It’s really the room doing the work here. I’ve never had a better sounding room in my time at this hobby. The front end is also important. The speakers are good and there are much better out there but, I won’t be buying them. Time to get off the merry go round and listen to the music. I do so for a minimum of two hours/day.
The two subs are key. Thought that having more than one was marketing BS but two or more is the right way to go. Don’t believe me. Read what you can from Jim Smith.
Beautiful system! Congratulations. I really like the idea of two monitors and two subs. Easily adjustable for any type of room. Which I bet makes them even better in a room set up as well as yours. I bet it offers a lot of enjoyment. One day I hope to have a dedicated room like this one. Monitors and Subs in the near field, a very comfortable chair... Fantastic!
The chair. It’s quite comfortable sitting up. But, I’m looking at getting a stressless in order to support the back of my head. The Eames replica (even in the large) will not do that unless you slouch. Slouching with a pillow acting as a lumbar support does a great job until I can get a stressless.
The stands. Dynaudio 20.
Spray foam insulation. Pricey but no complaints whatsoever. Do it!
Subwoofer placement. It took me a looooong time to find this placement. They’re 4.5 feet from the front wall and 2 feet from the side wall. Front firing.
No boom, no bloat, no problem. Got tons of definition. Seriously.
Tried them inside the speakers. Tried one up, one back. Tried everything.
They do NOT draw attention to themselves if you know what I mean.
Nice listening room. The exposed studs remind me of the work on mine. The one thing that sticks out to me for a listening room are the subs being near the corners. I think you may be pleasantly surprised if you tried having them inside the speakers like in my system. You would lose some boominess but gain a lot of definition. Just a thought. Nice job!
The toppers are stainless steel door stops. Darko had a video about some of the accessories he had in his room and these (or something very similar) were used on some of his gear.
What a cool setup. Loads of diffusion, even the trusses are diffusing. Isolation of speakers and TMD on your subs. What brand are the toppers on your subs?
The Dynaudios were purchased in the old space in order to get a smaller, less expensive speaker. It happened that it did all genres better than the Harbeth. Then, two subwoofers were added and you know very well of those benefits. After being in the new space, I focused more on room treatment. Not as much *fun* as a shiny new component but wayyyyy effective.
I don’t want to get better speakers. There are a ton of better speakers than mine. It never ends.
So... the front end was upgraded at very little cost (relatively speaking) and the speakers showed every change.
Wow your equipment list has almost entirely turned over since I visited you at your prior place 1-1/2 years ago. It appears to me the Belles integrated and the NUC may be the only survivors of the cull! What was it about the new listening space that motivated all the changes, particularly the swap from Harbeth to Dynaudio? I would imagine that loudspeaker exchange must have fundamentally changed the voicing of your system?
The diffusers and absorbers were moved around but it didn’t take long. What did take 4 weeks (or so) was the chair/speaker subwoofer. I followed Jim Smith’s excellent advice and since then, haven’t touched a thing. I’m still getting surprised at how good the music sounds.
That would be the conventional wisdom but at 20 watts, it did not struggle any more at higher volume than the Belles (at 75 watts) does. It was a tiny bit better with vocals and a tiny bit worse in the bass. I would have been very happy with it. But someone had to win if I’m gonna keep one. And that, of course, was the Belles.
Btw, SimAudio is often given the thumbs up on the interwebs for pairing with Dynaudio but every time I heard the combo in many setups at my dealer, I couldn’t help but feel underwhelmed.
