BugPowderDust Posted April 26 Posted April 26 (edited) I finally found some time and space to pencil a bit of a history of my listening room through to where it is today. I bought our current house in August 2017. Moving to the Macedon Ranges was a big decision and unfortunately a dedicated listening room was way down the list of primary concerns at the time. When we bought the house, we had what was effectively two houses shunted together with no passage way in between. The previous owners has just finished building and had configured it to have two families in separate areas of the same house, interconnected by external deck doors. The island kitchen bench and stove behind below it is is where my system lives today. Before we moved in, we punched a hole in the wall, removed the second kitchen, repatched the floors and walls and made the home useful for a single, growing family. Giving me this: When we moved all of our stuff into the house the only space left to put my stereo was the same wall that the kitchen had previously been up against. It wasn’t optimal as it’s a very big, strange configuration of space and lots of hard surfaces (tassie ash floors, windows). RT60 times were close to 950msec so I knew I had my work cut out for me. At the time we moved in, I was running a pair of Paradigm Signature S8 floorstanders, a C5 centre and Paradigm Sub 1 and Sub 12 subwoofers with some in ceiling speakers to be installed to run off my Anthem D2v and my NAD M25 poweramp. The sound was ok, but I could sense much more could be done to improve the situation. I dragged Paul from Red Spade Audio out for some thoughts and he said I was a victim of the space and the only solution would be comprehensive room treatment work. I put this in to the too hard basket for now. I later deployed some ArtNovion room treatment panels I got on special from @CustomHT. There was no science to the room treatment at this time, but it made a difference, dropping my RT60 times by over 200 msec. I toyed for a time with a Classe CP800v2 in HT bypass off the Anthem D2v and was mildly happy with the results. It improved my 2 channel listening but I still had work to do. I bought a MSB Premier DAC and started getting more seriously into DSP solutions, engaging Mitch from Accurate Sound to build me two channel convolution filters to use in Roon with Audiolense and things improved again. Many years passed and during Covid I got the bug to buy a bunch of gear and to think about finally sorting this all out. Over time my system evolved to today’s configuration: Speakers: JBL K2 S9900 Front Floorstanding Loudspeakers Paradigm Signature C5 Centre Channel Paradigm E80-R CI Elite v2 In Ceiling Rears Ascendo The Sub 16 Subwoofer Paradigm Signature Sub 1 Subwoofer Pre Amp: Storm Audio ISP Core 16 Multichannel Audio & Video Processor Amplification: McIntosh MC1201 Monoblock Amplifiers Classe CA-5300 5-Channel Power Amplifier Vinyl: Technics SL1210GAE Turntable Ortofon 2M Black Cartridge Manley Chinook Tube Phonostage Digital Sources: Audiolab 9000CDT CD Transport Oppo BD-103AU Bluray Player Apple TV 4K Roon Rock on 10th Generation Intel i7 NUC Display: Sony VPL-XW7000ES 4K Projector, Calibrated by Tony O'Brien of Clarity Audio & Video Calibration Severtson 120" Tension Deluxe 16:9 Screen Learning of the Dirac Live Active Room Treatment module, I bought into a Storm Audio processor, one of the best additions to my system yet. I enabled Dirac Live and Active Room treatment and things sounded a lot better and more polished, but after seeing @CORSINI Acoustic Solutions work at another member’s home, I knew I wanted more. Cristian was patient with me, iterating a number of revisions in terms of configuration and materials until we landed on a design last June that I was happy with. The Art Novion design we came up with has been posted about previously, but here’s a video for anyone who cares to watch: It's safe to say that I am light years from where I started. I now have a system that can play rock stadium loud, but with a ruler flat frequency response, many room niggles removed and with a great tonally correct sound. The bass slams but is tighter than a drum and my imaging is pinpoint with a huge soundstage. The system doubles well as a HT setup with my 120" retractable screen and I have reached a place where I am not sure what changes I make next, short of buying another house that's better equipped for my next set of experiments and expansions. It regularly brings a smile to my face listening to this system and this is what this hobby is all about. From thumping techno to acoustic folk, experimental electronics and movies, this system delivers it all in spades. My latest toy / addition? I bought an Omnis Duo DJ controller recently to allow me to mix in the lounge room (aside from my dedicated studio room), sending bluetooth audio from the battery powered DJ controller, streaming tracks off Apple Music, Beatport, Soundcloud and Tidal. Things have definitely come a long way since my old days of putting on techno and drum and bass gigs. I hope it's been easy enough to follow and read. Hifi is a big part of my life these days and I've met many of you on here and built some good friendships from this community. Edited April 26 by BugPowderDust 17 2
Keith_W Posted April 26 Posted April 26 L shaped room, with one arm of the L being 14m long. Poor Corsini. I wonder if he lost some hairs designing a solution for you! But it does look like a great result. 1
BugPowderDust Posted April 27 Author Posted April 27 In the bay windows off the lounge area, I’ve set up a separate critical listening space, running a pair of the superlative Dutch & Dutch 8c with the BACCH module active. it's an elegant space to listen attentively or just relax with a book. The 8cs are one of the world's great speakers and for bang for buck, I think they are incredibly hard to beat. 12
ELYAS Posted May 7 Posted May 7 On 26/4/2025 at 2:58 PM, BugPowderDust said:My latest toy / addition? I bought an Omnis Duo DJ controller recently to allow me to mix in the lounge room (aside from my dedicated studio room), sending bluetooth audio from the battery powered DJ controller, streaming tracks off Apple Music, Beatport, Soundcloud and Tidal. Things have definitely come a long way since my old days of putting on techno and drum and bass gigs. Enjoyable read, but wait… you can mix via streaming these days????!!!!
BugPowderDust Posted May 7 Author Posted May 7 Yep. Rekordbox has native hooks into Tidal, Beatport, Soundcloud and now Apple Music. You search for what you want, rekordbox pulls the track down, analyses it, identifies the key, bpm, the phrases in the music and then colour codes it ready for playback. It’s effectively cached locally so no streaming stuttering etc.
ELYAS Posted May 7 Posted May 7 49 minutes ago, BugPowderDust said: Yep. Rekordbox has native hooks into Tidal, Beatport, Soundcloud and now Apple Music. You search for what you want, rekordbox pulls the track down, analyses it, identifies the key, bpm, the phrases in the music and then colour codes it ready for playback. It’s effectively cached locally so no streaming stuttering etc. So you can make a playlist in Tidal, then prepare a cached setlist in Rekordbox and mix away, and then during the set if you feel you want to change it up and you have a connection, can search Tidal for another track and drop that in on the fly too? That’s unreal if that’s the case.
BugPowderDust Posted May 7 Author Posted May 7 Yep. Or you can take stuff from tidal as well as Apple Music and say your beatport collection and mix them all together at the same time. https://rekordbox.com/en/2025/03/apple-music-support/
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