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Should I Get Electronics First or Sonus Faber Lumina II’s?

From the blog of Oldwaverider…

We pretty much always suggest, go for good electronics first. (We, meaning those of us here at Audible Images AV, Melbourne, FL)

That said, my controversial answer in the context of Spousal debate would be, go ahead and do both first. Your choice of electronics and the Lumina II’s.

THE GENERAL SCENARIO

Let’s say you’ve been doing your due diligence in trying to narrow down the best 2 channel stereo system option for your newly redesigned Guest / Listening room. The criteria for this choice of electronics is to keep your budget between $3000 to 5000, also your new system has the ability to crank it up a little bit when you’re in the mood & home alone and that if fits in the dedicated spot on the new furniture/rack. You have room for either an Integrated Amplifier or separate Pre-amplifier and Amplifier. 

Your 18 year old Receiver could die any day now, the one you had at college, and your old speakers seem to be holding up okay, so you’re thinking, should I just go for electronics now?

WHAT DO YA DO?

You do what any deserving Audiophile would do. Go for the electronics of your choice and order a pair of Sonus Faber Lumina II’s so that you have some nice new speakers to go with that Amp (but without breaking the bank), and at the same time you just made your other half very happy because she doesn’t have to see those flat black old box speakers in the front of your nicely redone guest / listening room. Now, she has some visible audio eye candy (the Lumina II’s are pretty stunning to look at) that matches her contemporary interior room design. NOTE: THIS SPOUSAL SCENARIO COULD EASILY HAVE BEEN REVERSED. 

HOW DID THIS BLOG STORY GET STARTED?

The new owner of an online magazine brought in the new Lumina II’s for us to listen to and enjoy for a couple weeks and give our opinion.

Since we’re already a Sonus Faber dealer, a certain amount of positive bias already exists.  And that’s okay, since this isn’t a “Review”, but simply another blog post from my Pacesetter blog.

THE TEST GEAR WE USED

First off, we set them up in our front room called “The Great Room”, and paired them up with the new BlueSound Powernode, 80 wpc Integrated Amplifier / Streamer / DAC all in one.

Right out of the box, we were quickly impressed. However, knowing a bookshelf speaker of this size can only go down to 50-55 hz, I thought I’d make sure we were getting the best sound possible out of these compact, and quite beautiful, Wenge colored front, wrapped in black leather beauties.

So I did some testing pulling them out a couple feet from the wall (not knowing what to do with a bottom ported speaker, not rear or front, but bottom ported).  We placed them on some simple black stands. I messed with the placement width, toed them in a bit to get about a perfect even sided triangle and the base clearly hit it’s best punch, clarity and speed.  Definitely not a bright speaker, just a nice articulate mid range & treble clarity with some spaciousness on the stage and with no grainy colorations or rounded off sounding upper frequencies.  Even the base seemed pretty full in the overall Tonal balance with the new and fairly impressive Bluesound Powernode.

After wowing ourselves in The Great Room, we moved the Lumina II’s into our “Office” listening room. I connected them to the Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum III Vacuum Tube Integrated 100 WPC Amplifier.

Our thoughts (there were a few of us pulled into the room), were that the Lumina II’s shined with the Cronus Magnum in their mid-range and highs, however we did notice that the base extension was not quite as prevalent with the Tube Amp. So in this scenario, I would want to add a single or a pair of Rel T7x sub-base (subwoofer) speakers to the system. 

Adding a subwoofer (a REL Audiophile type subwoofer), to these or any pair of speakers is a practice we have learned in our showroom to get the most emotional impact and dynamic range delivery from a two channel system. (so that the speaker doesn’t have to work as hard on delivering base)

SUMMARY KIND OF

The Sonus Faber Lumina II’s were an excellent idea for a very modest speaker that still maintained that rich Sonus Faber sound. Some naysayers have suggested that ultra modest price speakers from a company famed for their high end audio sound coupled with their rich Italian wood construction, might be a detractor from their target market.  I say, no way.  They just opened the door for New or Seasoned Audiophiles that have to start out modest in their speakers, and then grow into the next level up in the Sonus Faber magnificent line of speakers. I have learned that the Lumina II’s can be played with a $900 Integrated Amp, a $3000 Integrated Tube Amp, all the way up to a McIntosh 462 paired with a C53 Pre-amplifier where the imaging and soundstage just gets better (as I have been told by a friend’s opinion I can surely trust) and does not disappoint. Meanwhile you are saving up for that pair of floorstanders that you have been dreaming of for your next step, a year or two down the road.

It’s the path of this hobby that makes it so fun, growing your system in increments.

Oldwaverider

We enjoy being your go to source for all Your High Performance to Ultra High End Home Stereo two Channel systems, Modest to Ultra High End Home Theater home entertainment systems.  We also enjoy Audiophiles just dropping in to talk the hobby, ask questions and even pick Ed Masterson’s brain on questions about your system and also about used and pre-owned gear sales, including in which we are an Audiogon Dealer, to help move your former gear as you pursue upgrading thoughts that you may have now or on down the road.

 

 

Audible Images AV is pleased to be serving: Melbourne, Florida, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. John, Satellite Beach, Space Coast, Vero Beach, Orlando,  The Butler Chain of lakes including Lake Butler, Lake Tibet, Lake Down, Lake Sheen, Lake Louise, Lake Chase, Pocket Lake, Lake Blanche, Wauseon Bay, Lake Isleworth, and Little Fish Lake, along with Bay Hill, The Villages, Lady Lake, Daytona, Kissimmee, Central Florida, the entire state of Florida…and even the greater USA, for all their Stereo two channel and Home Theater systems.

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How Can You Get Big Sound in a Small Space? – Part Two

Fascinating Transformation in a listening room that sounded noticeably less than excellent, on the first go around!

I learned so much from the experience and from Ed Masterson as we (Ed, Miguel and I) began conversion of this room, set up the gear in the room, mildly acoustic treated the room, tested this room and got so-so results in Round 1 of this room.  And then there was Round 2…

THINK ABOUT THAT FRUSTRATION WHEN YOUR MUSIC LISTENING ROOM DOESN’T SOUND RIGHT.  OR WHEN ANY PROJECT DOESN’T APPEAR TO GO RIGHT. WHEN YOU JUST KNOW (or at least hope) IT COULD BE OR SOUND BETTER!

So, the purpose of this story (Part 1 and 2), is to share an experience about how a listening room that sounded quite horrible at first came around to one of Audiophile excellence. And how a willingness to explore, experiment and be teachable through a bit of Audiophile Cross Fit and Persistence will grant you the rewards in the end of a phenomenal Audiophile Listening Room.  Well, that and someone with a great deal of knowledge from Experience,  Engineering and Audiophile Passion as that of Ed Masterson.

IN PART ONE WE STARTED OFF WITH:

I CAN’T GET THE MUSIC TO SOUND RIGHT IN THIS ROOM!

See Part One here, please see the blog post here.

So to recap from where we left off in Part One:

We did finally get the room tuned in on the South wall with the Wilson Audio Tune Tots speakers, with the NAD M10 Streaming Amplifier and the REL Acoustics T7i Sub-woofer pair to fill in on the base High Level (not LFE), as the t7i’s do go down to 30 hz.  The room sounded fairly good with all the gear setup on the South wall of “The Office”.  But not great.  

So, Ed Masterson canceled our event (our Annual Music Appreciation Event), and decided to experiment with the room some more.

