Finished the stereo house December 2019. Took six months building it and literally 5 years to research all angles to plan for it. Construction is concrete pad, offset stud walls one foot thick, double sheets 5/8" drywall with green glue sandwich. Ceiling is same sheetrock construction but mounted on metal furring hat channels with sound clips. Used 71 cartridges of compound and 21 sealant. All electrical outlets backed with soundproof putty.
Two small windows 4" thick with triple pane. 3" thick solid wood door, mahogany on outside, pine inside. Whisper quiet mini split AC/heat wall mounted unit.
Result is stunning, I hear nothing from the outside, trash truck included, and no one hears a peep of my music from the outside, no matter how loud.
Mission accomplished for sound proofing. For acoustic treatment I worked with Gik and the results are phenomenal. It took me 3 months to tweak in the system and now 6 months later I have completely stopped tweaking anything. Happy and satisfied music lover here with what I accomplished. The construction was nerve wracking at times since no one around this area was familiar with this type of construction, but I really enjoyed guiding those guys along. Great experience. In the process of upgrading some equipment, pictures will follow. Ended up doing a bunch of acoustic treatment upgrades also. Reality is the journey is never over no matter the level of quality. Lesson learned :)
Pro-Ject Audio Systems Debut III with ortofon 20 cart
RX doctor Record clamp for pro-ject
Gustard X26 pro DAC
Jay's Cdt2 mk3 cd transport with Qstab NSE CD clamp
Halo parasound A 21+ power amp
The first 6 watts are pure class A.
Noticeable difference over the A23+ I had.
PS Audio Stellar phono preamp for VPI TT
Wyred 4 sound ST preamp stage 2
Parks audio Puffin phono preamp for Pro-ject TT
Bluesound NODE N130 Streamer
Teddy Pardo Linear power supply for Bluesound Node
Sangea HDT-20 HD radio fm tuner
Simply amazing, some HD stations in Austin sound almost as good as redbook CDs on this inexpensive marvel.
PBN Audio Montana XPS speakers
Rythmik Audio F 12 A 370 PEQ dual subs
Iso acoustics ISO-200 subwoofer stands
Audio Envy O'nestian XLR interconnect cables
Tubulus Concentus I2s cable for Jay's to Dac connection
Also using an Audio Envy XLR between the Jay's and Gustard to get a more rounded but less detailed sound depending on brightness of the CD. Via remote of course.
Curious USB cable from streamer to DAC
Geistnote digital Coax cable between tuner and dac
4s11 canare 11 gauge bi-wiring speaker cables
Mediabridge Subs cables
Audio Envy Phono Deluxe RCA cables
Patrick Cullen cables Gold series power cables for most equipment
Shunyata Venom 14 power cable for Teddy Pardo LPS
Bluejeans Ethernet cable between NODE and TP-Link wifi extender
Small Green Computer Optical isolation bundle
Used between the wifi extender and streamer to clean up the ethernet signal. Subtle improvement in space and clarity.
Black Lion Audio PG-2 Power conditioner
Gik acoustics 8 corner bass traps, 4 absorbing panels for side walls, 2 for front wall and 2 absorber/diffuser panels for back wall. Later added diffusers for first reflection points, back wall, rear side walls and ceiling for a diffuser surface total of 84 sq. ft.. The total surface of absorbers amounts to 72 sq. ft. plus the floor to ceiling bass traps in the 4 corners.
Once I got rid of all echoes with the absorbers, it took that many diffusers to open up the room and give it the lively sound I lost with the absorbers. Now I have no echoes and a lively room! What a trip!
Audio Envy Ocean elite p3 power cord for Jay's
Monosaudio HIFI 12 awg power cable for optical isolator power supply
Can't update my system anymore, so I do it here. Moved the Node to my living room setup and got an Innuos Zenith mk3 to take its place in the house of stereo. No huge sound improvement over the Node the way I had it setup but substantial upgrade with its connectivity to my extender. Have not had a single wifi misconnect in well over a month now. Also the Innuos sense app for using Qobuz has more features than bluos, but I occasionally have to restart it as it just drops off when first getting into it, which can get annoying. They do a lot of software upgrades and hopefully will correct that.
I like that the Stellar gives me the option to change the ohms setting via remote. That comes in very handy for certain records regardless of mc cart. I have zero reason to upgrade on it.
Very nice! Great job on the build. I am thinking about upgrading my Phono preamp. The PS audio is one of my contenders. Just wondering if you are pleased with yours. My other would be The Parasound JC-3.
Beautiful detail and sound room, lock yourself away to musical bliss. Looks great and you have awesome equipments. The Gustard X26Pro is a fantastic DAC, and its on my radar next. With your room, I'll never speak with my wife or kids again. The hobby is really fun and and expensive. Cheers to a fantastic setup brother!
