Geek with Family

My DIY acoustic panels and bass traps are a burden. They are too ugly (according to my wife, I think they're works of art) to keep in our listening room when not in use. So every time I want to begin or finish a listening session I am forced to drag the panels and traps between the utility room and the listening room. It's my cross to bear.

What if I could have the same effectiveness of the bass traps (wave absorption below 200 Hz) but in a much smaller and inconspicuous package?

Continue reading Nucore Cathedral Sound Room Dampening Panels Too Good to be True?

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Any audio expert will tell you that the best way to train your ears and brain to recognize fine audio components is to attend live music events. More specifically, live events with no amplification. You could go to the orchestra or a jazz club or a piano bar, whatever. Just get your ear in front of percussion, brass, strings and woods to develop a sense memory of these live events. For me this hasn't been very easy, I don't have the time or resources (or taste) to seek out these events.

Instead I stumble across live music that is unnecessarily amplified. If anything, these music sessions are ruining my ears instead of improving. Some examples:

Continue reading Who Else Wants an Audiophile Trained Ear?

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I am a streaming, losslessly compressed, digital audio playback evangelist. I believe you can improve upon the data that's trapped on your CD collection by ripping it to a hard drive and then playing it back through an affordable remote network device, like the Apple Airport Express or the Slim Devices Squeezebox 3. My advocacy for this method of musical enjoyment is tame and assertive when compared to Slim Devices' forum.

Continue reading Slim Devices Threatens High End Audio Establishment

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You may have guessed by now that I own very few jazz or classical music albums. Anime soundtracks featuring Yoko Kano compositions dominate my catalog, but I’m always wary of the CD’s fidelity (it’s hard to tell if your buying a Taiwanese bootleg or the Japanese original). The original Broadway recording of West Side Story is the one non-anime album I have (recommended by some audio magazine a few years ago as a great recording, so I can trust it to reveal system change benefits).

With my six acoustic panels in place I sat in my sweet spot Saturday morning to listen to the Broadway soundtrack. I was curious if the panels would clarify the soundstage of complicated recordings like an orchestra and a musical theater cast.

Continue reading DIY Acoustic Panels Reveal Depth and Clarity in Orchestral Recordings

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My Vandersteen 1c loudspeakers deliver as accurate an audio signal as you can get for under $1000. The 1c’s accomplish this through the combination of their flat frequency response down to 40 Hz, time aligned high quality drivers, phase correct cross over design and diffraction free, baffleless exterior. Since I am relatively ignorant of how you could invent these loudspeaker technical features, I’m excited to hear Richard Vandersteen speak at Quintessence Audio next Thursday.

As audiophiles, we buy our favorite high end home audio components based on a mysterious mix of subjective critical listening, technical measurements and the underlying philosophy and prowess of the manufacturer’s designers. The critical listening is usually only possible after you’ve made your investment and convinced yourself it was a good idea. Measurements are important and it’s essential that you understand all those charts in Stereophile reviews, but I’m the only person I know who gets excited by a step response graph. The most interesting product a small high end manufacturer can offer is their thoughts.

Continue reading What Everybody Ought to Know About Vandersteen Audio

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The above hi-fi music and home theater hybrid connection diagram shows how I connected my system for best performance with both music and movies as I explained in the previous post (click diagram for a larger view).

No matter the source, analog or digital, I run the front two channels and subwoofer through the analog amplification section (orange and down the left in the chart). The Rogue 99 pre-amp has an home theater bypass switch. When the switch is flipped to the HT position the pre-amp does not need to be on, all of its circuitry is, uh, bypassed and the Onkyo L/R pre-amp outputs flow straight to the Anthem MCA-2 amp and Hsu VTF-2 sub; when the switch is in the pre-amp position the Onkyo is out of the loop and I can listen to my analog sources (turntable, CD and the Onkyo receiver's DAC'ed Airtunes) straight through the Rogue 99 pre-amp and Anthem amp using its volume control.

Continue reading Now You Can Enjoy Hi-Fi Music and Movies in One System - Connection Diagram

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Jon Risch’s DIY acoustic panels have changed my system more than any other tweak and component upgrade. After placing the panels at my listening room’s early and diffraction reflection points (two behind the speakers and four on the sidewalls (the two panels closest to me actually sit in easy chairs because I can’t move the chairs out of the way)) I heard these improvements. Since that initial listening session I’ve had mixed results from CDs played in my Pioneer DV-47ai and Taddeo Digital Antidote II: certain frequencies and instruments are too laid back. I’ll remove the Taddeo and see if I get the same great performance as from my Airtunes playing MAX ripped Apple Lossless tracks.

Read on for my tips and tricks to build these panels yourself and save up to 90% over commercial acoustic panels.

Continue reading How To Build Jon Risch’s DIY Acoustic Panels

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I’ve made major improvements to my music listening experience over the last year, some at no cost. The following distills the top five guidelines I’ve followed to optimize my enjoyment.

Continue reading 5 Hi-Fi Listening Room Habits for Healthy Audiophiles

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Holy crap! My DIY acoustic panels (following Jon Risch’s recipe, my own how to experience coming soon) have improved my listening experience like nothing else. You have got to try these. I wish you could borrow mine. For the price of two sets of Black Diamond Racing Cones you can change your whole music listening experience for the better. This is the most noteworthy upgrade I have ever made.

So, what am I hearing that’s got me so excited? Clarity. Attack. Depth. Smoothness. Scale.

Continue reading Why You Must Acoustically Treat Your Hi-Fi Room

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After reading and writing audio electronics reviews for a few years I thought I had built up a reasonable audio vocabulary. At least when I read a review in Stereophile I got a sense of what the reviewer was describing in a iPod review, like “cold” and “etched” and “bass shy.” Now that I’ve found J. Gordon Holt’s Audio Glossary from 1990 I can be sure that I understand every last bit of subjective criticism. I’d also like to improve my own writing vocabulary so you can understand me and trust me when I say my system is improved by DIY acoustic panels.

Stereophile ran a series of articleexcerpts from the book by Holt in the early Nineties that are available on their website. Here’s an sampling from the letter D:

Continue reading J. Gordon Holt’s Audio Glossary Book Will Improve Your Audiophile Vocabulary

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