|
|
Reviewer's Bio
Scott Faller
Your Very Own Joe Audiophile
Well, it's been a while since I've updated my bio and as usual, my systems and rooms have changed. Since my last update, I've had a couple of my kids who've moved on to start their lives and in turn I find myself with two more dedicated listening rooms. Damn the bad luck.
When I picked up those extra couple of rooms, my lovely wife and I decided to go ahead and remodel the rooms at the same time. To make them a bit more interesting, we chose some fairly wild colors. In turn, I've nicknamed each of the rooms based on their color. They turned out pretty nice... well at least we like them.
In the latter half of my bio, I'll get into my preferences in sound and a bit of my history but since I'm talking about my listening rooms, let me go ahead and explain why I've got so many and what each of them has for systems.
Since we're nearly empty nesters, I've got the somewhat unique opportunity to set up three (and sometimes four) separate rooms just for audio. This is especially critical when it comes to writing about speakers. As most everybody knows, not all speakers work well in all rooms. Example; put a large pair of floor standers in a small room and you are asking for trouble. The bass will over run you because of the acoustics of the room. Put that same pair of speakers in a medium or large room and they will likely work just fine. In turn, all three of my rooms get progressively bigger. From my smallest room at 792 cubic feet, to the middle room at 1776 cubic feet, to the big room at 4320 cubic feet or even the home theater at 2304 cubic feet and I've got a number of different rooms that I can run a piece of gear or pair of speakers through to see how it interacts in a given sized room.
Unlike the typical writer who usually only has one dedicated listening room, I've got the rather unique opportunity to really experiment with a piece of gear to find out where it performs at its best. In turn, I've given you diagrams and links to pictures of my rooms so you can see exactly what they look like.
So let's start with my largest room or what I call the Blue Room
This is my main reference room. In it, I've got what I consider my most revealing and most musically accurate equipment. This is a list of the gear that resides there.
Sources - Bolder Modified Squeezebox 3 (analog and digital mods), aftermarket power supply
DAC - MHDT Paradisea, non-oversampling, WE396A tube
Turntable - Opera LP-5
Tonearm - Dynavector DV-507 MkII
Cartridges - VdH modified Spectral, Dynavector 20XH
Phonostage - Graham Slee Jazz Club
Head Amp - Graham Slee Elevator, Signet (Audio Technica) Step Up Transformer with variable loading
Preamp - Modified Korato KVP-20 (tubed)
Active Crossover - Modified Pioneer SF-850, Modified Audio Research EC-3 (tubed)
Speakers - Modified Basszilla, Lowther PM2T (Ticonal magnet) in an open baffle 150Hz and up, 15" Lafayette Goodmans SK-111 in a 5cf vented enclosure 150Hz and down
Amplification - Welborne Labs 300B DRD (Lowthers), AKSA 55 Nirvana+ (Goodmans)
Power Conditioning - DeZorel Audio Reference Sr., Dedicated 20 amp circuit
Cabling - various silver plated copper with Teflon dielectric home brew, Audio Note silver, Clarity Labs silver, Clarity Labs and Volex power cords.
This particular room is very audio friendly. This room is in my basement. The head and back wall (and floor) are concrete. On the floor, I have standard large area rugs. The ceilings are acoustical lay in. Fortunately, because of the room dimensions, I don't have huge nodes and nulls as many people do in smaller rooms. In turn, my acoustic treatments are at a minimum. I just use a couple of panels at the first reflection points.
The next room is what I lovingly refer to as the Redrum.
This room sees a lot of action, as it seems to be a very 'typically' sized listening room. In it, I've got very good, yet very affordable equipment. This room probably sees the most changes as far as gear goes. For the most part I use higher power gear in this room but I also have a low power rig that I'll setup in here too.
Sources - Stock Squeezebox 3 with an aftermarket power supply
DAC - MHDT Constantine, non-oversampling
Turntable - Audio Note TT-1
Tonearm - Audio Note Arm One
Cartridges - Audio Note IQ1, Shure V-15
Phonostage - Graham Slee Era Gold Reflex
Preamp - Modified Korato KVP-10 dual mono with phonostage (tubed)
Speakers - 15" Pioneer PAX 30B dual concentrics in Karlson cabinets (high efficiency), Aperion Audio 632 monitors (lower efficiency)
Amplification - modified Handmade Audio Deluxe 2A3/45 SET, Factory modified Jolida 102b, modified Radii GS-75 monoblocks (KT-88, EL-34, 6L6 tubes)
Power Conditioning - DeZorel LFA-1, Dedicated 20 amp circuit
Cabling - various silver plated copper with Teflon dielectric home brew, Volex power cords.
This room is also in my basement, just off the Blue Room. Here, the long side and back walls are concrete as is the floor. Again, I use a large area rug on the floor. The ceiling in this room is drywall. The headwall is covered in cork. The cork doesn't do much for absorption in the lower frequencies but it does help a wee bit with the highs. In turn, I use several 2x4 acoustic panels, one on the back wall behind my head, on the side walls at the first reflection points and also perpendicular to my ears at the listening position. In the corners of the head wall, I use large fake trees to help diffuse some of the bass buildups. That is a very effective and good looking treatment. This room sounds quite good and is relatively gear friendly.
The smallest of my rooms is what I call the Grape Room.