Part Two – How Ed Transformed the Entire Listening Experience in our new “The Office” Listening Room

What would make someone take a nicely set up listening room, that sounds decent, has a nice visual appeal, and then completely redo the room like a wrecking ball?

Someone with a lot of passion and I’ll even toss in the word pride, for how his listening rooms sound when completed. Be it a customer’s home, or one of Ed’s and Our listening rooms in our Audible Images showroom, Ed just wants to get it right.  (See Ed’s approach on our AV Dream Designs page here and the YouTube Testimonial & Approach video here.)

So maybe it was the following weekend after we got the pseudo-tuned room completed that Ed decided to re-arrange.  The room is like 11 ft x 10 ft, and now the equipment would be moved to the 11 foot wide East wall, from it’s former position on the south wall.

It’s actually a much more beautiful view having the gear all placed against the East wall of the room.  It’s a very tropical and artsy feel around here anyhow (our showroom is in what is called the “Eau Gallie Arts District” or EGAD, an area in Melbourne of antiquity and fine art), with some really stunning estates across the street.  And if you really know to look for it, you can see the Indian River through a little corner in the upper right of the neighbor’s property across the street. Occasionally you can even see sailboats anchored in the water behind the house. I’m getting off on a tangent here 🙂

Back on point, the move did give us a few more inches of breathing room (about 6 more inches on ea. side) for the speakers.  Ed set up the same gear, the Tune Tots, M10 and the REL T7i’s with the high level connection. (Note: REL Acoustics provides a very unique, easy to setup, 3 pre-stripped wire connection to the speakers with the Speak-on connectors on the other end that go into the high level connection on the back of the subs, specifically for 2 channel listening.  They also have an LFE connection for a surround setup)

Ed did all this over the weekend.

When I came in on Tuesday, to say I was blown away would be an understatement.  The base was clean, fast, we had a great soundstage, the tonal balance, perspective, were all good and most of all, the listening experience had you melting into total voluntary aural submission in the chair.

Over the next week, Ed did some fine tuning with the room, not to much more of moving gear around, maybe a little, but then he focused on adjusting & lowering some of the wall art canvas pictures to tighten up not so much the base now, but more on getting an even clearer audio image of the different instruments in the mids and highs.   

The room was now ready for our Music Appreciation Event.

Experimentation with Additional Amplifiers and Speakers

Over the next month we started experimenting with a number of speakers and amplifiers, and following the NAD M10 success, we then brought in the Parasound Hint 6 integrated amplifier (a nice sounding piece with versatility too) to hear with the Tots.  Very nice.

Then we brought in the Dan D’Agostino Momentum Integrated Amplifier (which if you have never heard one, is well worth a 100 mile drive to just come hear) and we began to discover that this room, this ridiculously small room was actually quite astounding sounding. The Tune Tots with the D’Agostino Integrated Amplifier and the REL T7i’s for bottom end sounded absolutely amazing.  We then moved the NAD M10 and Tune Tots into our front showroom so folks could hear it out there when they first walked in the door.  Not because we were kicking them out of the room.  We were on a high, just blown away with how good this room was now sounding.  You could say we were in tunnel vision just to hear all the possibilities of this room.

Then we started testing the Wilson Audio Sabrina’s with no subs.  There was actually not enough room for subwoofers beside the Sabrinas.  I heard someone say, that the Sabrina’s, with the dCS Rossini DAC & Player and the D’Agostino Integrated was kind of overkill for this room.  And he was probably right, lol. But it sure was fun finding out that we could put Wilson’s smallest floorstander in this room and hear that Wilson time alignment magic force you into a semi catatonic drooling a little bit listening state 🙂

Now it was time to give the room a Sonus Faber makeover.  We setup the Sonus Faber Sonetto III’s paired with the REL T7i’s, and yes, that sounded excellent.  But I believe the anxious moment was to hear the Olympic Nova I’s in the room, and paired with the REL T7i’s.  They sounded quite awesome, and we also decided, (well Ed decided) that the Olympica’s needed a more closely matched bottom end partner.  The T7i’s are excellent, but they are modest priced subs, and an upgrade in subwoofer was needed to match the lower bass and quickness that one would expect with a higher end sounding speaker as the Olympica Nova I’s.

I know I need to close out this article but I have to share a couple other discoveries of what could be done with this mere closet size of a listening room. 🙂

So, Ed decided that an appropriate upgrade in subwoofers for this two channel setup was a pair of REL S/510’s, and that is when I believe we hit Nirvana (and that is a word I do not use).

OMG, the sound of the Olympica Nova I’s was as good in analogy as the entire Visual and Audio culture that Sonus Faber creates with their speakers in how they are designed to look (lute shaped) and sound like the famous violins made in Italy. Those Olympica speakers that we knew were magical when we tested them out during a demo from Woody our Sonus Faber & McIntosh rep, even though the room itself sounded horrific back then, paired with the newly arrived REL S/510’s matched with the D’Agostino Momentum Integrated Amp and the dCS Rossini DAC & Player was just flat out beautiful to the ears.

You have got to come in to hear this room and these audiophile magnifico speakers. I’m in one of those justified moods using over the top hyperbole.

Lastly, this past Friday, we had our Olympica’s out on loan to a friend, and I asked Ed if we could setup the Sonus Faber Guarneri’s in the new location.  I laugh, thinking back as to how bad they sounded placed on that south wall a few months ago.  The muddiness that was unacceptable to even someone who hates listening to music.  Now with the Guarneri’s on the East wall, we haven’t even connected the REL Acoustics S/510’s yet. (And we almost always have REL subs connected to 2 channel listening, because it allows you to literally hear all the music the artist intended) We got the Guarneri’s setup, roughly tuned in, no subs, just Sonus Faber Guarneri’s on stands.  

The result was a Reward of Irony.  The Guarneri’s sounded absolutely beautiful.  The tonal balance was just right and the spaciousness of vocals, piano, saxophone had a bloom so clean and layered you couldn’t help but smile, and the images were very focused and crisp. And the base was very good, no mud, just appropriate quick accurate base.

An excellent Audiophile experience of Italian excellence.  I mean, everything sounded special in this new room.  And this combination of gear and placement which included the Guarneri’s, D’Agostino and Rossini (even though it’s made in England, it sounds Italian 🙂 , is a culmination of effort that provided us smiles.

Come in to hear it.  Just Enjoy the Music.

Moral to the story, if it doesn’t work the first time, try again.  If it doesn’t work the 2nd time, Call Ed…

Thank you for stopping bye.

Please see the photo gallery below of our progressive experimentation in “The Office” listening room.

Detailed Summary of Lessons Learned Bullets

  • I will be expanding on these bullets in the future. I am anxious to get this story live, but I’ll be back to expound upon what Ed did to transform a room from Dud to Dynamic.
  • Go and Listen to a couple of Listening Rooms like in our showroom to establish a “Reference” of what excellent sound is and can be.  So that you will know what to strive for based on your budget and listening preferences
  • Don’t get stuck on your first or even second room configuration or layout. Sometimes issues may exist that you are unable to see or notice early on.
  • Speaker placement. (will be covered here)
  • Almost a necessity for Subwoofers to be added for two channel listening
  • Room Dimensions and Approach
  • Knowing how to describe what you’re hearing
  • Acoustic Treatment, how to approach it and how it refines but not necessarily defines how your room will sound
  • Matching Gear correctly
  • Asking for help

NOTE: This bullet list I am going to come back to and not only add the details it, but also refine it.  I just wanted to get Part II published and out the door, because it was just so amazing to hear and experience.

