I'm a serious musician and audio has been important to me since the 1960s. This system is my third major upgrade in the last 40 years.
You can see that it's important for me to integrate my system into our apartment living space, that I share with my wife of 39-years. It was important for the speakers to be physically attractive as furniture and, most importantly, be very musical.
The analog front end is incredibly revealing. When I'm seriously listening I pull the speakers out to the positions that you see, which was determined using Sumiko's Master Set technolog. Rod Thomson of Soundings set mine for me. Believe it or not, that table to the left is no problem for either imaging or frequency response. The narrow set is defined by that short wall and the opening into the hall and foyer. The image goes out past the speakers and centered vocalists are about 3/4 the way up the armoire in the center and depth goes back to the back wall. You'd be amazed at the bass from this system, particularly given the wonderfully open and textured midrange.
At other times the AKG headphones and incredible Woo Audio amplifier provide a great alternative for listening without moving the furniture around.
The Korg MR1000 is used for live recording and archiving vinyl using 1-bit DSD at 5.6 mHz.
I've been looking into this a little more. The Korg records in raw DSD, but only outputs that kind of signal via UBS connector. It looks like the Tascam 1000HD recorder has raw DSD inputs and outputs on BNC connections. If you had a DAC like an Emmlabs dac with a raw DSD input on BNC connectors, you could play back the DSD files from your recorder through the Emmlabs dac on your stereo system. That way, the files are always in DSD format, never downsampled/converted. Just food for thought.
Thanks Bigamp. The Korg is way-portable, so I plug it in to any source I want to record, then I carry it over to the computer and plug in via USB to save the files. It comes with a program called Audiogate that then downconverts. Unfortunately it's a slow process to downconvert. Someone using Discwelder Bronze tells me it's also slow. It's as if the conversion is in real time rather that what you'd expect of digital conversion. It takes almost as long to downconvert as to make a live recording.
Other than that issue, now worked around by doing it at night and converting a whole folder, it's pretty slick. (Set the computer not to go into Sleep mode). I use DVD-A in my universal player.
I'm holding off doing wholesale archiving until I can have an upgrade mod of the input/output sections and shielding added.
Nice system! What you're doing with the Korg is very cool. Are you playing the files from the Korg plugged into your preamp?
It would be great to play back the files in the 1-bit/5.6884 format from a PC. I've never done this, but there must be a way.
I suppose one way would be to get mastering software on your PC and a PC card or outboard interface that somehow outputs DSD. The Korg can record in the DSDIFF format. After some Googling, it appears this format may be the same as RAW-DSD. If you can find a dac that takes a RAW-DSD signal (such as the EMMLabs DCC2), I would imagine that you could play those files back at 1-bit at 5.6448 MHz. Perhaps Tascam or Merging makes an I/O card or off-board card that would let you do this?
It's incredibly powerful. Hopefully there's a Sumiko dealer near you that has someone qualified to do this. It's the most dramatic upgrade you can do for a small cost.
It is possible to have great sound without stuff cluttering the room.
Perhaps your cabinet maker could even bifold the upper doors so you could listen with the cabinets open but without the doors in the way of the speakers.
12-30-07: Devilboy said: "...Music is my passion in life and my system is a way for me to fuel that passion. I would like to make my system look as visually appealing to my own taste as possible."
I think your system is one of the better looking on this site. Consider a Sumiko Master Set to get the most out of the rig.
Thank you. Music is my passion in life and my system is a way for me to fuel that passion. I would like to make my system look as visually appealing to my own taste as possible.
Shadorne, your observation about the rear wall vs bass is astute. Yes, the placement relative to that rear wall, the corners of the wall and the hall was hyper-critical. Move a fraction of an inch one way and the bass gets boomy and interferes with the mids, go the other way and you lose a ton of bass. Notice that the right side has an odd protrusion. That was very critical in the placement. With the speakers properly placed, it doesn't matter whether I move that table on the left out of the way or just leave it.
I've written a review of the Sumiko Master Set process because I believe it's so valuable and important. On my own, I'd pulled the speakers much further into the room. I achieve very smooth and coherant mids with wonderful imaging, but I'd given up considerable bass. I'd tried moving back towards the walls, but it muddied the midrange.
My Sumiko consultant, Rod Thomson of Soundings in Colorado, spent an hour and a half optimizing placement as I listened. It was amazing to hear how he first got the bass coherant and well controlled and then moved to the mids and finally the tweaking of the image. I know use a laser line and 1/16" scale rule to get the speakers back into the same spot. (I push them back, in line with the armoire when not listening seriously).
Anyway, I'm extremely happy with this rig and the Sumiko Master Set gets at least half the credit.
Nice setup. The space behind the speakers must help give you a nice clean bass response (less reflected energy from behind the speakers). I expect you are getting an awesome clean lower midrange sound, not being masked by boomy bass from a corner placement. Kudos to ya! It looks for elegant!
