Converted a bedroom to be my music room. All 100yr old horsehair plaster walls with good insulation behind them. About R30 insulation above the ceiling. New carpeting. Audio rack and record racks built by me and my woodworker son.
A 2011-2022 era belt drive turntable of exceptional quality, with stock Jelco-built SA-250 style tonearm. Using primarily a Hana ML cartridge and running off the internal phono stage of the L-505uX II integrated amp.
KEF Reference 1
2019-2021 era build, with the new single-piece front baffle (no trim ring on the woofer), color-matched woofer and front baffle. Bespoke KEF stands.
Bluesound Vault 2
Streamer/music storage device. I have about 660 CD's ripped as FLAC (a few WAV) files. Digital Co-ax out to the DAC.
Luxman L-505uX Mark 2
Integrated amplifier
Luxman PD-121U
A 1984-1986 era Micro Seiki-built (to Luxman specs) direct drive TT with SME 3009-R tonearm. I use primarily an Audio Technica AT33Sa cartridge. Running off a Musical Surroundings Phenomena II phono stage, into AUX1 of the integrated amp.
Musical Surroundings Phenomena II+
Solid-state phono stage, used with the older Luxman PD-121U turntable.
Lotta little changes have happened since I posted this, but I can't seem to edit it. The integrated amp is now a Luxman L-509X, and the speakers are now KEF Reference 1 Meta. The Luxman PD-171A now has a Jelco TS-550S tonearm, and soon there will be a Luxman EQ-500 phono amp and an Audio Technica ART9XI cartridge.
I have similar speaker positioning with my KEF LS50 Metas. Huge sound stage that is wide and deep with very precise instrument and voice placement. Took quite a bit of moving them around before I landed on the current location.
@smithtj05 good eye. It's a cabinet from a Miller & Kreisel V-90. I had my son who made the record racks) open the front baffle a little to accept an SB Acoustics SB34-SWPL-76-4 driver with 30mm of xmax, and added a Dayton Audio SPA 250DSP plate amp. The amp has an app that allows a 6-band PEQ, plus setting slopes and many other parameters. The speakers are flat response to 30hz, so the sub just picks up the bottom octave.
Nice set up! I am with you on soundstage and speaker placement. I am always surprised by how many audiophiles put their speakers too close together. No soundstage! I have never once experienced the dreaded "hole in the middle" that many audiophiles go on about. Congrats!
Thank you sincerely to @milpai , @bluorion and any others who are appreciative of the weeks of work I did to strip wallpaper off crumbly horsehair plaster walls, repair them and paint them and the woodwork trim, paint ceilings. level and secure flooring before having new carpeting laid down, and so much more. Your appreciation makes it all worthwhile.
The sound quality in that room is better than any of the 7 rooms at my dealer's place, and can only get a little bit better with the acoustic panels and shag rug that are coming. I welcome people near me to ping me about visting to hear it.
Quote @tweak1 "IMHO your speakers are way too far apart, especially considering how close you sit. Have you tried dollys under them to play around with positioning? Basically start with an equilateral triangle to seating position
HTH"
I appreciate the thought. I had the speakers closer together in that equilateral triangle. Soundstage too small. I have tried at least a 1/2 dozen different positions of the speakers and listening position. It is now as good as it gets, and with the characteristics of KEF's Uni-Q driver it is simply stunning. I am adding some acoustic panels and a plush rug on top of the carpeting to "fine tune" it but trust me when I say positioning is ideal the way it is now.
If you're near south-central Massachusetts, ping me and I'll demo it for you to convince you. :D
IMHO your speakers are way too far apart, especially considering how close you sit. Have you tried dollys under them to play around with positioning? Basically start with an equilateral triangle to seating position
The audio rack is one built by me, with the help of my woodworker son. He made the three 18" x 48" shelves from 3/4" birch plywood, edge banded. The core structure is six 3/4-10 threaded rods (a.k.a. "all thread") with top caps from Salamander Design. I made the twelve 12" long aluminum tubes that cover the threaded rods from 1-1/2" x 0.049" wall tubing. I machined the six carpet spikes from 1-1/4" aluminum, and cover shrouds from 1-3/4" aluminum.
