My Constant State of Change System...

[Barry]

What is the cylinder strapped to the speaker cable? What is it for, and what does it do?



Nice looking system BTW.

[cube-tube]

Very nice looking listening room and system,
cute cat too

Thank you!

[cube-tube]

What is the cylinder strapped to the speaker cable? What is it for, and what does it do?



Nice looking system BTW.

Most likely a bunch of snake oil honestly. It's AudioQuest's "DBS" system, which I think is a bunch of non-sense. https://www.audioquest.com/accessori...ping-dbs-packs

I purchased these cables open box at a really great price. That's the only reason I got them. That, and I was looking for a decent pair of non-bi-wire cables at the time.

[Barry]

Ah yes - DC biasing of a dielectric. I believe Altec Lansing (or it might have been JBL) tried that idea on all of the capacitors in the speaker crossover.

[cube-tube]

Yes, JBL used it in some of their designs, and I believe they started using that design again in some of their new models. Not exactly sure if it actually does anything for sound or not though.

[cube-tube]

Been at it again today with REW, but with the Revel M16's in the system as well as my Topping A90 headphone amp in preamp mode since I sold my Schiit Freya+. The little A90 is quite surprising!

Anyway, started with just the Revel's playing by themselves, measuring and adjusting placement of each one separately of course. I'm still getting that 70 Hz peak as I was with the other speakers, but I was able to lessen it some with placement. They ended up about 10" closer to the front wall and about 12" closer together.

After I got the Revel's playing as nicely as possible on their own, I went back to the left channel only and added in the sub, adjusting gain, crossover point, crossover slope, phase and PEQ. Once that one was as good as I could get it, blending with the Revel, I muted that channel and started on the right channel.

Once each channel was to my liking, I then started tweaking them as a stereo pair. More gain adjustments, and more importantly, more phase adjustments on both subs. Not only are the subs blended extremely well with the Revel's, but the subs are "locked in" on each other now, something I wasn't able to do with the other speakers in the system.

I gotta say, this system is sounding splendid right now. With the PEQ and phase on each sub tweaked to the gills, I've been able to smooth out above and a little below that 70 Hz peak, as well as greatly lessen the dips centered around those 45 Hz and 60 Hz nulls.

Stage width and depth have improved drastically, creating a more lifelike, involved and enveloping sound stage. That 70 Hz peak isn't anywhere near as annoying as it was before, and the subs are working together cohesively, not against each other like before. You can easily tell this as the foundation and overall grunt is stronger, tighter and much cleaner now.

Finally, it feels like I'm actually getting somewhere with this system and room. The next big tweaks of course will be room treatments. Most likely, I'll start with some corner traps up front and a couple absorbers on the wall behind me. After that, some diffusers on the front wall. Lastly, most likely a couple more diffusers on the side walls and maybe a couple more smaller absorbers one the side walls right along side my listening seat.

For now, here's a few shots and measurements...








All graphs are with both channels driven.

12 dB Smoothing...


Decay...


Waterfall...


Spectrograph...

[cube-tube]

Something showed up today!

Presenting, the QUAD Artera Pre...

[Barry]

It's all looking (and sounding) good Charles. Thanks for the update.

Pleased to see I'm not the only one who uses balanced-line connections as much as possible.

[cube-tube]

It's all looking (and sounding) good Charles. Thanks for the update.

Pleased to see I'm not the only one who uses balanced-line connections as much as possible.

Thanks Barry.

Most times I use balanced because the gear offers it and I feel it's better than single ended interconnect cables. However, in this particular situation, it's more if a necessity since the DAC and amp are almost 9 meters away at the front of the room. So the signal travels a total of 18 meters before it gets to the speakers. With that being said, the system is completely dead silent.

[cube-tube]

And for another, rather major update/upgrade... Some nice, new Magnepan 1.7i's!

Since these two pics earlier this evening, the Maggies have swapped sides so now that tweeters are on the inside. Lots more tweaking to come over the weekend.