We enjoy being your go to source for all Your High Performance to Ultra High End Home Stereo two Channel systems, Modest to Ultra High End Home Theater home entertainment systems.  We also enjoy Audiophiles just dropping in to talk the hobby, ask questions and even pick Ed Masterson’s brain on questions about your system and also about used and pre-owned gear sales, including in which we are also an authorized Audiogon Dealer, to help move your former gear as you pursue upgrading thoughts that you may have now or on down the road.

 

 

Audible Images AV is pleased to be serving: Melbourne, Florida, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. John, Satellite Beach, Space Coast, Vero Beach, Orlando,  The Butler Chain of lakes including Lake Butler, Lake Tibet, Lake Down, Lake Sheen, Lake Louise, Lake Chase, Pocket Lake, Lake Blanche, Wauseon Bay, Lake Isleworth, and Little Fish Lake, along with Bay Hill, The Villages, Lady Lake, Daytona, Kissimmee, Central Florida, the entire state of Florida…and even the greater USA, for all their Stereo two channel and Home Theater systems.

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How Can You Get Big Sound in a Small Space? – Part One

I CAN’T GET THE MUSIC TO SOUND RIGHT IN THIS ROOM!

Ever said that?

In our Melbourne showroom having been around since 2007, we’ve heard our share of stories, frustrations and challenges from Audiophiles, in their attempts to achieve great sound in their chosen listening room and within their desired budget.

You Can Learn To Tune Your Own System – We’re here to help

Some of the questions asked are How can I get really good or big sound in my room? What will it take? What are the issues with this room? Why does the bass sound so bloated?  Why does piano and some vocals seem so bright, as though the entire stage was right in my face?  Is it my gear? Do I need to spend big bucks just to get this room and my music to sound really good? I know so little about acoustic treatment, what can I do?

Negative assumptions you perhaps have made about your room:

Maybe the room is just too small. Perhaps it has so many potentially acoustic reflective resonance issues that would need to be addressed, that the room may be hopeless. Maybe the walls are decked with cutaways and alcoves that are causing the base issues. Books, ceramic art, vaulted ceilings, ceramic tile or laminate floors and lots of windows or a big glass sliding door to deal with that are causing reflective resonance issues. Perhaps it is your home office and it’s the only room you have to work with for listening to music.  It seems your investment in this room just isn’t going to pay off.

Could it simply be that your speakers and subs were not positioned in the exact place that they needed to be? 

Perhaps this was done because your spouse didn’t want the speakers to stick out into the room. Maybe this distorted sounding room was not rectified simply because you did not have the knowledge, patience or know how, YET, to tune your speakers to the room. 

Well, we pulled the trigger for you.  

It is our hope that by the time you’ve read through the experience that we went through in this story, that you’ll gather some of the answers you need to get your sound improvement on the right path.  Maybe solved.  If not, stop in to the showroom and pick Ed Masterson’s brain, he always enjoys sharing ideas with fellow Audiophiles.  Here’s a great video that explains what Ed Masterson and Audible Images is all about.

We took a room (which we now call “The Office”), that at first glance appeared to be an AV Audiophile Consultants nightmare  in trying to get good sound out of such a space.  Note: The blog post photo above is the initial room layout, the one that didn’t work out like we had hoped, but ended up sounding just okay.

  • Ed Masterson, is as many of you know, a very passionate and knowledgeable Audiophile. So in his calculated yet shoot from the hip approach he just decided to take our former Office and convert it into a listening/demo room.  
  • I believe he did it for a couple reasons.  One, it was time to do or add something new to our showroom, especially with an Event we had coming up.  But two, I believe Ed wanted the challenge of taking a room that at first glance would seem to depict some major acoustic challenges and also seemed ridiculously too small for a listening room and yet would address the “Can I convert a small room in my home and end up with a Big Sound?” question.
  • Our purpose here in this blog post: To share that a challenging room environment of a small office 10 feet by almost 11 feet  could be made to sound excellent by proper placement of the speakers and with only modest acoustic treatment and zero use of EQ or room correction systems. 
  • Ed’s Passionate, Engineering  and Audiophile approach to always find a way nailed it, big time. But not the first time around.

Basic Description & Initial purpose of room:

Our former showroom office is the room we used. Important note here is the fact that our entire showroom is a house, not a strip mall suite built for a retail type of store. So the point I am making is that our showroom quite easily replicates someone’s home. We are experiencing the same in home type of issues that you are addressing.

“The Office” (now our 4rth demo room) is a smaller rectangular space typical of a spare bedroom or small home office. It is approximately 11 x 10 feet with a vaulted ceiling that angles from just above the East windows at 9 feet approx, up to 11 feet at the peak of the apex. With two cutout vaults or alcoves. (One alcove is on the west wall , see photos, and the other is smaller and more angled and cut-out above the North wall) Both double windows comprise 94 inches wide by 52 inches tall of wall space, leaving only 3.5 feet of solid wall on the final Speaker wall, and just over 2 feet on the initial speaker test wall. Solid wood floors and artistic textured drywall throughout.

Below is a photo gallery to show you not only the Part 1 final setup, but more importantly, the room challenges, such as the walls, windows and vaulted type ceiling issues and alcoves.  We’ll discuss the mild acoustic treatments later on in Part Two of this story.  We want you to see the actual room acoustic challenges we were faced with in this 1st slideshow.

Acoustic Treatment:

We pre-treated the room if you will, by placing some photos (3 or 4) printed on canvas, no glass just a wood frame wrapped in canvas to absorb some sound reflections. Additionally, the room had 4 Tube Traps that we already had in prior locations within the showroom. Now with the casual treatments in place, we moved a “Silent Structure” rack (one of Audible Images own gear racks) with a polished and rounded marble top against the South wall and loaded it with some existing speakers and electronics gear. 

Initial Sound Results:

We first tested the sound in the room with a McIntosh MA7900 Integrated Amplifier with Sonus Faber Guarneri speakers.  Cranked it up, first test, FAIL, tonal balance was horrific , very poor sounding base.  The base was bloated and had excessive muddiness.  I would also add, very congested sounding, as the bass reflections bounced from the walls and mixed with the newest transient strike of the next note being played, before any proper base dynamic decay could take place.  The mid range and highs couldn’t even be assessed yet. We couldn’t get it to sound right even though we did have a slight trace of a sound-stage. It was clear after re-positioning the speakers multiple times that we weren’t going to achieve a satisfying result, or eliminate the excessive bass resonance & muddiness issues.  Just to feel like we were trying something other than moving speakers, we then connected the Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum II with the Guarneri’s to see what it would do with the base bloat.  Yeah, let’s try a Tube Integrated Amplifier and see if that drops some of the bloat out. Nada, not much difference. So naturally at this point, we went to the bar across the street for some cocktails.

Just kidding.

Now Ed, already knew that this was simply a part of the discovery process of setting up and testing a new room.  So it’s not like anyone was angry, or planning on punching the UPS guy coming in the door with a delivery.  However, we knew we had to reduce some room reflections, since moving the speakers further out from the back wall to get our recommended distance (as shared by Audiophile experts) based on the size of the room was not helping.  Nor did the adjustments of moving the Guarneri’s further in or out from the side walls help with the tuning process.  But then we were saved.  Our Sales rep from McIntosh and Sonus Faber showed up.  Now he didn’t solve our problem, he just happened to bring a wonderful distraction from what we were perhaps to highly engrossed in, and quite frustrated with.  Woody brought in the new Sonus Faber Minima Amator II’s and the Olympica Nova I’s for us to hear.  This distraction brought us smiles, and this was a very good thing 🙂

Our base problem was in no way solved or necessarily reduced, but we were able to hear the beautiful transparency of the mids & highs of the Olympica Nova I’s. And the Minima’s were quite nice but the life-raft if you will of pleasure came mostly with the excellent mid-range and highs of the Olympica Nova I’s.  This distraction was very helpful to me.  (though technically the Guarneri’s should blow away the Olympica’s for the simple fact that they are more than twice the price, but for whatever reason, no go, the Guarneri’s are great speakers, they just didn’t like being in this room on the South end).

