Floyd, Aussie Floyd, Depeche Mode, and The Cure.

Almost continuous SPL levels of 100 to 103 dB with peaks between 107 and 109 dB. Yes, nearly the entire time I was hammering this system that hard, and it never flinched. The Emotiva amp was barely warm, the sub amps were just warm, and zero listening fatigue.

I almost never play my system like that, but it was just so clear and clean, I couldn't help myself. Plus my brothers were loving it. And keep in mind, these Martin Logan SL3's just celebrated their 24th birthday this month and are all original.

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Originally Posted by cube-tube

Thank you sir. They certainly are!

This past weekend, my brothers were over and we sat for nearly 9 hours straight watching concerts, including Phil Collins, Genesis, David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, Brit Floyd, Aussie Floyd, Depeche Mode, and The Cure.

Almost continuous SPL levels of 100 to 103 dB with peaks between 107 and 109 dB. Yes, nearly the entire time I was hammering this system that hard, and it never flinched. The Emotiva amp was barely warm, the sub amps were just warm, and zero listening fatigue.

I almost never play my system like that, but it was just so clear and clean, I couldn't help myself. Plus my brothers were loving it. And keep in mind, these Martin Logan SL3's just celebrated their 24th birthday this month and are all original.

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The system may have not 'flinched', but being subjected to those sound levels for 9 hours you could well have caused damage to your hearing.

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Originally Posted by Barry

The system may have not 'flinched', but being subjected to those sound levels for 9 hours you could well have caused damage to your hearing.

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could you repeat that Barry, I’ve got a horrible ringing in my ears:D:lol::lol:

I said: "When I was considering buying a set of SL-3s, I declined because they wouldn't go loud enough." :D

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Originally Posted by Barry

The system may have not 'flinched', but being subjected to those sound levels for 9 hours you could well have caused damage to your hearing.

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Originally Posted by Jac Hawk

could you repeat that Barry, I’ve got a horrible ringing in my ears:D:lol::lol:

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Originally Posted by Barry

I said: "When I was considering buying a set of SL-3s, I declined because they wouldn't go loud enough." :D

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LOL! You guys are funny!

Yes, I know sustained sound levels like that can and will damage hearing, but I never play it that loud normally. My typical listening habits remain around a sustained 80 - 85 dB with peaks of about 90 dB at most. And even that's pushing it for me. Plus, I consider playing a system that loud all the time is abuse... Something I don't do with my system. But I can say, even at those levels I was playing over the weekend, it was so effortless sounding. No signs of stress at all. Probably the reason I was pushing it so hard and why it was so non-fatiguing.

But no worries fellas. I'm back to my normal 80 - 85 dB sustained levels. Not to mention I value and greatly appreciate my hearing very much, hence why I've only been to three live concerts my entire life.

My watch of all things tells me when i'm playing the music too loud

I tend to play way lower than that, around 60-70dB. That’s loud enough for me. :D

I did wind the system up to an unfeasibly loud level to test the new amp the other day, and it was feckin’ admirable - not missing a beat, not getting stressed and not losing grip. Not bad for a 30w amp.

I like your MLs by the way. I had a pair donkey’s ago. There’s something about them that other speakers don’t get close to.

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Originally Posted by Filterlab

I tend to play way lower than that, around 60-70dB. That’s loud enough for me. :D

I did wind the system up to an unfeasibly loud level to test the new amp the other day, and it was feckin’ admirable - not missing a beat, not getting stressed and not losing grip. Not bad for a 30w amp.

I like your MLs by the way. I had a pair donkey’s ago. There’s something about them that other speakers don’t get close to.

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I do as well. Like I said, I usually stay around the 80 - 85 dB mark. But it's nice to know that the system can get up and go when it's asked to. And it does so without complaint.

Years ago, I owned a pair of Magnepan MGLR-1's and absolutely loved them. Maggies do a LOT of things right, and after listening to several different pairs at the time, I decided on the MGLR-1's because they were the only ones in my price range at the time (other than the MMG's of course). That was back in 1997 I believe.

Fast forward to just a few years ago when I got these ML SL3's, they quickly brought back the memories of the Maggies. Life-size vocals and instruments, open, nearly colorless sound, does most things right, etc, etc.

Just a few weeks ago, my oldest brother purchased a mint used pair of Maggie 1.6's (not the newer 1.6QR). Said they only have maybe 6 months of use on them at most and sat unused mostly. They look absolutely brand new all around. I spent a few hours with him helping him dial them in. They sound great for the most part, same life-size vocals and instruments, open, airy, great imaging and sound stage and put out an amazing amount of somewhat deep bass on their own. The only thing is, they have somewhat of a hollow or cupped/chestiness sound in the midrange. I'm guessing they're possibly not fully broken in yet. I always used to joke around saying that my MGLR-1's sounded like the cardboard box they came out of when they were new and breaking in. That's pretty much how these 1.6's sound at the moment. Hopefully that will all clear up after a few hundred hours. It stinks though because he's hardly ever home to play his system, and he doesn't leave his system on 24/7 like I do.

All I know is that when I come home to my system, it's like a breathe of fresh air. One thing these SL3's do extremely well are vocals. Very very natural and realistic sounding. Almost like the singers are right in the room.


