warweary Posted March 9, 2019 Share Posted March 9, 2019 G'day all. In the main room is the vaf i66, hk990 and the custom htpc, cables by analysis plus, psaudio, van den hul and gravescience. These sit atop the vaf platform 2 subwoofer. Bass traps and other room treatments by Primacoustic. The htpc has a creative soundblaster zxr pci card to serve as dac and outputs rca single ground/ended van den hul to the integrated. I've treated the first reflection areas on the left wall and the ceiling and can place treament on the right window but choose not to for waf. Currently spotify streamed through jriver 20 gets the best value sound out of the system, with a great tonal balance between the sub and floorstanders whether the listener is in room or not. Using my ripped flacs in jriver remains fun but spotify has 30,000,000 songs and is flawless controlled by ipad and iphone or office pc. Works like magic I reckon. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted March 9, 2019 Author Share Posted March 9, 2019 In the bedroom are a rough pair of definitive technology bp7004 and a currently under warranty repair cambridge audio one. I've used this photo on sna before but you get the idea, a tiny little amp powering the def techs which have active subwoofers - works a treat in a bedroom system. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted March 9, 2019 Author Share Posted March 9, 2019 In the home office is a pair of vienna acoustics haydn grand symphony edition atop vaf sealed subwoofers, driven by nad d7050, a chord optichord is used here to connect to a general purpose pc. This is an old very messy photo of the desktop system. Gravescience cables between the nad d7050 and vaf subs. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted March 9, 2019 Author Share Posted March 9, 2019 Music means a lot to me and affects the value in every day - gotta have tunes man. Ease of quality use matters, I'm sure others agree that it should just work and keep working! Unfortunately digital audio aint like that, I suppose hifi aint always the golden dream irrespective of source. Jriver has been my go to media player these last 10 years or so and I'm quite happy there's good forum support for that product as it's nasty complicated on its own but simple with help. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest DarkNark Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 Three systems? Nice. Which one gets the most use? If I had one in my bedroom I would be tempted not to get out of bed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted March 14, 2019 Author Share Posted March 14, 2019 The office system gets the most use by far. Occasionally I get an hour or so on the main rig whilst my wife is out. The bedroom CA One is in for warranty repair so it aint working at all in there . Everytime I hear the main system I am reminded just how superior it is compared to the others, floorstanders + sub is the way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted March 15, 2019 Author Share Posted March 15, 2019 Turns out it is the loading of the room that impresses me most, that's what takes the music from simply being played to being in the room, affecting my chest. The main system with the subs loads the room beautifully, optimally and musically. So that's why I appreciate the main system the most, despite using the office system more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted March 21, 2019 Author Share Posted March 21, 2019 It's lucky I've got three systems because two of them died! First the cambridge audio one started only outputting "shhshshshshsh" so fortunately that is under warranty from denniswhiteav, so they happily onsent me to adept electronics main north road who took only 14 days to diagnose, source and repair it. IT's in position and working fine now. Somewhere along that 2 weeks the HK990 died a mysterious death, it still powers up fine even goes through its check fine but won't output anything. I spent some time fiddling with jriver and audio driver settings but that aint the problem. Eventually I plugged the iphone output into the HK990 and determined that it definitely aint working. sigh. Not sure what to do with that yet, perhaps another trip to adept. The trinity is a duo for now. Spotify continues to dominate my playback, roger waters opera is crap, but his solo albums aren't bad. Spotify even does classical. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allthumbs Posted March 21, 2019 Share Posted March 21, 2019 I didn't realize that the VA's were so small. If you have tried them, may I ask how do they do in a small-medium room? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted March 24, 2019 Author Share Posted March 24, 2019 They live in a small room and sound fine. Easy to listen to for days/weeks, look gorgeous. Nothing unpleasant about them at all, been my go to listening for several years they have. I'm wanting to move from 2.2 to a 5.1 setup for the office pc and if the old gear sells I'll purchase a logitech z906. