Audio Investigations: July 2013

Monday, July 1, 2013

New System Photo Explained

The previous living room system photo was very outdated. Taken in mid 2010, it showed the Krell, Acoustats, Elac supertweeters and SVS subwoofers. The speakers are the same but the Krell is now offline (and to the side, still visible in new photo), having been functionally replaced by the Aragon 8008 BB. The listening position has been moved up to 3 1/2 feet from speakers, the most important change of all. Normally facing straight ahead, the listening chair is rotated in the photo to avoid hiding all the equipment, but is otherwise in correct spot. And now there are additional piles of equipment to the left and right of the two center components. From left to right and top to bottom, here are the electronic components:

Far far left:
120VAC to 240VAC hammond stepup transformer (for KT-6040)
Radio Shack Remote Extender

Far left:
Jenson Iso-Max...used to isolate ground from Kurzweil K2661 cables and convert to unbalanced
Behringer DEQ 2496...used to equalize output of Kenwood KT-6040 tuner from Europe.
Classe CP 35...used (sometimes) to amplify output of Kurzweil providing 10dB more gain
Could also be used for transformerless input and conversion to unbalanced
Pioneer F-26...classic analog super tuner, used for living room system only
Kenwood KT-6040...digital remote tuner used whole house through Sonos
Sony CDP-507...original CD only player used for guest CD's

Left:
Aragon 8008 BB...amplifier for Acoustats full range above 80 Hz

Right:
Sonos ZP 80 zone player
Behringer DCX 2496...3 way digital crossover with delays and eq
Tact RCS 2.0...main system preamp, selector+level+eq, room correction not used

Far Right:
dB systems 5 way selector with teflon jacks
Lavry AD 10...digitizer for F-26 and Denon 5900
Denon 5900...universal DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, HDCD player
Acurus A250...power amp used for super tweeters
Belkin UPS and audiophile power conditioner...used for all except Aragon

Living Room System

2-way with Acoustat 2+2 from 125Hz to 17k, and a pair of SVS Ultra PB 13 below 125Hz (linear phase LR8 crossover). Now using the best from 2 pairs of 2+2's, one white and one black, EQ'd to be the same. Acoustats powered by Aragon 8008 BB. All amps including Subs and Tweeters driven by Emotiva Stealth DC-1 DACs. DACs for each way driven by AES from Behringer 2496 DEQs (EQ and limiting), driven by AES from MiniDSP OpenDRC (linear phase FIR crossovers or corrections generated by RePhase). Driven by AES from a Henry Engineering AES 4-way splitter. Driven by AES from a Tact RCS 2.0 Digital Preamp with Room Correction and PEQ bypassed. The Tact receives most sources as digital. Analog sources are converted to digital at 24/96 by Lavry AD10 analog to digital converter on the side wall and sent via a 12 foot AES cable to the Tact. Emotiva XSP-1 serves as phono preamp and analog selector and level adjuster feeding the Lavry. Oppo UDP 205 plays most discs, and does streaming from my library and Qobuz using Roon, through digital coax output to the Tact, but in other cases through HDMI and a Kanex Pro De-Embedder, and in the rare remaining cases (used to be more) where neither digital transfer method retains full resolution, analog through balanced cables to the Emotiva and Lavry. Denon DVD-9000 plays HDCDs better than anything I know of and connects to Emotiva and thence Lavry for conversion to 24/96. A Sonos Connect is an alternate Tact source, and destination for the Pioneer F-26 FM tuner, which also plays in other rooms through Sonos. A Dynavector 17DIII is mounted to the hockey-tape dampened Ittok tonearm on a Linn Sondek LP12 with Lingo external power supply, using a Michell plastic low spindle clamp is with a trimmed felt washer. There are seperate AC circuits for Subwoofers, Acoustat Poweramps, and Rest of System. The Rest of System circuit is conditioned and regulated by a Panamax MB 1500 and served via a variety of audiophile grade power strips. Single ended digital cabling by Blue Jeans Cable using Belden coax, and Blue Jeans LC-1 audio cabling. AES by Canare, Mogami, Gotham City, and Geistnote/Canare. PTFE balanced audio cable by Surf Cables. Speaker wire mostly hand twisted milspec PTFE coated 12g silver plated copper. Playlists generated by mplay version 0.69 soon to be released.