BTW, I just searched and found your gallery thread on your "Tidy" system. Looking at your clean little setup really makes me happy. I love small clean systems. But the most important part of that thread is that view you have overlooking the field with three horses. Simply beautiful. To have that room, that system, and that view, I really do wish I lived over in the UK.

Playing around with some "new" NOS tubes that just showed up, as well as the 6SN7 tube adapters to use them in the Freya+...

Raytheon/Baldwin 12AU7's on the left, GE 6CG7 on the right. I also have a pair of GE 6FQ7's, which are identical to the 6CG7, but the 6CG7 utilizes a shield between the two plates.

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6FQ7's now in place along with the 6CG7's...

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Did a thing today... Been itching for a while for some DIY action, and I've had these sitting at the other house for a few years now doing nothing. Figured I'd get them fired back up and actually finish them off properly.

Here's the quick and dirty. And please excuse the mess at the moment in the room. There's been a lot going on in this room today. LOL

The dbx Driverack Venu 360 still had all of the crossover and level settings, as well as the old EQ settings for the old room. Just ran the "Auto EQ". Sounding better than I imagined it would, especially since they just replaced the Martin Logan's. In fact, these are doing extremely good right now.

The little silver amps are the Nuprime STA 9's that I used to own and sold to one of my brothers a while back. The Emotiva is powering the Audio Nirvana fullrange drivers, the top STA 9 is powering the Eminence woofers, the bottom STA 9 is only there to send a signal to the JL subs.

More to come!

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Been tweaking speaker positioning more, adjusting levels, crossover points and such. Really getting these dialed in. The result of all that work was that the AutoEQ in the dbx Venu 360 had to implement a lot less in order to make corrections.
Afterwards, I played my reference songs from Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight, I Don't Care Anymore, and Genesis - Mama. Songs/albums that I have lived and breathed for the past 30+ years. Also Carley Simon -Coming Around Again and Sting - Why Should I Cry For You and When The Angels Fall.

Especially while playing the Phil Collins and Genesis tracks, tonight was the first time in a very long time that my system made me get chills down my spine and actually start laughing to myself because how damn good it sounded! The last time this happened was when I was running HUGE open baffles back in the early 2000's with Usher Audio 15" drivers and Altec Voice Of The Theater 511B horns and 908-8b drivers. And this system is more refined than that system was, and much smaller by comparison!

Sheer dynamic swing, purely effortless slam, in-the-room vocals and drums, stage width and depth galore! And the naturalness and realistic presentation of it all... And this is STILL with the flimsy temp baffles and only one bass driver per side. I still have six more of these Eminence Acoustinator N2012 drivers to install (three per channel).

This is the RTA on the dbx Venu 360 after all the tweaking and running AutoEQ again, now with a lot less processing needed.

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Been at it again... Simplified the system, removed a couple of amps and the DSP, changed speakers again, and purchased a Sony Blu-ray player...

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Swapped out a power cable this morning...
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Nice to see another fan of the work of Ansel Adams. :)

JL subs pulled out of the system and going on the market soon...

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Nice!

Thank you.

Added some more Tara Labs cables today.

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Now running Monitor Audio Bronze 500's...

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They look good. I like the progressive occlusion presented by the tweeter grille, good idea.

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Originally Posted by walpurgis

They look good. I like the progressive occlusion presented by the tweeter grille, good idea.

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They call that grille a Uniform Dispersion Waveguide which is said to "offer even dispersion characteristics, improved time alignment and lower crossover frequency for wider directivity."

Yes I like them too. I think they're also on the golds if not the platinums so MA must really think they work.

Either way, I believe these speakers punch well above their price point. At least in my system/room they do.

Back to the Klipsch RP-8000F's... The MA's are good in many ways, but still not as good as these Klipsch. A real surprise to me.

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Giving the Monitor Audio Bronze 500's another shot again...

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Here's the system in our (new to us) home that we just purchased. I changed things up a bit with the system, pulling the Emotiva XPA-2 Gen 2 amp out and bringing back these little NuPrime STA-9 amps. Also brought back the Polk Audio PSW-505 subs. It's hard to tell from the pics, but the main speakers are pulled 5' out from the wall, and they can come out further if need be. So far, so good, for only living in the house for a week.

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Looking good!

Been playing with speaker/sub placement a lot more lately, as well as crossover and gain settings on the subs. The speakers front baffles are now just over 6 feet from the front wall, the subs are about an additional 8 inches further out than in these pictures. Tweaking width spacing and toe in about 1/4 inch intervals, this system is finally creating an extremely realistic, holographic sound stage with great depth, width and pretty decent height. With the right recordings, the speakers completely disappear as well as the subs.

I'm really enjoying the system in this new, larger room/house.

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Your cat's not happy with your placement of the cat beds. "Here would be better" :)

LOL! Probably so, but her preferred spot is right along side me on the couch. :thumbsup:

Awesome pics and system! What makes it super-cool though, is that you clearly care for your cats as much as your gear!!:respect:

:thumbsup:

Marco.

Thank you for the kind words, Marco.

I do love my cats, and they are very well taken care of. I don't know what I'd do without them as I have always had cats ever since I was a baby.

On a side note, I brought out my custom white quartz slabs that I had made several years back, and put them under the NuPrime amps. And of course, some of the kitties laying around enjoying the system with me.

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The AV123 (GR Research) X-Statik's are back in play!

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