Ordered New Gear:

Being in no rush, we put the room on hold until some new floor products arrived.  We had ordered the Wilson Audio Tune Tots and the NAD M10 Integrated Streaming Amplifier .

We were pretty excited to hear the Wilson Audio Tune Tots.  Our showroom was already modestly stocked with Wilson Audio speakers which include the Wilson Sabrina’s, Yvettes and the Alexx’s which are in our main listening room “The Transporter”.  But now we would have the opportunity to hear the Tots with their new custom Isolation Base.  And we had already read a nice review on the NAD M10 Streaming Amplifier which is part of the NAD Master Series.  We have the NAD M17 Preamp/Processor along with the M27 7 channel Amplifier in our modest high end theater demo room called “The Escape Pod”.  And now the opportunity to hear the tiny M10 Streaming Amplifier that is spoken of as having a big sound in a small package was kind of exciting.

We got the Tune Tots placed with their Isolation Bases and on stands.  The M10 was setup on our 2 tier rack, connected, and we then let the testing begin.

What followed? We had a major Audiophile paradoxical laugh!  Now we weren’t getting hardly any base with the new Tune Tot bookshelf monitors on stands.  We went from a massive buffet of base , to starvation from base.  Pretty funny actually.  We decided the Tune Tots could not be to blame.  Partially they could and this was simply because the Wilson upfront frequency specs on them were 65 hz to 23 khz.  Something was causing extreme + or – base issues and for now we could not address it with speaker positioning, mild acoustic treatment or even with a change of three different amplifiers.

Now the pressure was really on.  We had our annual “Music Appreciation Event” coming up in like 10 days and we had a new room that at this point needed to have the door closed and padlocked during the Event.

Some Success:

So, when you have an excellent set of speakers, and an excellent amplifier but minimal base, what do you do next?  You add stereo subwoofers from REL Acoustics.  

We pulled in the REL T7i’s as a pair from “The Escape Pod” room, because now with the Tune Tots we no longer had a bloated base issue, but rather a non existing base issue 🙂  So we tuned the subs in the best we could that day.  The T7i’s could provide down to 30 hz, and the Tune Tots already had that magical Wilson Audio Time Alignment and Tonal balance magic with their mids and highs as depicted in all of their speakers. So after getting the High level volume set with the REL’s, the REL Crossover’s set, we had the room sounding pretty good.

Ed continued to tweak the room via minor speaker adjustments, toe-in, etc, adjusting the modest acoustic treatments, placing sound absorbing objects in the two alcoves above the two walls.

And whallah.  The system was tuned.  The room was tuned.  It sounded pretty good.

A couple of days later, Ed called our manufacturer Reps from Wilson Audio, NAD, Sonus Faber/McIntosh and REL Acoustics and he cancelled our November 2019 Event, and rescheduled for late December.

The room just wasn’t good enough for Ed.  He knew that it was time to completely change the layout of the room.  Good was just not good enough. Not for the Passionate/Audiophile/Engineer/Customer Service mind of Ed Masterson who believes a customer’s high end sound system should be treated like a Doctor monitoring a Heart Patient’s Pacemaker, with a great deal of finesse and care.  And thus the same treatment and setup for a room in our Audible Images showroom.

Summary of How To Get Started in System Tuning including the room we did.

  • Just get started on your room.  Follow the rules if you will that say to place your speakers about 1/5 distance of the room from the back wall.  Even up to 1/3 in some cases.  We did about 1/5. Arrange your speakers and your center listening chair in about an equilateral triangle position.  The chair can be closer to the speakers, than the distance between the 2 speakers.  Experiment a little, because different speakers have different position requirements
  • If you have a lot of window area like we did, close the blinds or shades about 2/3 to reduce reflection.  If you have a bare floor, get a nice simple throw rug with a simple carpet padding underneath it to absorb reflections also.  Remove glass frame pictures on the walls and just use canvas wrap pictures if possible.
  • Add 2 bass traps and 4 if possible, ASC are the ones we used. Pricey, but well worth it. 
  • Use a table or equipment stand that has very low to almost no vibration issues.  We fill our racks with sand and seal the ends with a silicon glue to absorb and dampen vibration issues.
  • If you really want to learn how to get your room sounding awesome, you need to learn the language of good sound.  Why? So that you can describe to Ed or others what you’re hearing or not hearing so that others can help you with your room tuning. First read the ever critical article at Crutchfield: Learn the language of good sound
  • The article in the line above provides an excerpt from the Introductory Guide to High-Performance Audio Systems by Robert Harley , Editor-in-Chief of The Absolute Sound magazine. This stuff is not that complicated per-say from a reading perspective, but it does take time & patience to learn it.  So read the above article and start to learn the terms I list here in next bullet below
  • Sonic Descriptions and their Meanings, Frequency Ranges, Tonal Balance, Overall Perspective, The Treble, The Midrange, The Bass, Soundstaging, Dynamics, Detail, Musicality
  • For terms that drill down in explaining details within the terms just mentioned above, use Stereophile.com magazines Online Glossary called: Sounds Like? An Audio Glossary Glossary
  • And to really take your knowledge to the next level in systems get the hardcover book  or the Kindle/eTextbook (like I have) for: The Complete Guide to High-End Audio Fifth Edition by Robert Harley – $14.99 eTextbook/Kindle or Paperback $24.95. AWESOME BOOK!!!  You can take notes right on your iPhone or Android and it remembers where you left off in the book.
  • We’ll get into other details in Part Two of this story/article.  Ed Masterson has had over 25 years experience building and tuning systems and it is his passion.  Come in, ask Ed questions, and have fun taking your system to the next level!  Miguel and Myself also love this stuff and want to help.

 

THE MIRACULOUS ROOM AND SYSTEM SOUND CHANGE WILL BE COVERED IN PART TWO of :

How Can You Get Big Sound in a Small Space? – Part Two

 

We enjoy being your go to source for all Your High Performance to Ultra High End Home Stereo two Channel systems, Modest to Ultra High End Home Theater home entertainment systems.  We also enjoy Audiophiles just dropping in to talk the hobby, ask questions and even pick Ed Masterson’s brain on questions about your system and also about used and pre-owned gear sales, including in which we are also an authorized Audiogon Dealer, to help move your former gear as you pursue upgrading thoughts that you may have now or on down the road.

 

 

Audible Images AV is pleased to be serving: Melbourne, Florida, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. John, Satellite Beach, Space Coast, Vero Beach, Orlando,  The Butler Chain of lakes including Lake Butler, Lake Tibet, Lake Down, Lake Sheen, Lake Louise, Lake Chase, Pocket Lake, Lake Blanche, Wauseon Bay, Lake Isleworth, and Little Fish Lake, along with Bay Hill, The Villages, Lady Lake, Daytona, Kissimmee, Central Florida, the entire state of Florida…and even the greater USA, for all their Stereo two channel and Home Theater systems.