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted March 28, 2019 Author Share Posted March 28, 2019 Missus is out and I've cranked the bedroom system, it's sounding divine. Massive attack and fat freddy's drop. There is a relentlessness of bass with these definitive technology bp 7004's, sure I could dial the bass down on the active subs but it sounds so fine, ever so slightly over powering the rest of the spectrum. Quite a few reviews laud the 7004 for electronic music and I really have to agree. Good fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted October 14, 2019 Author Share Posted October 14, 2019 It is with great sadness I have come to accept that the Harmon/Kardon HK990 will most likely never work again as Adept audio have had it since march and are "seeking other means" of fixing it as a dsp component is unavailable. Thus my hifi has been a duo for quite some time. Not that I'm missing out mind you, that latest hobby-task is to move platform 2 sub into the bedroom. I'll post pics of that in due course. I feel I need the sub in the bedroom as I've moved the def tech 7004's into storage and have distinctly noticed the lack of bass from the vaf i66's in the same spots. Like its not even close bass wise the def tech are hands down superior to the i66 in room. Must be some kind of corner loading of the side firing subs of the def techs vs the front ported i66 not corner loading i suppose. Anyways that gives me a reason to put the platform 2 in there and see if I can attain bass nirvana again, otherwise I'll just have to swap the def techs back in! I sold the vienna acoustics haydn grand symphony edition to Cafad and have regressed the office pc to paradigm 3se's from the 90's, perched atop vaf sw2 on the desktop. Truly is brilliant sound, a wall of music less than 1 m from my head. Lately Ive been listening to St Germain Tourist on repeat, and discovered Nightmares On Wax, In A Space Outta Sound. Spotify continues to dominate my music sources, pc and phone. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted October 15, 2019 Author Share Posted October 15, 2019 So I spent today moving the platform 2 into the bedroom setup, phew that's hard work. I love a good system swap around. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted May 29, 2020 Author Share Posted May 29, 2020 (edited) The trinity remains a duo for now... but change is in the office system as a pair of Vaf Evo 1's come to boogie. For those that don't do signatures the office system is... OfficePc chord optichord to nad d 7050 gravescience speaker cable to vaf evo 1 and a pair of vaf sw2. There's a mellow ease about these evo1's that i appreciate. They don't have the pin point pixel imaging of the i90's, instead the more relaxed vibe of the vienna hadyn grand se's. The bass is there, St Germain Easy to Remember shows the finesse in the mid bass these little speakers have. Time will tell if they are a long term keeper. They've clearly appreciated a few hours burn in... just as I have the bourbons while waiting. Edited May 29, 2020 by warweary 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejt Posted May 29, 2020 Share Posted May 29, 2020 hey @warweary, can you tell me more about the subs in the office set up. A full range near field system, very neat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted May 29, 2020 Author Share Posted May 29, 2020 (edited) Thanks thejt for the question. The office subs are Vaf SW2, custom painted in pakistan green because I love that colour despite being aussie. The SW2's are dimensions of 30 cm cubed with a 10 inch driver and are a sealed design. Each one connects over rca to the sub out of the nad d7050. I have the subs volume dialed quite low as you can imagine. They flesh out the bottom end quite beautifully without being overbearing. https://vaf.com.au/products/mpb-sw2-subwoofer Edited May 29, 2020 by warweary closeup pic 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted April 9, 2021 Author Share Posted April 9, 2021 G'day All. It's been a weird old 12 months I think we can all agree, but hifi must go on, no matter what. The vaf evo1's have evolved over time, and I've found that they really shine around the 75 db mark. Much quieter, late at night they're just not as much fun as when I can put more watts through them. But at that comfortably loud spot the evo's really open up. The album Touch by Yello is absolutely fantastic at 70+db and ears less than 1 m from each speaker. The poor game of thrones dragon on the right speaker had a fall the other day, vibrating right off the speaker and crashing onto the Nad d7050, fortunately nothing even scratched so alls well. I feel like my listening is going to another level, i'm appreciating the music more. