My 2 Channel Rig

ZLTFUL

maxward wrote: »

Very nice write up. You covered pretty much everything but the lighting. I’m curious about the lights that flank the turntable. Did you do all the speaker mods or were some factory options?

Sorry Max...didn't mean to ignore this question.
Stock from the factory, Alan Yun uses Solen caps and Jantzen inductors.
The reason I upgraded them was because there was a worry that the tube failure allowed stray DC voltage to pass through to the speakers and could have potentially cooked something in them.

This suspicion was confirmed when I tested the stock capacitors and the tweeter circuit on the side the tube let go on was measuring WELL outside of the capacitor's rating.

Originally, I wanted to go all Sonicaps but the mid range circuit capacitor was an odd value and only the Clarity PX series offered something within the self imposed 1% spec range.
The inductors were more of a matter of "you know, I like the idea of that so lets give it a shot". So I did.

Wiring upgrades were a matter of convenience...everything was already apart, so why not, right? I also had oodles of Audioquest FLX 14-2 and 14-4 laying around. So I ran with it.
I also picked up a set of Fountek NeoCd3.0M ribbon tweeters *just in case* the stock tweeters (by LPG and now manufactured by Eton) had possibly gotten some stray voltage.
They did not but I missed the return window so I tossed them in to see how I liked them.
They actually work surprisingly well with the stock crossover configuration but there wasn't enough improvement or positive changes to make me want to have to enlarge the tweeter recess to make the Founteks sit flush. So I hold them as spares just in case the future deems it necessary.

Clipdat

I like that you put a lot of thought into speaker placement and toe in. I'm sure that even though the room is on the smaller side, with the way you set it up, it probably sounds spectacular.

ZLTFUL

tonyb wrote: »

ZLTFUL wrote: »

But none of them live here and only infrequently stay here. And we have a guest bedroom (and soon to be a sofa sleeper) for that.

Russ gets the sofa sleeper I take it ? Do you have to burn the sucker after every visit ?

System looks nice, but what's the Dac-it doing in there ?

Russ has his own guest bed. We have it fumigated and then hermetically sealed after each visit.

Those are old pictures, Tony. From the first few iterations. The first 2 pictures are how the system is now. The Ushers are still in my office but sitting in the back of the room idle.

ZLTFUL

Clipdat wrote: »

I like that you put a lot of thought into speaker placement and toe in. I'm sure that even though the room is on the smaller side, with the way you set it up, it probably sounds spectacular.

The toe-in was the reviewer's recommendation and honestly, it makes a considerable difference. I wish I had more width as they were a bit more "airy" in the room I had them in at our old house. But that room was also 5' wider and 2' longer. But the soundstage was wider there.

joecoulson

I’m a dummy. I knew your kids were grown. We already talked about that.
The setup is looking great man

lightman1

I like Ryans cats.

afterburnt

what is that schitt on top of the CD, and where did you get the monkey sticker?

maxward

Thanks. It looks great. Sometimes a smaller room can be a good thing.

ZLTFUL

afterburnt wrote: »

what is that schitt on top of the CD, and where did you get the monkey sticker?

Sys passive pre. Still have it and was going to use it with another system but may end up selling that stuff.

Monkey sticker is courtesy of my buddy's wife's business...
http://www.mybadco.com/order.html
They do graphic representations of military euphemisms.

pitdogg2

lightman1 wrote: »

I like Ryans cats.

best TAIL EVER!!

afterburnt

ZLTFUL wrote: »

afterburnt wrote: »

what is that schitt on top of the CD, and where did you get the monkey sticker?

Sys passive pre. Still have it and was going to use it with another system but may end up selling that stuff.

Monkey sticker is courtesy of my buddy's wife's business...
http://www.mybadco.com/order.html
They do graphic representations of military euphemisms.

I should have been more specific. What's the little Schiit on top of the Cambridge in the last pic?

ZLTFUL

afterburnt wrote: »

ZLTFUL wrote: »

afterburnt wrote: »

what is that schitt on top of the CD, and where did you get the monkey sticker?

Sys passive pre. Still have it and was going to use it with another system but may end up selling that stuff.

