I haven’t been posting for a while but visit this forum on a regular basis. It’s great see what fellow affectionados have assembled on this particular thread!
New home and a few component changes since last posting. A shout out to Chas for encouraging me to post.
“How do you like your Cambridge stuff?”
Well I have about 100 hours on the Cambridge Audio Edge W and 851n now, with Spendor D1 mini monitors and Rel R-328 sub.
The room is 17’ x 12’, and there’s a pesky bed in between the speakers and the listening position, so not exactly ideal, but so far so good.
I guess I can say definitively that the Cambridge pair is not as good as my Audio Research integrated amp and Teac NT-505 streamer/dac pair in my main system (where I’m driving the D1’s big brother D7 speakers), but it is still pretty good. Definitely much better than my office system.
So I guess it’s about what I expected for the cost. Was I hoping they could potentially challenge the ARC/Teac tandem? Sure (had some hope for that given the Stereophile class A rating of Edge), that would have been fantastic, but at least not yet anyway. Maybe after further break-in they will close the gap.
On the PS Audio side of things, the single noise harvester in this bedroom system is much more hyperactive in its near constant blinking than are the 3 harvesters in my main system. I guess that’s a good tradeoff, as I do my best listening with the main system so happy to have a quieter electrical grid there, I suppose. I thought maybe the reason for the harvester activity in the bedroom might be the ceiling fan, but it seems to behave the same whether the ceiling fan is on or off, so who knows??
I’d take a picture and post it, but my living room is full of boxes from my wife’s steampunk graphic novel inventory. She just finished a Kickstarter for the 3rd stand-alone follow-on story after the main issue (was originally a 6-issue miniseries that was combined into one trade paperback), then there’s the prequel books of short stories and the novel. (She’s writing the next novel).
The books for the 3rd issue came from the publisher 3 weeks ago and she’s been shipping them all around the world. That’s good, as far as it goes, but now that we’re in quarantine I’ve had no available time to listen to anything, save for when we watch our nightly Netflix episode. (The music bothers her when she’s trying to write, going on an online interview, or prepping the packages for shipping.)
Someday I can get back to it.
Say, any progress on the music player? Ready for beta yet?
@StateofMind. Love the look. I have a pair of Rel subs similar to yours. I goofed around one day and lifted them 18 inches of the floor with my 8 ft ceiling. I believe lifting them this high reduced the vertical room nodes from floor to ceiling. I only lift them high when I get into serious listening mode. Have a great day
Thank you, minnesotafats, for your response. It is certainly interesting that we both experience better integration of our subs by NOT following the advice of Rel😉 Your solution is really radical. Isolating them from the floor, raising and tilting them have certainly resulted in more air, more speed and a more seamless transition to the standmounts (and then I have also added Ansuz PCs and loudspeaker cables (or interconnects as I prefer to think of them). The sum total is a musical bass performance beyond what would be had from any sanely priced full range speaker (auditioned the Stenheim fives the other day and remained perfectly happy with my current set-up even in such elevated company).
Further sub tweaks more than welcome!
Enjoy your day
StateofMind
YES, there is definitely a marked improvement…it’s hard to believe they are the same speakers…
i lifted (on Sound Anchors & giant Herbie Sliders) my PMC XB3 Transmission Lines to just above my JBL 4350’s…about 36"…and also aimed them Directly at my nose…now tight, precise notes…sans Any boom…(the orientation is the 15" driver is the bottom, literally at head level, and the port is on top)…so much more musical also…
the room is ~30’ x ~20’ , with an 8’ ceiling…the speakers are all ~4’ out from the back wall…to allow for the top end electronics behind the speakers, almost against the wall…
I think Rels recommendation on placement is to enhance the bass level but in the same instance exciting room nodes. If the subs are large enough you don’t need the extra room bass support. The bass waves are omidirectional both horizontally and vertically so the direction of the cone relative to the ear is probably not as critical as the relationship of the cones position relative to the room boundaries (floor, ceiling, and walls). Look up ACS subtraps. ACS is the same company that makes tube traps that you can place in the corners of the room. It is hard to believe how much better and clearer the bass and everything else becomes when you reduce the bass resonance/nodes in the room.
Here is an update To my system since I started the thread I have changed the basically Everything. Speaker wire is temporary. I ordered new cables and they will he run through the smurf tubing in the wall.
Moved to:
Dynaudio Excite X34(long term I will be switching to ATC SCM 40’s love those speakers but home remodel went a bit over budget😢)
Hegel H360 Integrated
Mac Mini Roon
Rega RP6
Fono mini(will be upgraded soon)
Media center is on order but delayed due to Covid.
I know no PS Audio gear at the moment but wife was not a big fan of the separates so I switched to the Hegel.
TV is Samsung The Frame.
The remodel home/room looks gorgeous, nice system.
Chas
Thank you! That room is an all new addition. We were able to move in the week before everything locked down in March. There is a bunch of checklist stuff left to do. We just got the ok here in Seattle that contractors can start work again. So soon it will be completely done.
I built a walnut cabinet to house the Cambridge Audio CXA80 that was in the closet, and moved the Focal Aria 906’s from my den system into it. (Moving the Imagine B’s back into the den.)
Before:
This cabinet was always too small and shallow. Barely housed a tiny Blu-Ray player and an Apple TV and a random assortment of ancient DVDs and playing cards and other junk. Never liked the sliding doors, which attracted dust.
So clean!
Newer to the forum, however, I’ve really enjoyed seeing all the great systems in this thread. I’m currently finishing out a dedicated music room.
My Current System:
Cambridge Audio CXN V2 (my first streamer)
Esoteric SA-50 SACD
Modwright SWL 9.0SE pre
Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks
NHT 3.3 Speakers
Love the NHTs.
Me too !
NIce system, and those XA-60.5’s probably put out about twice their rated output at 8, 4 & 2 ohms.
There is something about Modwright gear that really appeals to me, aesthetically.
Does that preamp sound as sweet as it looks?
My system is slowing changing from a home theater to a 2 Channel listening room. I have one more year until the kiddo leaves for collage then, it will be all mine
Current system:
Anthem AVM 60
Oppo 103
Cambridge 851N
VPI Player
PS Audio M700’s
Anthem A5’s for surround
Focal Sopra 3’s
Paradigm Surrounds and Atoms.
The Modwright has been my foundation since I picked it up in 2005. I got it from a friend who was looking to upgrade. I’ve tried a mixture of other SS and tube preamps, but keep coming back to it. I may move to a fully balanced pre at some point, but still love the sound of the Modwright. I just picked up the Pass amps last year, so that has been the biggest upgrade in last 10 years (moved from an Adcom 555).