This room is a bit more tricky to set gear up in. Since it's so small, the speaker to room interaction is absolutely critical. Too large of speaker and the bass will over run everything. Not enough acoustic treatments and the room becomes bright and phasey. Too many treatments and the room becomes as dead as a recording booth.
For this room, I've found the perfect system.
Sources - AH! Njoe Tjoeb with all the upgrades
Preamp - Odyssey Audio Etisian passive transformer based pre
Amplification - Odyssey Audio Khartago
Speakers - Odyssey Audio Epiphany mini-monitor
Power Conditioning - DeZorel LFA-1
Cabling - Groneberg interconnects and speaker cables, various silver plated copper with Teflon dielectric home brew, Volex power cords.
In this room I use four acoustic panels. Two are at the first reflection point and the second pair is perpendicular to my ears. Since the listening position is against the back wall, the corners cause some out of phase midrange and treble anomalies that the panels absorb. I also have some tri-corner absorbers that I use to help with the bass buildups. I also usually place a couple of throw pillows directly behind my head to deaden the rear wall reflection. This usually tames this room down pretty well. The soundstage and image is solid with a good depth of field.
The last room seldom gets used for reviewing but on occasion, a piece may find its way there.
This is my Home Theater and Surround Sound System
Here we have a fairly typically sized HT room. This is the gear associated with this room;
Sources - Oppo DV971H upsampling DVD/DVDA player 1080i, Sony ES3000 upsampling DVD/SACD player 1080i
Integrated Receiver - Arcam AVR-100
Speakers - Aperion Audio (matched), 624c center, 633t floorstander left and right front, 632 left and right rear
Sub-woofer - DIY 3cf with a 12" Adire Audio Shiva and a generic plate amp
Television - Mistubishi 62628 Diamond, 62" DLP
Cable - DirecTV HD receiver
Power Conditioning - SL Waber transformer based conditioner and a DeZorel LFA-1 line filter
Cabling - various silver plated copper with Teflon dielectric home brew, Volex power cords, Monster HDMI, Monster component.
This room I don't use any treatments since it is our main family room. We've got a fair amount of furnishings (not shown) to help diffuse and absorb.
Extras
Of course, I've got a fair amount of additional gear like CD players, amplifiers (tubed and solid state), cables and whatnot which allows me to mix and match until I find the best synergy between components that I have in for review.
My Preferences
Simply put, I like tubes. Not just any old tube will do, but I prefer single ended triodes and high efficiency speakers. For me, it's my Zen, my way of seeing deeply into the nature of things, my audio truth, if there is such a thing. The single, wide range Lowther PM2T driver mated to a quality SET (with a sub filling in the lowest 3 octaves) is to my ears, is as near to audio perfection as it gets. Add a good tubed pre, a decent turntable and a tubed output DAC or Tubed CD player and I'm one happy camper.
If I can't have fleapowered amps, I enjoy nearly any tubed amplification as long as it is clean. I don't generally care for that classic "tubey" sound that some seem to take pleasure in. I don't particularly care for the sound of negative feedback either. My SET's don't use any and I've modified my other tube amps so that I can switch it off.
When it comes to analog vs. digital, well, I like them both. I love the convenience of my computer based music server with the Squeezebox as the interface. I personally think that sometime in the very near future, CD players will go by way of the 8 track tape (I said players, not CD's, they will take a bit longer to die). Ultimately though, my analog rig simply sounds better than a CD or digital feed from the server.
I also enjoy front loaded horns like the big Altec Model 19's and my Altec A-7's (a project in the works). Heck, I even get a nut off listening to Altec Bolero's. There is nothing quite like the sound of a good horn. Unfortunately, not many manufacturers are making true horns anymore. Most of them are ProAudio gear and they don't sound very good at all.
I do enjoy a quality, traditional box speaker providing the crossovers don't get in the way of the music and the drivers are matched well. I prefer them to be clean sounding with no crossover handoff issues. When it comes to crossovers, for me, the simpler the better. The more passive parts you put in a crossover, the more it veils the sound.
When it comes to music, I'm all over the place. You could walk in and find me listening to Stravinsky and then I could follow that up with some Nine Inch Nails. I guess that just means I'm a music lover. My wife and I attend a lot of concerts. On average, I'd say we see a show about twice a month or so. These shows can vary from hard Rock, to acoustic Jazz, Classical and we'll even through in a play or Broadway show to round out the mix.
I'm lucky enough to have a large selection of vinyl and CD's. When it comes to reference recordings, there may be a few that I use to check bass, timbre of an instrument or projection of a soundstage but my real reference music all boils down to what turns me on at the time. If the review gear allows me to get lost in the music that is spinning at that moment, that's all that matters. Remember, at the root of this hobby is the music. Too many people forget that and get wrapped up in the minutia. To steal a quote, "It's about the music stupid."
I'm still a die hard DIYer at heart. I haven't had much time to play with things like I used to but I'm determined to make that change. As time allows, I'll be sprinkling in a few projects you guys can play with. Nothing is better in audio than to build something yourself and have it sound great and save a few bucks in the process.
My articles tend to be pretty lengthy, sort of like this bio. Hopefully in all those words, I've been able to give you enough detail so you can estimate how a particular piece of gear may sound to you. Be sure to take heed of my preferences. Like everybody, I have very specific biases when it comes to audio reproduction.
Oh, and don't worry, you'll never see me use the word palpable …... oh crap, I just did.
.
|
|