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E1 Isolation Base – Removed noise in a Night and Day Comparison for a turntable

We just got this HRS E1 Isolation platform in for people to hear the noise reduction in more modest systems. (This just happens to be the only system that we could try it on 🙂 )

A customer friend of ours used our platform and heard the noise drop out on his $1600 Project turntable. Dramatic noise drop.  He was blown away.  So I had to test it out for myself, the next day when I got into work. 

Jaw dropping is how I describe my personal observation in the noise reduction here on the MT5 turntable when I loaded the Eric Clapton – Unplugged album.

As soon as I dropped the needle down on “Hey Hey” with the platform, you actually didn’t hear the main noise of needle drop you normally would. 

Then Ed Masterson, played “Signe” the 1st song on the album to hear the noise from the crowd clapping in the concert. The soundstage of clapping went from stadium wide, not because that was the actual width of the soundstage, but more because it was one aspect of the recording that perhaps was not as coherent as the instrumental  (felt like it) and opened the reproduction to a very distinct width and natural soundstage. (When I looked up the background on his “Unplugged” album, I discovered Unplugged is a 1992 album by Eric Clapton, recorded at Bray Studios, England in front of an audience for the MTV Unplugged television series.)

The noise floor just dropped out, the high quality recording become distinctly more transparent, airy, natural and so many other terms of clarity I could use.

A Note I’d like to Add; Before I wrote this blog post about my own personal experience. Having been an Audiophile for less than 3 years, I wanted to read from another person’s perspective in regards to noise reduction and specifically if I could find, an article on an isolation platform. In my search I found one from the best, a very interesting and relevant point made by Robert Harley, Editor in Chief of The Absolute Sound Magazine, (and author of the book I am reading called “The Complete Guide To High-End Audio“) in an article he shared in 2015 called ‘Critical Mass Systems Maxxum Amplifier Stand Disappearing Act’.  I quote Mr. Harley below from the article:

“In my editorial in Issue 246 (“The Law of Accelerating Returns”) I suggested that the goal of assembling the most realistic-sounding audio system is best realized by investing in products that are demonstrably more transparent and resolving.

All too often, audiophiles swap components only to trade one set of colorations for a different, perhaps initially appealing, set of colorations. Years of such “upgrades” don’t bring you closer to musical realism in the long run. It’s better to spend your money on components or accessories that improve the sound without any sonic tradeoffs.”

During our test, Ed made the comment that being an electrical engineer, this platform made more Engineering sense than other noise reduction/isolation products or methods, because it was based on applying mechanical noise reduction. So, I stayed the course on my post here.

My summary: It was very much a Night and Day difference.  Two turntables were tested.  The first one was a $1600 Project turntable and the second was a $7000 one.  The same friend/customer Dave heard both. And from what I understood him to say, was they both had about the same results. An $1100 isolation platform by HRS did this.  Very simple test. Amazing results.  I encourage you to come in and hear what I did.

The gear used:

The McIntosh MC462 Solid State Amplifer, the McIntosh C2600 2-Channel Vacuum Tube Preamplifier, the McIntosh MT5 2-Channel Precision Turntable, and Sonus Faber Olympica Nova III Floorstander Speakers with the REL sub-base woofers turned off. (because one happened to sell the other day) 

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Tuning a System is not all Black & White

If you’ve ever been around or spent time working or hanging around a passionate experienced and engineer Audiophile then perhaps this post will give you a few grins. Not because I am humorous or gifted in writing , no, in fact I’m just learning how to write about this stuff. But the grins, they’ll hit you because you are or do know an Audiophile who has this kind of Passion to make any sound system he touches to sound the best that it can possibly sound. And as the title suggests, tuning a system is not all black and white, not some simple check list to follow.

Ed asked me to go along with him to this customers system tuning. The goal was to tune a pair of high end REL Sub-base speakers to a stereo system already tuned for a pair of Wilson Audio Sabrina’s. I learned a lot from this day, so here we go.

The Question: How does one go about tuning a customers system, especially one that is not in an ideal, acoustically treated room? What methodology ought to be applied? (the featured image above shows the Wilson Audio Sabrina’s and the REL G1 Mark II Sub-base/sub-woofers, with the electronics in a concealed cabinet in the wall to the right)

Scenario: I went to my first customer system tuning session by Ed at a home that had a pretty high end system. And the setup was in a living room with a scenario that was not necessarily ideal for achieving optimal sound for the system. What do I mean?

Room Description: It was a beautiful living room, black & white decor, with some stunning natural wood pieces of furniture to accent the black and white tones. Ceramic tile floor, and an entire wall of glass (sliding doors) facing a pool/patio area. Flat Ceiling around 8 feet. Many reflective surfaces including Black & White photographic imagery of the other famous b&w photographer that would make one think of Ansel Adams, if he or she was not well schooled in the work of the two artists.

So, I’ll ask the question again, how does one go about tuning a fairly high end home Audio system in a somewhat hostile environment in regards to getting the best acoustic sound results, and walk away satisfied?

Note to whom might be new to the Audiophile world. Adding a pair or even a single sub-base/sub-woofer speaker to a 2 channel stereo system adds a fuller, more extended, and more dynamic bass range for a stereo system. The Wilson Sabrina’s do an excellent job with the 8 inch driver for bass down to 31 hz, however, by adding a sub-base speaker pair to the main speakers enables the listener to enjoy the bass extension deep into the 20 hz range, but more importantly, this allows the Sabrina to breath more within it’s design range, and let the recordings have their freedom should they have bass that is hungry for that 20-30hz region. (the G1’s do go down to 15 hz, though technically, the human ear I believe to around 19 hz)

I digressed a bit with the above, so back to our Audiophile Dr. approach if you will, to take this environment and bring the potential of the Speakers to their best possible sound in the room. Note: The Wilson Sabrinas were already tuned in by Ed on a previous occasion, but today’s tuning was to blend/tune the pair of newly added REL G1 Mark II Sub-base speakers into the system.

The Gear: The electronics are a McIntosh MA9000 Integrated 2 channel Amplifier (300 WPC). Speakers, as mentioned above, Wilson Audio Sabrina’s and REL G1 Mark II Sub-woofers. The source used was a streaming digital Bluesound unit that used the DAC built into the MA9000, even though the Bluesound unit actually does a surprisingly well job with it’s own built in little dac.

SEE PHOTO GALLERY BELOW.

So I was there for an observation experience only, and just watched and listened to Ed as he submerged his Audiophile listening ears to merge the REL’s with the Sabrina’s within this challenging “resonant rich” room. 🙂 Miguel assisted by changing settings and positioning, as they were shared by Ed.

With Ed Masterson, he approaches tuning a system from a more right brain aspect. He doesn’t let himself be dictated by numbers and settings, per say, but more, his approach is all about the listening. Listening for Tonality balance , phase timing, clarity & extension, airiness, etc. This requires getting up from the center “Sweet Spot” seat, making adjustments, and sitting back down. And, because Steve and his Wife do a lot of standing, Ed also kept checking the system from standing at the very back of the living room, close to the kitchen. (one of the photos show the depth & size of the living room) I’m just gonna go ahead and say this. For the most part, Ed is for the most part against “Room Correction or Eq Systems”. Bass tuning software, different story. Generally speaking, Ed is a tuning by listening first, not graphs and numbers etc. But, he does remain open minded to hear about new methods 🙂

It was amazing actually to watch Ed work. Word to the wise, Don’t interrupt him, unless he glances around asking for thoughts. He’s tunnel vision. You will break his flow when he is hyper focused in a tuning session. So, he started off, by listening for the timing or phase of the subs with the Sabrina’s, to make sure the subs were adding and not canceling out any of the low end sound. If the drivers are pushing out on the main speakers, well, you want the sub-woofer to be in phase with the speakers and be pushing out also. At the same time, it appeared he also addressed any bloating or excessive base that seemed to be apparent with the subs, simply because they had not been tuned yet to the room. This he addressed slowly over the next 1.5 or so hours thru constantly re-positioning the subs, fine tuning the volume, the crossover settings as he brought these two piano gloss black beauties into harmony with this awesome system that Steve and His Wife owned.

