Another successful DFWAC meet: Brian's House

Joey_V

Usually I can pen my thoughts quite easily and come up with a review or a summary or a synopsis of what I saw, heard, and felt.

But this one.... this one was just out of this world. You had to be there to understand it.

I am giving this one the #1 bar none, most complicated, complex, over the top, well executed system of all time that I have experienced in person.

@Legender was there with me all the way through (from the listening sessions to the dinner) and it appeared that he also enjoyed it.

Great fun, great music, great learning, great room, great gear, great people... and man, I can't believe I ran out lamb chops!

You gonna come out the next time the DFW Audiophile Club meet up, Carlton??

Joey_V

Joey_V

My seat:

dromunds

Awesome!

mrbiron

System Specs?
The flash looks good reflecting off your hairless arms

Legender

I'm also having trouble finding the words to describe this system. Brian has spent a lot of time and obviously money, building a room as well as compiling a system that meets his requirements for 'air and details', which he nailed... and then some.
Had a great time, learned a lot, met some great guys and looking forward to another opportunity.

Excuse me while I toss all my audio gear out to the curb, and start over.

Legender

Vivaldi 4 component stack with transport, DAC, power and clock feeding a
Boulder Preamp - not sure the model into the
Boulder 3010 Amplifier routed to the
Wilson Alexandria XLF speakers via
Transparent Magnum Opus speaker cables.. which alone cost more than all my audio gear combined.

Simple, yet powerful. I'm confident there was some power conditioning going on there also, but I did not spend much time behind the curtain.

It was on another level.

Manticore

Incredible looking...to say the least. It looks like a room at the high end audio dealer that your not allowed in without a deposit! I'm sure the sound was positively exquisite!

erniejade

WOW!!!!! Nice setup!!! The cylinders, are they room treatments?

Clipdat

Great looking listening room! I like those carbon fiber speaker cables.

Legender

erniejade wrote: »

WOW!!!!! Nice setup!!! The cylinders, are they room treatments?

Yes, additional bass traps.

Joey_V

As Carlton said, it was on another level.

We were in a room full of seasoned audiophiles but none of us had a set up of that magnitude. We talked amongst ourselves afterwards and it was utter pure luxury. To create a room like that requires some serious dedication to the craft.

Just think about it: you ain’t gonna walk into a home and expect a 20x35 room just dedicated to a stereo. That’s 700sq feet of an addition that will be earmarked for property tax, requires its own AC, the power draw, etc.

It’s totally not a realistic endeavor.

But Brian had this. And then some. What you don’t see are multiple other speaker capable rooms. I forget now but Carlton, he had what, like 5 other media or viewing rooms??

The set up was exquisite. Here are the specs:

Studer reel to reel
Vivaldi DCS transport + dac + clock + upsampler
Boulder 2110 preamplifier
Boulder 3060 amplifier
Dual JLAudio F113 subs
Wilson X2s2
Tara Omega (? This one I’m not sure about) top of the line power cords x10??
Transparent Magnum Opus speaker wire and interconnects

He had a stash of gear in the closet that he was wanting to get rid off... he was like oh I have a Nordost Odin and Valhalla sitting right there...

It was truly epic.

The room is the best part. 30 feet deep, 5 feet of closet space behind the front wall with hidden door, the room had angled walls about 18ft up front and 20 ft down back. Absorbers up front including clouds.

Diffusion to the rear.

And we needed a guide to get from the front door to the room... the house was humongous and spectacular.

Brian was legit.

Oh and for Jesse, his digital
Cable was MIT.

Joey_V

I think the best part of the night that stuck in my head was Brian gave me the remote to the Boulder.

I asked him can I turn it up and down just to check the soundstage effect, if the singer walks forward or not like on my Boulder system.

He says, “Just don’t break anything.”

I just about pooped in my pants while everyone was laughing. I couldn’t afford to reimburse him for the gear he was running.

I was very careful with the volume control
Thereafter.

Joey_V

And that whole room is treated, it’s hard to see but floor to ceiling, all the walls are treated but it was done with stealth. It truly is amazing.

Normal humans buy treatments from GIK and put up panels etc. Brian has it all in there, it’s all planned prior to construction of the room.

I wanted to learn from this guy prior to building my next room.

It’s too bad the $$ is pretty much insurmountable to do it perfectly

Compromises have to be made somewhere

F1nut

I see a rare copy of The Peter Malick Group "New York City" with Norah Jones SACD just tossed on the floor........tsk tsk.

Joey_V

When I saw the MIT I thought of you Jesse

@F1nut

F1nut

Joey_V wrote: »

When I saw the MIT I thought of you Jesse

@F1nut

Clipdat

How do you know it's a SACD?

F1nut wrote: »

Norah Jones SACD just tossed on the floor........tsk tsk.

mikeyb128

That certainly is a huge room! Those speakers are huge as well.

Joey_V

mikeyb128 wrote: »

That certainly is a huge room! Those speakers are huge as well.

While the room was impressive, the whole house was even MORE impressive.

I swear, I was out of breath going from the front door to the stereo room and I think we would pass through like 6 gamerooms along the way.

We needed a second delivery man to take pizza from the delivery man at the front door to deliver to the listening room/wing.

mpitogo

Thanks for sharing. Agree that is one sweet room. I would probably lock myself in there and never leave.

The Wilson X2 dwarfs those JL subs.

Joey_V

He is awaiting the next gen of the XLF... he doesn’t want to move just one generation up, but two

dolbyd

The dedication and attention to detail is awesome. Pair that with crazy good disposable income and WOW!

Joey_V

Crazy good disposable income?

Carlton and I agreed, it’s lottery level money. Insurmountable disposable income.

We all had a laugh when Brian said he had a budget.

Carlton and I looked at each other and said “what kind of budget is that?”

Legender

If that's a budget... then the rest of us are only dealing with an allowance.

dolbyd

It’s the MONEY ain’t a thing budget!
Would love to have been there.

WLDock

Wow man, that room is impressive. Is the owner the bald gent standing? Are these your fellow audiophile medical field buds or well to do , etc? Pretty cool that you got a chance to listen to such a system in such a dedicated room at someone's home, and not a show.

Joey_V

The man with the boulder remote is the owner.

The crew we have is a good crew, Carlton got to meet most of them but not all.

Er/trauma doctor
Family doctor
Cardiologist doctor
CIO of an oil company
President of a finance company
Sales director of oracle
GM of a car dealership

Brian the owner is an ophthalmology doctor and his wife is obgyne doctor.

But I suspect he won the lottery or something similar.

ken brydson

mpitogo

What does a boulder remote look like? OK sorry I don’t even know what a Boulder looks like, unless it made out of schist. House spanning two zip codes is out of my league, I’m only a CTO.

Joey_V

ken brydson wrote: »

Hahaha... that's what I was thinking too when I walked in.

".... fudge me..."