Awesome to hear @Chops
And thanks for the album reference. I really enjoy her A Distortion Of Love album - I’ll check this one out as well.
2 Likes
Congrats! Should be a huge upgrade! I see the Pass amps you posted a little earlier, but what’s in the rest of the rack?
1 Like
@jamesh Thanks for asking. My Current System:
Side of Room-
Esoteric SA-50 SACD
PS Audio BHK Pre
Cambridge CXN V2
Front of room-
Pass Labs XA60.5 monoblocks
NHT 3.3 Speakers
For Now - splitting difference, P10 sits between with 10 ft BAV power from Monoblocks to P10; 6 ft Cardas power from components to P10.
11 Likes
Stunning! The curtains over the insulation/bass trap was a good idea. From this perspective, it almost looks like the right speaker is toed to the outside. I bet it’s sounding amazing!
1 Like
are you using the thermal fibre from the previous pic as bass traps? nice idea if so, is that “rock wool” or rolls of fibreglass? (i’m thinking like house loft insulation stuff that comes on rolls)?
@jamesh I think my quick picture is slightly distorted giving the appearance of toe out. Here’s a straight forward picture. I have 2 speaker placements, a 36” front baffle off wall for better bass and 52” off wall for better imaging.
@joma0711 Yes, just hidden away. It’s semi-rigid mineral wool that are 47”x15”x3.5”
https://www.thermafiber.com/products/commercial/ultrabatt-insulation/
I’m using it as a semi-temporary solution for bass traps and 1st-reflection points until I get some nicer material that’s been on backorder for 2 months.
I plan to compare in room vs 703 eventually. I’m also adding some diffusion between speakers (also on backorder).
3 Likes
Ha yes, much easier to see. Some diffusion behind/between the speakers will be great. Much better than the drywall.
1 Like
I need to stop looking at your pictures. They’re going to make me drag out my 2.9’s again. 
2 Likes
Love the IKEA rack and cutting board too 
2 Likes
I noticed that too. Well done.
Hmmm… A lot more wires necessary to support independent two channel and multi-channel front ends in the same rack. I’m not certain that @rower30 would completely approve- LOL!
All the outbound balanced XLR signal cabling to the 5 active bed loudspeakers, 2 stereo power amps for the 4 ceiling mounted immersive audio speakers, and 4 subwoofers are neatly run through zip-tied wire clips along the baseboards. Same with the long HDMI runs from the noisy game console that lives in a storage closet at the front of the room and to the projector at the rear. All the analog inter-component connections, again balanced XLR except for the turntable and phono stage, are the correct length for their respective spans. It all looked pretty clean until I added the power cabling… Managing the captive power cables in and out of the nine Foundation Research LC1 and LC2 power conditioners is proving a lot more tricky!
4 Likes
Cable routing can improve sound quality.
Yup, already a believer on that front @nortonkp. Hence all the aforementioned long cable runs neatly affixed along the baseboards. The couple of pics you sent are certainly admirably tidy. Mind you, you failed to show us the busy backside of your gear rack… 
In any event, my point was basically that rear of rack cable management is made exponentially more difficult with increasing component box count and system complexity. Your two pics suggest the most recent iteration of my big rig is rather more complex than yours.
It looks like I need to attach a bunch more wire-tie clips higher on the wall. That should allow me to tie back and manage the power cabling excess, keeping it clear of the nearby signal cable runs. FYI, the nine individual Foundation Research line conditioners feature captive 3 prong and IEC cords poking out opposite ends. Each unit powers and provides bi-directional power filtration for a single component. If I cut the captive cords down to the current optimally required lengths, I’d kill the re-sale value of the units and potentially create difficulties with future system re-vamps.
2 Likes
Nice setup! Are you sure that the wall (as the turntable mount seems jacked up to the middle of it) doesn’t have a higher resonance potential than the floor at the side where the rack is? I may be wrong, but the base seems glass and with that kind of high wall attachment this seems a highly ringing and swinging construction. But on the other hand the Oracle as a subchassis player isn’t really sensible.
Well…maybe I would! Cables in parallel are the devil’s workshop, so I TRY to make them NOT parallel or in loops where I can.
It’s kind of hard to run them to the speakers zig-zag fashion so those are “nice”. But behind my rack? YIKES as far as cosmetics go. Like wire wrap in the day, messy is far quieter than neat and parallel.
Here’s the deal, though. If you are ADHD about wire neatness, and you’ve done it to good visual effect and it is quiet…what’s the problem, really? I just don’t want to work my tail-off on routing to lean towards POSSIBLY getting an induced hum somewhere. But cripes, if it’s all done and works fine, who’s to deride what’s working?
Best,
Galen Gareis
5 Likes
I’ve been in this rodeo for 34 years including car audio install and am well aware of cables at right angles. Any cables I run in parallel are shielded and at various heights.
As for how neat my system is, it’s in my living room and is the second thing you see in my house. A ball of wires wouldn’t work for me but thanks for that reference Galen!