Monkey sticker is courtesy of my buddy's wife's business...
http://www.mybadco.com/order.html
They do graphic representations of military euphemisms.

I should have been more specific. What's the little Schiit on top of the Cambridge in the last pic?

Schiit Sys passive pre-amp. http://www.schiit.com/products/sys

EndersShadow

Seeing the room done again has me jonesing for a visit!

lightman1

EndersShadow wrote: »

Seeing the room done again has me jonesing for a visit!

I'll be there all next week. Come on over.

gudnoyez

2 channel rig looks great Ryan, is the theatre room done yet?

lightman1 wrote: »

I like Ryans cats.

Ryan has cats? They must hide when you visit as I didnt see them last time
Kidding Russ enjoy your stay. I think I did see one come out of hiding

EndersShadow

lightman1 wrote: »

EndersShadow wrote: »

Seeing the room done again has me jonesing for a visit!

I'll be there all next week. Come on over.

Can’t. I’m the “Boss Man” next week at work (be afraid!)

ZLTFUL

gudnoyez wrote: »

2 channel rig looks great Ryan, is the theatre room done yet?

The shell is complete. Just need to paint and then I can ge my started building the risers and columns so we can get carpet down and then do the screen wall.

Joey_V

Looks awesome Ryan! Great job. Rack looks great.

Irrenhaus

ZLTFUL wrote: »

I finally have my 2 channel rig at a point where I am regularly getting goosebumps. So I thought I would write up a little blurb. Plus Drew cried about it elsewhere so gotta appease him

First, the gear...
Speakers: Silverline Audio Sonatina MKI with Sonicaps (tweeter circuit), ClarityCap PX (mid circuit) capacitors, Jantzen Copper foil/Wax inductors and Alpha Core copper foil inductors, AudioQuest FLX internal wiring. Also installed a set of Soundocity outriggers with hard rubber feet for the laminate flooring or spikes when I had them on carpet.

Amps: VTL Compact 100 tube mono-blocks

Pre: Jolida JD50A passive

Sources: Nativ Vita streaming transport (USB to DAC)
Cambridge Audio DV89 used as a disc transport (Coax to Monarchy Audio DIP Classic reclocker then Coax to DAC)
North Star Designs Incanto DAC
Kenwood KD-550 TT with ClearAudio Concept MM cartridge and Herbie's Way Excellent Mat with an Audio Technica record weight
Cambridge Audio 651P Phono Pre

Cables: Nordost Heimdall bi-wire SCs
Nordost Heimdall Digital Coax (CDP to Reclocker to DAC)
Onix Blue Analog ICs (DAC to Pre, Phono Pre to Pre,Pre to Amps)
WireWorld Ultraviolet 7 USB (Streamer to DAC)
Pangea PCs (AC14XLs for Sources and Pre, AC9SEs for Amps and UPS/Power Conditioner)
AudioQuest Wildcat Tonearm cable
Nordost Blue Heaven Network cable

Headphones: AKG K240 Studio (Austrian built)
Sennheiser HD558
HiFiMan HE400i
(NSD Incanto headphone output used as headphone amp)

Miscellaneous: APC J35 UPS and Power Conditioner (Sources and Pre...amps are plugged directly into the wall)
PS Audio Power Port Outlets (2 dedicated 20 amp circuits/outlets)
Epik Legend dual opposed 12" sub with Dayton Audio SPA250-DSP amp and reveneered in natural cherry to match rack

The rack is DIY out of 5/4 and 10/4 cherry. Modular 3 piece design allows for vertical stacking or horizontal layout. Isolation is provided by Dayton Audio cones.
I also made record, CD and DVD-A case stands so I can display whatever is currently being spun. They are maple slabs with wenge vertical supports.

Here is a picture of the system's current state:



And some previous iterations:





Some basic setup notes...
My room is small. It is my office/nerd cave and houses my collectibles, work space and all of my 2 channel gear, records and CDs.
Dimensions overall are 11' 5" x 16' 8" with a slight bump out for the entryway into the office.
I have been playing with some absorption panels but with my rug and stuff at first reflection points creating dispersion, I haven't seen any real improvements with those.
I still have 2 in the front corners acting as bass traps but will most likely be removing those and building some room specific panels with stuff I have on hand.

