You’re going to love your TN racks, I was shocked when I recieved mine. Finishes and quality is amazing and what a great group of people that work there. Chris built mine and sent pictures through the whole process.
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Thanks. I got the short version of their history while on the phone one day. It sounds like they have been a custom wood shop for at least 2 generations as of now. The person who I was talking to was the son of the founder.
Like you said they are a great group of people to deal with and a family owned small business to boot.
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My Timbernation rack is excellent. They are proud of their work and very accommodating.
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The system looks awesome… How’s the Playback Designs DAC working out for you? Is it as good as OCD Mikey says it is?
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The plant pots are a fab finishing touch - I humbly suggest mini fairy-lights for them 
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And a VCOM mod…
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I also have one of their racks and highly recommend them. The Timbernation folks are easy to work with. One caution, should you purchase their rack(s) be sure to unpack outdoors or in your garage. The styrofoam packing material used is subject to significant static charge and well get all over furniture, etc in one’s home.
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Also the sawdust residue. I have learned to open them outside and hit the individual pieces with the blower and a rag before letting them in the house. I have another Wide Rack coming next week that will get the same treatment.
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Yes he nailed it. Mike’s a little on the windy side but very knowledgeable and sells just a few hand picked lines at various price points. He’s definitely not your mainstream sales dude.
Everything he sells has a 30 day money back and he will always give you 80% of what you paid if you want to upgrade, trade in, etc.He also has a lot of good used equipment for sale.
The Playback Designs piece is way better than anything I have ever heard or owned right out of the box. I bought it back in Feb or March but we were in the middle of a move so it never came out of the box until now. It is dead quiet and simple to run. It does DSD up to 11.2 natively over their in house USB circuit. Break in is supposed to be 500 hours but holy-moly it is really good right off the bat.
I will be looking at a set of AGD Solo’s next to compare to my XA160.8’s.
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Thanks. I am also having them sent on truck freight just to help mitigate handling issues in transit.
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Considering who designed the Playback Designs digital system it’s no surprise that it sounds as good as you say Vern. Keep us updated with your long term findings…
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Will do. This room “should” sound a lot worse than it does. It’s not really big enough and has a lot of glass on one side but those issues aren’t nearly as much of a problem as they might be.
I have a couple of small equipment moves to make once my new racks get here and I am going to play around with some sonic room measurements, maybe DSP a little?, maybe add a couple of subs back into the mix but for now everything is really, really good and I dont feel as I am missing anything.
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I have a whole wall of glass behind me and it doesn’t cause a problem. It slides away, but I never bother. Different types of glass can have very different reflective properties. I far prefer to have natural light.
The room is only small if you put too much in it. Having done this a couple of years ago (my builders seem to have been a bit quicker), until you get the curtains/drapes and everything else done, you never really know. I was without music for 6 months, but it certainly wan’t quiet.
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Its been my (somewhat limited) experience that reflective surfaces behind the listening position are not necessarily an issue, depending on their distance in back of the ears.
FWIW.
Thats a lovely home!
Happy Cake Day, Steven!
Congratulations on your room.
In my opinion, symmetry matters a lot in a room, both in shapes and materials, but it’s a personal problem of mine, I’m quite obsessed with it. It must be said that in your case natural light is a wonderful pro, period!
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A lot of houses in the UK built before 1940 have what we call bay windows. Lots of people put hifi in them and not having a flat wall behind the hifi seems to be a good thing. After WW2 bay windows were far less common because there was no money and it was cheaper to build a flat wall.
There is a large plate glass window perhaps about 13m away in the distance. When I had a single subwoofer and the doors open the sound would bounce off that glass and back into the room. I don’t see how you can have very low bass without serious room damping. The glass behind me has zero impact.
Those cherry doors were made by our carpenter guy 20 years ago. We moved them when we rebuilt, quite tricky as they hang off a steel beam in the ceiling. Cherry wood shrinks over about a year, so they were made slightly too big. It’s the wood version of cable burn-in, just takes a bit longer.
I agree on symmetry and consistency of design. All the fitted units and kitchen on the ground floor use one veneer. Other surfaces are neutral. There are about 4,000 different types of white, I tested about 3,900 of them. It’s a lot cheaper to test paint than cables.
The only factory-made furniture came from Italy - where else! A company called Pressotto, up near Treviso. Also 100m2 of porcelain floor slabs from Italy. The kitchen worktops came from the USA. When I looked at the bill (a company called Caesar Stone) I thought I’d ordered another pair of Wilson speakers. Caesar was from Italy, it seems he has a wealthy relative in the USA.
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I received an Innuos Phoenix Usb 4 days ago.
The effect is very audible: it’s more natural, especially on voices, and the three-dimensional focus is clearly improving.
It is connected upstream by a Sablon Evo USB cable and downstream by an Oyaide Continental 5S. The latter must restrict performance a little.
I wonder if a Shunyata Omega which seems to be unanimous would not risk degrading the sound signal by doing “duplication” with the Innuos. Have you already tested this configuration ?
Or another cable to recommend ?
It being specified that Innuos recommends putting the best cable upstream.
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This just got a rave review and several here use their grounding devices
Either Shunyata USB or ethernet should not have any conflict with a powered switch such as PNET or others. I use a LHY SW-10 switch and both Omega USB and ethernet work great with it, and I was able to achieve a sound quality as good as my PST playing SACD.
You can try Shunyata Omega or Sigma from The Cable Co. for a 5% loaner fee, and if you decide to purchase from them the fee will be credited towards purchase.
Some here said digital cables do not matter, my take is they are as important, if not more, than analog cables in my system.
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