Once Ed finds the spot, where the REL’s really seemed to energize the room, having that very deep extension, and pressurized the room, then he seemed to go into fine tuning orientation angle of the subs, tweaking the volume, the crossovers. As he’s doing this, Ed always uses his chosen 10 or 20 tracks to determine certain things or nuances in those songs, and whether the speakers are delivering those sounds, (and not hiding or canceling out) and within the correct sound stage width and depth. We seemed to be getting close after an hour or so, but something was eating away at Ed’s thoughts, and it just didn’t seem like he was going to address it with the movement and settings adjustments that Miguel had been doing so far as per Ed’s requests.

Then an idea out of left field hit Ed. (as it appeared to me) Now normally, most of our high end speakers and amplifiers (speaking as a newer 2-3 year Audiophile) are set up in 4 Ohm on the amplifier out setting. As this was the case with the MA 9000 McIntosh in Steve’s system. But Ed asked Miguel if we can experiment with the Amp, and connect the speaker cables to 8 Ohm out. This took an extra 15 or 20 minutes to change over. A wall board panel had to be removed with the drill so that the entire gear rack could be spun around in order to make the changeover to 8 Ohm to the speakers on the back of the integrated amplifier, instead of 4 Ohm. Once this was done, any remnants of weightiness or heavy bass had disappeared. (As I strive to learn Audiophile jargon thanks to the help of Robert Harley and his awesome “The Complete Guide to High-End Audio – 5th Edition”), I can’t help but express that when that magic base popped, and had energized the room, the mid-range also seemed to expose more of it’s awesome timbre and clarity along with the treble. With another 10 or 15 minutes of fine tuning, Ed was happy. Then, Ed began listening to some of the tracks that Steve and His wife like to listen to, to make sure that these also sounded excellent.

On a final note, by switching the output over to 8 Ohm’s, it may have reduced a small amount of the base punch that would be more apparent at 4 Ohm’s, but Ed knew, that while he was tuning, it is always best to turn off the Equalizer (Frequency settings controls on a Mac which have 8 adjustment knobs from 25 Hz up to 10 kHz). It is made to have it on or off, depending on the listener. But for tuning, you definitely want it off. But now, if Steve wanted to increase the punch of the base or lower midrange, he could easily turn the Equalizer on the Mac right back on, make his frequency enhancements, and it would not accidentally alter or change the physical tuning that Ed and Miguel had done in the last couple hours.

In just an hour and a half to maybe two hours, Ed had turned this two channel stereo system with the new addition of 2 REL G1 Mark II subs into a very nice and powerful sounding system in what was a potentially hostile room for resonance issues with all the glass doors, piano, glass picture frames, ceramic floor, etc, for the Wilson floorstanders and/or the subwoofers. This, is Ed’s passion, and was a great learning experience for me.

Audible Images AV is excited to be serving: Melbourne, Florida, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. John, Satellite Beach, Space Coast, Vero Beach, Orlando, Daytona, Kissimmee, Central Florida, the entire state of Florida…and even the greater USA, for all their Stereo two channel and Home Theater systems.

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Customer Scott Hurley Sharing His Testimonial About His After The Sale Experience with Ed at Audible Images AV

This is one of those Customer Testimonials that a simple Thank You, just comes up short, for the truth and conviction that Scott shares here about Ed.  

Nonetheless, we give Thanks to Scott 🙂

Enjoy the video.

Scott's Testimonial about Ed Masterson after the Customer's Installation is complete.

Audible Images AV is excited to be serving: Melbourne, Florida, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. John, Satellite Beach, Space Coast, Vero Beach, Orlando, Daytona, Kissimmee, Central Florida, the entire state of Florida…and even the greater USA

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Two Great Sounding under $800 NAD Amplifiers Reviewed for Audiophiles on a Strict Budget

Before I delve into my plug about two NAD Amplifiers, I’d like to mention the RMAF , the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest and how it appeared to have not only a revived entourage, but has been stated by many, WHAT A GREAT SHOW FOR THIS 2018 YEAR!.  For those not in the know, what is it specifically?

Well, from the Company, here’s their definition/description: The Rocky Mountain International Audio Fest (RMAF) is the largest consumer audio and home entertainment show in the United States. Simply put: “mega stereo systems!”

Okay, nuff said on that. “mega stereo systems” is the take away.

Here at Audible Images AV, we are all about excellent, spectacular sound.  Not fancy bells and whistles of mass market that distract from an excellent sound emphasis, but just really really well chosen and designed Audio Systems.  Ranging from Modest High Performance to Ultra Ultra High End systems.

So needless to say, I was pretty stoked to read the excellent reviews by Neil Gader of TAS (The Absolute Sound mag) February 2019 issue in his portion of the SHOW REPORT for Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2018 about a couple of NAD products at the show.  The NAD C 658 BluOS DAC/Preamplifier/Streamer, the NAD D 3045 Integrated Amplifier.  And in the same magazine  issue, Paul Seydor wrote “Prepare to be astonished” review (not mentioned in the RMAF section) , but nonetheless a very upbeat 7 page article and plug about the NAD C 328 Hybrid Digital DAC Amplifier and C 546BEE CD Player.

If you are a new Audiophile, or a seasoned one looking for an Amplifier that sounds great and is priced under $800, then you’ll be pleased to find this post. I just want to focus on two of the NAD products mentioned.  The NAD D 3045 Integrated Amplifier and the NAD C 328 Hybrid Digital DAC Amplifier.

Why am I focusing on these two? Because NAD has a vastly superior sound to that of equivalent priced products of competitors.  And if you read the intro on our Brands page at Audible Images, and come into our Showroom, you’ll learn that Ed Masterson, Owner, Engineer is all about the Sound Quality and Tuning to make great systems sound even better.  Not pushing product… (that happens just by folks hearing our systems and learning Ed’s passion)

So what’s great about the NAD D 3045?  I offer up a bullet list.  (See the gallery below the bullets)

Plusses

  • the Sound quality is great
  • the price is only $699
  • we have the D 3020 connected to an office computer and with the PSB Speakers Imagine Mini Bookshelf speakers, it sounds great at 30 Wpc
  • the D 3045 has 60 Wpc
  • has an asynchronous USB 24/192 input
  • support for MQA and DSD
  • Bluetooth powered by aptX HD
  • a high quality MM (moving magnet) phonostage for vinyl enthusiasts
  • owners can choose between horizontal or vertical orientation for the amp
  • in addition to BluOS streaming content, MQA decoding is available on all digital inputs
  • both preamp and subwoofer outputs are included for additional connection flexibility
  • and as Neil Gader mentions, “icing on the cake” is the premium quality headphone jack on the front panel

 

So what’s great about the NAD C 328 Hybrid Digital Amp?  I offer a bullet list.  (See the gallery below the bullets)

  • the sound quality is great
  • price is only $549
  • 50 Wpc output (20Hz-20kHz at rated THD) both channels driven
  • THD 0.005% at 1 V output
  • 3 line level on RCA analog inputs
  • 1 mm phono 
  • 2 Coaxial digital input
  • 2 Toslink optical inputs
  • Bluetooth
  • You can run your TV with optical out right into the amp for great TV sound with the onboard DAC in the C 328
  • Line level Subwoofer out RCA jack

Did I mention, NAD is a 45 year old company?  No shame, I know 🙂

Though we don’t stock the 2 Amps mentioned on our floor (we don’t have the room), we have plenty of NAD/BlueSound amplifier products (NAD amps are built into Bluesound units) on the floor for you to completely convince yourself that in the $399 to $899 range and beyond, you will really enjoy the sound of your new NAD Amplifier should you choose to bring one into your home.