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted April 29, 2021 Author Share Posted April 29, 2021 (edited) Big thank you to Keith at Vaf Research for freely providing hypersoft vaf felt for placing under my evo1's. I'm hoping for less vibration during high volume playback. Edited April 29, 2021 by warweary weird picture spacing 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted May 4, 2021 Author Share Posted May 4, 2021 It's been a few days since i've installed the felt under my evo's - yep that works better, but still not perfect. My wife's ikea desk has some metal components that vibrate when the officepc is up very loud, rarely a bother as my listening is more often low to medium volume... but it's something to work on and the felt is a step in the right direction. Next on the list are 8 isopucks or similar for under the subwoofers, to replace the rubber feet already installed. Gotta say I'm pretty impressed with jriver27 64bit. Basically because its louder compared to the same volume % on jriver20 - which I have nil explanation for. I do like the available skins on jr27 and how it can display the lyrics for the songs. Ah yes, I recall I did have something very interesting to report. I mentioned earlier that these Evo1's open up in the 70+ db range and sound good, well with those two changes, jriver27 and felt, the sounding good now starts down around 55db as measured by the iphone5. What's "good", well in this case the sense of space and lightness. I've discovered that I now like my desktop hifi more than the bedroom hifi! That's big news for me. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted May 7, 2021 Author Share Posted May 7, 2021 Thanks to aasza for a simple transaction for the Matrix i-mini pro. Yep I plugged it in and its a working. This is the first time I've been able to play dsf files on my pc, I notice they have an epic bit rate of 5000+. Playing over usb cable to the matrix mini thence 6.3mm out to sennheiser hd598. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted May 7, 2021 Author Share Posted May 7, 2021 Crikey! That's some bits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted May 20, 2021 Author Share Posted May 20, 2021 With the addition of the matrix dac I decided to do a swap around and bring the Cambridge Audio One into the pc room to connect to the "new" dac and moved the Nad D7050 into the bedroom. Worked out pretty well as the Nad can stream from the DNLP and direct connect to the ipad thus enhancing the bedroom bitrates, whilst the CA One has a RCA in to connect to the Matrix Dac rca out. Hardest part was the daisy chain of the office pc subs as there is only one sub out on the CA1. Second hardest task was attaching the gravescience speaker cable spade to the Evo 1 - that caused some very sore fingers as the damn thing didn't want to grip the spade. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warweary Posted January 21, 2023 Author Share Posted January 21, 2023 Electronics dies! And causes a shuffle. The Cambridge audio one leaves the officepc and moves into the bedroom, "new" amp = rega io joins the office pc system. Yes it is sad when amplifiers die, but the joy is in purchasing another one... The bedroom system Nad d7050 died last year due to an electrical spike/blackout, and our insurer was very naffing slow in paying out an appropriate amount, though after several complaints they did manage to meet what I believe became a fair amount for a cash payment. Thus I looked around and managed to recently discover in sna classifieds a rega io, which was for sale right here in south oz at a decent price, I picked that up today and it's operating just fine right now. The office pc system has a dac = matrix mini i pro into the rega io and operates the vaf evo 1 loudspeakers and the duel vaf subwoofers for a 2.2 system that is quite lovely. My first impressions of the rega io is that it's a solid unit, well looked after, simple connectors, no hum (very important for my office pc system!!!), and just does what it's supposed to do without a fuss. There is a bit more audio space between the speakers, it's a little more lively too, relative to the cambridge audio one setup previously used. I'm grateful the vaf sw2 have both in and out on the rear plate-amp which gives me the opportunity to run the matrix dac into the vaf sw2's then out and into the rega io's, which is the only way I could put the subwoofers into this particular setup with the rega io as the rega io has no sub-out nor rca outputs, so big plus one to VAF for that extra thought in their subwoofer design. Kate bush hounds of love approves, massive attack Blue lines gets the desk top system pumping just nicely, not too loud, not too quiet, just goldilocks. - long live the "new" electronics. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejt Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 Rega have got bounce! Nice addition Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darryl Posted January 23, 2023 Share Posted January 23, 2023 Nice. I was tempted by that IO myself so I'm glad someone else has picked it up Is it a good idea to have it stacked like that though?. Doesn't it get hot? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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