But in general, the room has enough "stuff" going on to tame rogue reflections.

Speakers are positioned 2' in from the front wall (rear ported), left is 2' 6" in from the side wall while the right is 1'in from the side. The speakers are 5' 6" apart, toed in so the tweeters cross ~2' behind the listening position. Speakers are 6' 6" away from my head when seated. The toe in is based on recommendations from this review: https://www.soundstage.com/revequip/silverline_sonatina.htm

The sub is corner loaded behind the right side speaker and sits 4" from either wall. This provides the most even response throughout the room, although, at my desk, there is a pretty good peak around the 25-30hz mark. Elsewhere in the room is pretty flat with a mild house curve on the sub's DSP. I am still tweaking this as for most stuff it is fine but is a bit peaky on some tracks with heavy use of stand-up bass instruments.

The combination of the tube amps, passive pre and the high quality silk dome tweeter produces a very detailed yet pleasantly warm high end presentation. Detail is amazing to the point that the other night, I was listening to a DSD copy of a live production of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite and during the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies was getting annoyed by what I initially thought was background static. So I repeated the passage several times and came to realize that I was not hearing static but the sound of the ballet dancers' toe shoes on the stage. It was quite amazing.

Most of my listening is via my streamer. I took a chance on a very young company with a product that was crowdfunded. I looked into several streamers to replace me existing Sonos Connect (I still have 2 Sonos Connects and a 1 Sonos Connect:Amp in the house) so that I could get DSD and higher bitrate FLAC files to my 2 channel rig.

It is mostly a matter of convenience for me. I still love the tactile interaction of cleaning and playing records and CDs but for the most part, having over 200k tracks of my own audio library at my fingertips and the huge library of Tidal as well, makes the physical media mostly for nostalgia.

Anyway, back to the streamer. I decided to take a chance on this particular streamer because, besides it being simply a neat product, it was offering Roon integration, third party software support along with a pretty responsive sales and support team.
The huge discounts i managed to find also helped sway me as I would have had to spend over twice as much as I did to get into something else with all my boxes checked.

So the Vita https://www.nativsound.com/en/music-server is made by a small Hong Kong based company. It is a streamer transport only in that it has no built in DAC. They also make a DAC but I had already bought the Incanto from @DSkip and have been absolutely in love with it. Not to mention, Nativ has had some revisions to their DAC project which has pushed back delivery.
I really also wanted their low noise power supply but they haven't even begun production on it so I put a request in to be notified when they went to production. But I digress.
The Nativ Vita is Roon compatible, has 2 2.5" HD bays that can accept up to 5TB HDs (I populated mine with a pair of 512gb SSDs and configured it to run in RAID 0 for 1TB of local capacity) and can also map network storage.

It took a couple of days to catalog my entire library (local OS catalog database for the Vita, not Roon which was a simple install and sign in to access my Roon library). And then I copied some more commonly listened to files locally even though I have experienced virtually zero issues with network streaming.
There is a catalog of streaming apps you can install on the device which includes all the common players like Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music, etc. Along with some newer options like Qobuz and YouTube Music. You can also do YouTube video and there is an HDMI output to run an external monitor if the 11.6" on board touch screen isn't sufficient.

Cont...

Hi,

What stands are those on the Usher's?

Cheers

ZLTFUL

Irrenhaus wrote: »

Hi,

What stands are those on the Usher's?

Cheers

Sanus Natural Foundations...18" model in Cherry

dhart86

Nice st up Ryan. What are your thoughts on the Nativ Vita ?
s

ZLTFUL

dhart86 wrote: »

Nice st up Ryan. What are your thoughts on the Nativ Vita ?
s

It isn’t without its growing pains but overall, I have been extremely happy with it.

I mounted a 32” 1080P tv above the rack and below the comic print as a supplemental display for it and that has added a nice touch of having nice big album art.

EndersShadow

ZLTFUL wrote: »

I mounted a 32” 1080P tv above the rack and below the comic print as a supplemental display for it and that has added a nice touch of having nice big album art.

And it looks like this now...