In Summary, I mentioned the plug for these 2 NAD items because for years, Audible Images AV in Melbourne, FL has been very impressed with the High Performance sound of NAD Amplifiers.  And when folks walk into our showroom, sometimes they think we only carry Ultra High End gear.  That is not the case.  Now Ed or one of us will do our best to have you listen to all 3 listening rooms so that you will always have a Reference for what is out there, and for the most Spectacular sound you will ever hear.  A visit to our Showroom will blow your mind, and that’s what makes it really fun.  

We all would probably enjoy driving a 2019 Porsche 911 Turbo, even if we couldn’t own one 😉

But we are all about providing you Great Audio Sound in whatever your budget.

Thank you.

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How Do You find your First High Performance Stereo System & within your Budget?

I’m going to step out of my comfort zone and just state it outright, and it comes right from the title of this blog post, this system that I discovered in our showroom, should be anyone’s first High Performance system that actually steps into High End, if they are looking to meet their budget dead on.

Here’s the system, and then I’ll share my experience and what I’ve found out with it:

The Rogue Audio Cronus Magnum II Integrated Amplifier, paired with the PSB Imagine X2T Tower Speakers and with the Bluesound Node 2 for a source, which is a Digital Streamer – Music Server – DAC, that’s the system.  With some starter cables, the system comes in at around a $4500 price point.

So the other day during my tinkering hours at work, I wanted to see just how good the Cronus Magnum II could sound with a few modest priced speakers. We just got the Cronus Magnum II shortly before the Thanksgiving Holiday of 2017.  We have never carried any Rogue Audio electronics before this.  One of our moderate to high end speaker reps strongly recommended we try a Rogue Audio amplifier, so Ed pulled the trigger and brought in the Cronus Magnum II.  

The first thing I did was hook up the Martin Logan ESL’s (the $2500/pr) of speakers with the Cronus Magnum along with the Bluesound Node 2 source.  And, yes, it sounded fantastic.  That’s all I’ll say on that.  Why? Because I wanted to see if the PSB 3-way black tower speakers that were sitting out in the middle room row of speakers we have that I know are 1/2 the price of the Martin Logan ESL’s, I wanted to see if they sound good with the Cronus.  That would keep our budget well under $5000 for a starter system.  When I saw the PSB X2T’s were in The Absolute Sound – Editor’s Choice Awards in their March 2018 issue,  I was really stoked.

My simple and important criteria regarding these High Performance starter systems that I am seeking to put together, is that they sound really good not only in the High & Mid-range frequencies, but also,  that they have an excellent low frequency bass sound.  (This is why I started out with my first blog post & starter system, having a Rel subwoofer mandatory to go along with the 2 bookshelf speakers that came with it.  That blog post is here, regarding creating a system under $3K.)

Cronus-PSB-Tower-n-Node-2-1000wHere’s a photo of the system, with the Cronus Magnum II,  PSB Tower Speakers & the Node 2.  (magazines just for aesthetics 🙂

So how does it sound with the black PSB X2T Tower Speakers?

Fantastic!  Absolutely fantastic.

I played at least 10 songs that I like to use for testing my systems.  I confess, that 1/2 of the songs I use, are used by Ed, and I just adopted them. The first test song, was “Fade to Black” – Dire Straits.  I also listen to the same song on the $300 K system in our “Transporter” theater room.  So is there an obvious difference to me, between a $4500 and a $300,000 system?  Yes.  Yet does the Cronus system sound incredible? Yes.  Do I like hospital food?  Well, I can eat it, but I prefer fine Restaurants. 🙂 Am I a well known online reviewer?, nope.  Totally new to this business & with this high end stuff, as far as setting up and testing systems.  Again, did this Cronus $4500 system sound great?  Yes, it sure did.  And a key point here, is this system actually sounded great without a subwoofer.  It covered the low end quite nicely.  

I listened to a couple of Norah Jones songs, like “Come Away with Me” to check out her vocals.  I listened to The Dark Knight Rises – Main Theme, which is excellent to hear Symphony and all the instruments in Symphony.  The bass, the high volume, low volume in that theme song.  And it sounds incredible on this system.  Here’s the Dark Knight tune on YouTube if you don’t remember it. Like 12 million views on it at YouTube.  I also played a Stevie Ray Vaughn song, and a number of others.  All sounded excellent.  So this system I give a powerful thumbs up for your first Stereo system that is High Performance and actually steps into High end a little at the under $5 K mark.

I also tested the Cronus Magnum II with some Martin Logan ESL 9’s which have the Passive subwoofer.  I will say, mind-blowing with those.   I did test 10 or 12 songs, multiple times for some with the 9’s.  So if you want to know, if later on, it would be wise to upgrade to some higher end speakers to the Cronus, if your room stays the same, and you just want to add some more dynamic texture and range, then by all means this Cronus will deliver just fine for you.

I also tested the Cronus with Sonus Faber Olympica I 2-Way Bookshelf Loudspeakers.  And it sounded pretty darn good with those.

The Cronus Magnum II provides a lot of power at 100 WPC in a small room.  Below is a photo of the back of the Node 2 by Bluesound, of which I connected the 2 left & right audio RCA outputs to the back of the Cronus for a simple hook up.  (The Cronus doesn’t have a DAC, thus the connection method & the sweetness of the Node 2 having Coax out or Audio RCA out.)

Bluesound Node 2 back and connections used for Cronus Magnum II

As a few closing comments,  the room I tested this in, as the photo above shows, is like a spare bedroom or office, with a large carpet placed over solid wood floors.  The room had some practical acoustic treatments, like a couple of stand alone sound absorbers.  The photos in the room have no glass over the frames.

If you want an excellent system under or around 4500 (including starter cables), that you can also build on, then come in to try out this system in our showroom.

 

 

 

About the writer and purpose of my writings below:

As a side note, another thing I am hoping to accomplish for Ed (the boss) is to create 3 or 4 starter packages of systems, for the new Audiophile if you will.  This does go against Ed’s typical philosophy and what he prefers to offer with folks when they come in the showroom for the first time. He likes them to come in, and hear one or two systems in each of our 3 listening rooms, and let them be broadly exposed to many systems and match ups.  But one day I shared with Ed, that perhaps some people, want a starter system all picked out for them. That maybe they have already done the Appliance store search all over, and maybe they’re tired of trying to figure out who or what they can trust will make them happy.  And perhaps they just want to get started with a system that they know has already been tried & proven to sound great and come in at a very specific budget that meets their personal budget.  So this is the reason why I am first experimenting and blogging about 3 or 4 “Starter” systems if you will.