The reason I bought the SW-10 was to identically clock both the X26 PRO and the SW-10 with the C18. Works perfect for that with two PNC 50 ohms cables connected via the two square outputs of the C18. I did find out that it takes time for each unit to recognize eachother and work in unison, meaning I am not interested in trying different slaving setups, sorry. The other thing that sold me about the SW-10 is the optical isolation feature. It ties in perfectly to the LPS part of my optical isolation bundle from Small green computer. I was waiting for the new etherregen, but when this new SW-10 came out, the etherregen simply no longer measures up in features. As far as sound, every part of it is better, whether it is worth it to someone has to do with how deep the pockets. It is totally worth it to me and allows me to keep my NODE, using the fantastic bluos os on my android remotes getting sound easily comparing to the quality of my TTs and CD setups.
Lovely system and room design. Appreciate the attention to detail.
There's a small overlap with mine in the area of Gustard and LHY components - both superb bang-for-buck in my experience, on which I have a qn or two if you don't mind.
I have the LHY OCK-2 and SW-8, but am SW-10 curious as it is reputed to have an even better clock that the OCK-2. How did you find its addition to your system? Have you experimented with slaving your X26 Pro using the masterclock output of the SW-10 rather than the C18?
As stated earlier, I have no more ways to update my system and since I don't want to do the work to post a new one, here are the latest additions:
- Sold the pro-ject TT, replaced it with a Pioneer PXL 1000, running the Sumiko Starling cart and Puffin phono preamp on it. VPI Classic TT back with rebuilt Lyra Kleos cart and still on PS Audio Stellar phono preamp.
- Gustard C18 master clock.
- LHY SW-10 ethernet switch which also functions as an optical isolation box and can input an external clock. These are amazing features! Both the Gustard X26 PRO and ethernet switch are connected to the C18 master clock.
Funny, I might have gone over my allowance for upgrading my system components as there is no longer an edit option for me on here. Anyway just wanted to say I added an Addpowr sorcer x4 and I couldn't recommend it more. It's like taking the baffles off the speakers all over again. Livelier, like adding a spring in your step. Plus it works on all my systems, 2 TTs, CD player, streamer, tuner and DVDs. What other single upgrade can do that?
Harder to control resonance. Plus the soundproofing is incredible as is. Stepping out a few feet from building and you hear nothing, no vibration, even with loud electronic music with heavy bass which I am increasingly falling for.
@baylinor WOW!! beautiful system.. It's like real estate. You'd think that you have a nice beautiful home and then you go on house hunting, you see these other homes that are even more gorgeous.. That's exactly how I felt, seeing your audio gear. I have a decent system, and I have them all in a separate room downstairs and I cringe to call it the media room :). you can check it out.. But then I see yours I am like WOW!! You have some fine gear and just shows your fine taste.. I use to have the Parasound A21+ Halo in silver, It's in one of my photos.. I recently traded it.. Thanks for sharing your awesome system
Thanks for the suggestion on an alternative subwoofer placement. Can’t follow your placement due to my room configuration but looking at alternative placements is a great inspiration. Costs nothing to try out, no downside.
I think it is very helpful to describe as well as we can what kind of work we put in our system if we are going to help anyone. Glad you took the time to look it up. Yes, the sound of my room keeps amazing me pretty much at each listen. The only problem now with the new PBN speakers is I would like to get more power than my Halo A23+ puts out. I am looking at a halo A21+ because I want to keep the sound I have. Just more of it. Plus I would like the first 6 watts of pure class A the A21+ has for best low volume listening. The journey goes on...
Also, great description on the panels / diffusors, room construction. I don’t think people understand the amount of thought, planning, time and money it costs to do something like you did here.
I thought I had commented on your system… guess not.
Yeah, I saw it awhile back. Pretty awesome room! I def remember it.
I don’t remember the PBN’d though! Great speakers, great designer. I had some Jamo’s awhile back that Peter had a hand in and I had an issue with the crossover. I reached out to him and he was super helpful. Great guy.
Anyhow, great setup! Hopefully one day I can do a dedicated built room like you were able to do. I bet your setup is really awesome sounding 😀
@Artemus, the hat channels on the ceiling is for decoupling. They are mounted on sound clips which assures no transfer of vibrations caused by low frequencies through the ceiling. The walls did not need them since we did the offset stud method to accomplish the same. Meaning the inner walls do not touch the outer walls except a little at corners and edges.
@cymbop, in 3 words you laid it out perfectly. Room, treatment, gear.
Well done @baylinor. I see that you used the "golden ratio". I am considering that same size IF I build on this summer. Honestly, that is questionable. I am a retired builder but will be 70 yrs old and not sure I have the stamina to do it. Oh well, my system sounds great in the LR and wifey likes it too so its hard to say. All the best to ya.
BTW, What is the purpose of the hat channels with the wooden framing? Just curious.
@silvanik, so very nice to see a comment like yours that reinforces my beliefs about room acoustics. Thanks for the great compliments. And I checked your red strato, real nice. We think alike in more ways than one.
Thirty minutes of claps! Your system and room look very nice and I bet also well sounding, bravo! And I totally agree with your considerations about the matter of acoustic room treatment, it must be considered as a component of the system, absolutely. I'm following the same path at home and after some REW analysis I'm building on my own some QRD diffuser for the walls and bass traps customized for my corners .
