Stellar GCD

If there’s any bass whatsoever coming out of the right speaker, I would think that the electronics on the rack would be effected negatively. -Especially the turntable.
It appears there might be no choice in the matter, but I would keep it in mind for the future.

Thanks for your concern. I’ve had this stand for 8 years (bought 2 extra levels for the new power amps) and the turntable for 6 years. It’s been in the same place the whole time. I’ve not had any issues with vibration or feedback from the speakers into the equipment. Just to be on the safe side (because I’ve heard tubes are a bit more sensitive) I’ve ordered custom made isolation for the amps and also the turntable. Should be here in a month or so.

Not to be negative or anything, but your speaker right next to your rack like that has to be killing your dispersion. not to mention your components.

It does protrude past it slightly. As I say 8 years (6 with a turntable) and no feedback hum, even in the turntable. Also I’ve got to work with the space I have. Unless you fancy springing me the €300,000 extra I’d need to move up from an apartment to a house so I can have a dedicated music room. For what it’s worth I have a nice sweet spot in my system over the two seats on my couch where I tend to rest my behind.

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I understand do what you can :+1:

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I don’t think that HUM is what you’d hear. Try moving the speakers out about a foot and away from the stand, just temporarily, for only one night, while the boss is away.
Try it and please report back your impressions. -Just for fun!

That’s not the problem, the problem is that doing that would mean it would be literally playing into the side of my kitchen table. Its a less perfect solution to something that isn’t causing a problem to my ears.

Like I say, if I ever move out of Dublin or get rich and have more space I’m all for experimenting like that! I don’t discount that it may sound better but as things stand I’m not hearing a problem and.practically concerns have to come first.

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Understood. Anyway, I think your rack is one of the nicest I’ve seen.

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Yeah I kinda always knew it wasn’t 100% ideal but have to compromise because of space.

The long term thoughts are either move out of this ridiculously expensive city and buy a house somewhere cheaper, win the lottery, or failing that before the next time I decorate run some speaker cable through the walls to the other side of the room so I can put the system over there and have the speakers either side of the tv. All hypothetical and a reasonably long way off right now!

Thanks! Those racks are really nice and kinda suit the Scandinavian/Mid-Century vibe that I like! Glad to be able to give a bit of publicity to a small U.K. brand too!

When we post our pics, we should probably include our room dimensions as well.

That’d completely muddy the matter with mine, my room is huge but it’s an open plan living area that has my kitchen and dining space in it too haha! But for a dedicated listening space it’s definitely an idea!

If you ever rearrange things in your room, run long interconnects from the source components to the amp and speakers, wherever they end up for best sound. Definitely keep the speaker cables as short as possible. That’s what seems to work the best. -Just my 2 cents.

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Fair enough, I’ll keep that in mind!


As much as I know that speaker placement improves sound. The Living room is where we have to put our speakers up. The speakers cannot be positioned in front the doors. Optically the system looks attractive, at least by my taste. The Canton Bassport Vento’s are bi-amped by the Yamy receiver, the Yamy Bly-Ray disc player does an excellent job sound wise. The Yamy receiver is good at what you throw at it through HDMI inputs. The MM phono stage however seems to be a over budged gadget. I love my vintage Thorens TD105 but it suffers from the por MM internal phono stage. Even though bi-amped, the speakers lack bass. It must be the placement as they sounded better when we listened to them in the middle of the shop flor when they were connected to the same receiver and that only single amped.

This is where I hope PS Audio comes in. I am planning to buy a Stellar Gain Cell DAC for my home office up stairs, to match my Yamy MSP5 active monitors va XLR, iMac via USB with my Library ripped to iTunes with bit perfect, and Technics CD player. I am hoping to be able to fork out budget for a nice Canton 12" active Subwoofer.

If that works well I am thinking about replacing the Yamy receiver with another Stellar Gain Cell DAC combined with an Essence 4K II 5xHDMI DAC. Hopefully combine that with PS Audio Stellar speakers (Paul claims his team will work on after the AN3’s are in production) that can compensate for our room deficiencies as being closed cabinet servo and DSP driven bass units.
I’d like the Stellar amplifiers too, but preferably built into those speakers, keeping my Audio rack nice and tidy. I don’t like to have too many boxes. That would allow me to add a Stellar Phono Stage and perhaps a new Thorens turntable as they seem to be presenting some nice new turntables o the High End show in Munich this year.

Maybe PS Audio will consider building a Stellar multidisk player with HDMI ARC connector to be able to use the system with TV connected sources and I2S interface to the Stellar GCD such that I can replace the Bly-Ray and can skip the Essence 4K II. That would make the new system sound High End and look equally synergetic as my current system.

Till then, my current system will still look really good (not to many boxes), for multi media it sounds a truck load better then a sound bar any way and I’ll enjoy the higher end sound in my home office.

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Even if you can’t move the speakers much, you could try moving that away from the wall or closer to see how that changes things. Toeing them in might also have an effect. Bass in particular is affected by that quite a bit. Are these speakers ported in the back?

Another thing that might be happening is that the tiles and possibly other hard surfaces in the room are reflecting the high frequencies and creating an overall bright-sounding room. You could try adding a rug in front of the speakers to see if that helps.

Thanks rkosara, the speakers are front ported, I will try to toe them in a bit and move them a little.

The rug?! I am sure you are right, but:
We also have a Bernese mountain dog, he is cute and our families best friend. As large as they are, they are also known for weak intestines …, so after 2 rugs the boss said either we have the Bernese or a rug, not both! Since the rugs are gone the dog is doing well, wonder if the dog hated those rugs.

Any suggestions for an alternative to a rug? Other than that we have cloth chairs, a bookshelf and large soft leather corner couch in the same living room.

@rkosara listend together with my wife at 2 pairs of really nice T+A Criterion transmission line speakers, the 2200 CTL and 2100 CTL. First to the 2200 CTL, 2 x 8 1/2" bass woofers. They sounded great, till they were moved against the wall, image was gone and sound was dull and loveless. Good thing, my wife heard it too, she realized how the sound of these EUR 8500 per pair speakers was ruined by moving them too close to the wall. I said imagine the amount of money we would need to spend to fix it. So she agreed to move the speakers 5" into the room and toe them in a bit as you suggested. They sound awesome now. Thanks for the advise. I still plan to replace the system for a Stellar system some day, but the improvement of sound this little move achieved makes the wait for saving the budget and PS Audio’s Stellar speakers much easier.

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@jmcgranaghan Do you still enjoy your great amplifier rig? I am wondering how you like the Musical Fidelity MX VYNL? Its got good reviews, but I curious how it sounds in your system.

+1 to Chops recommendation

I love the stellar and the quads! They’ve burnt in nicely and are so rich in detail and warm! Recently rolled the KT88s to Gold Lions and the 5U4G to Svetlana Winged Cs. It’s been a big step up again!

So I had the MX-VYNL before I got the new amplification so I’ve never run it with a different pre. When I got it I was stepping up from the in-built in my old Sony integrated amp. What I noticed then was a much bigger and wider sound stage and a real increase in detail. It was a jump up that astounded me then tbh. I still like it a lot and it’s not a part of my system that I have plans to upgrade. The one reservation about it that I do have is that for a pre that cost me £700 to get from the UK it comes with a wall wart. Somewhere on my upgrade list, admittedly quite a long way down, are linear power supplies for both it and my turntable.