Here is my bio/purpose for me, Art Hansen on our “About” page, and why I am sharing these blog posts with you.  (Scroll down toward the bottom of the page to get to me)

Additional relevant keywords: Audiophile high performance starter system, audiophile beginner system.  Audiophile questions answered here at Audible Images. PSB Speakers Imagine Mini Bookshelf, PSB Imagine X2T Tower Speakers Transitional 3-Way Tower Speaker. Best Buy and Magnolia Home Theater we welcome you to stop there first, and then Audible Images AV.

 

 

Audible Images AV is pleased to be serving: Melbourne, Indian Harbour Beach, Lansing Island, Tortoise Island, Florida, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. John, Satellite Beach, Space Coast, Vero Beach, Orlando, Daytona, Kissimmee, Central Florida, Florida

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Can a simple modest stereo system sound impressive and yet be found at under $3000?

Audiophiles don’t typically start out on a $50,000 system.  First, they have to discover that they are an Audiophile right?

Once they feel the passion from their car stereo that they so proudly installed in high school or college, blowing away their friends systems, they at some point decide, I need something in my apartment or at home.

So I was thinking to myself, what do we have on the floor that I can not only impress myself with, but also someone that walks into our showroom, who desires to get a starter system that can maybe price out at under $3000? 

(Now we know that we can walk into most appliance stores and leave with a stereo for $1000 or 2000 dollars.  But do we really want a system that someone is always asking us to turn it down, because of the distortion coming out of those 100 watts?)  Okay, that said, my quest is now underway.

Okay, so my objective today, was to see what kind of impressive sound I could get out of the Bluesound PowerNode 2.  I wanted something that sounded rich enough in the highs and mid-ranges from our two channel, but also had that powerful low end bass to fill in on the bottom, so today it would be with the Rel T/7i Sub-Woofer.  

To loosely paraphrase what “The Absolute Sound” shared in their September 2016 review of the T7i, when listening to 2 channel stereo, a subwoofer’s role or purpose is to add quantity and quality of those low frequencies that many a two channel system is missing, not to add “boom” per say like in a movie, in order to hear and feel the full breadth and depth of a recording. 

Now granted, even a Newbie realizes that you don’t take an $800 Streaming Media Server/Amplifier and serve it up with some Wilson Audio Yvettes or Martin Logan CLX’s.  That said, I started from our lowest price modest speaker in the house, a pair of PSB Imagine XB Bookshelf Speakers, priced at $499/pr.

A few months back, I did listen to the Powernode 2 and also the NAD C 368 Hybrid Digital DAC Amplifier w/ Bluos streaming media card with a variety of speakers.  And to be honest with you, even after I went up to even a beginning high end speaker, I just wasn’t thrilled.  The overall sound was too much of the tweeter & mid-range and just not enough low end, even when I listened to some Sonus Faber, Martin Logans and others, I was just not impressed.  Now keep in mind, this test was with the Powernode 2 and the NAD C 368 that I tested with just a left and right speaker. (there is a reason why I mention that last sentence)

TAS-2017-Editors-Choice-Award-for-Rel-T7i, along with a few other awardsBut todays quest, as I shared above, is with a Sub-woofer, because we just got in the Rel T/7i.  And mind you, this puppy (the T7i) was on the TAS (The Absolute Sound 2017 Editors Choice Awards). 

 

So after getting the PSB Imagine Bookshelf’s strapped in, and then connecting the Rel T/7i to the back of the Powernode 2 , but NOT IN THE SUB-WOOFER OUT CONNECTION, but instead, I took the 3 copper wires from the sub, and draped the two colored ones around the + on the left and right speaker out, and then the third wire, I just connected to an arbitrary ground connection on one of the speaker out connections.  (Ed told me to hardwire it this way, instead of using a plug into Subout)

It was time to fire it up! And the awesome thing about the Rel T/5-7 or 9 i’s, is that you have like 3 adjustments you can make.  1) You can adjust a high/low level, 2) Crossover adjust between 30 hz and 120 hz and 3) .1/LFE Level to your taste (when setup for surround sound and not 2-Channel stereo setup), so it doesn’t sound like an explosion, when you are just trying to listen to Dire Straits – “Fade to Black” .  

I fired it up, and I thought it sounded pretty excellent.   We had a nice pair of bookshelves at $499/pr, the Powernode 2 for $799 with it’s 60 watt amp, and the Rel T/7i for $999, plus your cables, your coming in maybe under $2500.  It did sound good, and not to just some rookie.

But Ed came in the room, and with his borderline passionate/obsession of sound quality, he first had to adjust the speaker angle as they sat up on the display table. But after a few minutes,  he went to get the Kef LS50’s, and we removed the PSB’s and put the Kef’s on the table.  Within minutes, excessive Ed (kidding) asked me to get the stands for the Kef bookshelf speakers. The speakers just needed to be placed further apart to get that equilateral triangle of sound.  Then we fired it up.

Pretty Mind-blowing.  Sounded fantastic.  We already know the Kef LS50’s sound fantastic, they won the Product of the Year award with “What Hi*Fi”. But now packed with the Rel sub-woofer, it was truly remarkable.  A customer friend & audiophile, named Dave came in asking what was new in our world.  And Ed asked Dave if he’d like to hear the Kef’s and the Powernode 2 system with our new Rel T/7i.  Dave was pretty blown away.

Okay, we did leave the room of $2300-2500 systems (which is still available), but we also stepped into a higher and more amazing level of Audiophilia.  

So with the amazing Kef LS-50’s at the new reduced price by Kef of $1200/pr, plus the Powernode 2 at $799 & the Rel T/7i at $999 plus decent cables, you’re looking at a pretty stellar starter system at around $3200 + or -.

So what is the ultimate take-away here? Adding the REL T7i isn’t intended to add kaboom (as you might want when watching movies), the REL Sub-Bass speaker gives you the full range of what you were missing in the low end

When you listen to our main 2 channel system in “The Transporter” room, an over $300,000 system, it’s pretty fun to see Ed still get excited about a modest priced high performance starter system.  I know I was excited and pumped!

Additional relevant keywords: audiophile beginner system.  PSB Imagine XB Bookshelf Speakers, Audiophile questions answered here at Audible Images. PSB Speakers Imagine Mini Bookshelf, PSB Imagine X2T Tower Speakers Transitional 3-Way Tower Speaker. Best Buy and Magnolia Home Theater we welcome you to stop there first, and then Audible Images AV.

 

 

Audible Images AV is pleased to be serving: Melbourne, Indian Harbour Beach, Lansing Island, Tortoise Island, Florida, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. John, Satellite Beach, Space Coast, Vero Beach, Orlando, Daytona, Kissimmee, Central Florida, Florida

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Quick Takes with Ed Masterson: Noise Issues – Part 4

The Question asked was: How does having a separate power supply (2 parts) from the amplifier or pre-amp chassis translate to better Sound Quality? 

Noise is everywhere and it is an enemy of the audiophile. Noise gets into a system in components, cables, RF and many other ways.

In this great four part series Ed addresses noise with some great tips on how to eliminate it.

In this issue, we are discussing the purpose behind having a separate power supply from the preamps or ampilifer in the Dan D’Agostino Master Audio products.

Did you miss the first three parts in this series on noise? See the links below.

Part 1   Part 2   Part 3

Quick Takes with Ed Masterson: Noise Issues - Part 4

Audible Images AV is excited to be serving: Melbourne, Florida, Rockledge, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Cape Canaveral, Port St. John, Satellite Beach, Space Coast, Vero Beach, Orlando, Daytona, Kissimmee, Central Florida, the entire state of Florida…and even the greater USA

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