Description

Room size: 12.5'W x 20'D x 7.5'H

System overview:

This system really isn't just about enjoying music. It's more about creating a memorable experience. All components and component changes must make that cut before they take up residence in the music room. The presentation is extremely holographic and immediate - the whole back portion of the room, starting at about the back plane of the loudspeakers , becomes the recording venue. Front to back layering is quite apparent which digital usually has a hard time portraying well. Lateral imaging can make the room boundaries disappear if the recording captured the venue size well. Tonal Balance is very good but need to treat the room better to even out the bass a titch. No sense of gear playing back music - just very easy to get swept away to a performance. System Approach and Philosophy: Optimized Simplicity.

Music preferences:

Chamber, Baroque, Pop Rock, Jazz, Slam Symphony, Punkabilly and Death Folk. (Genre/Selections): I enjoy most genres but have a particular fondness for acoustically recorded material such as smaller chamber works or Jazz. On the other hand, Big Band can be lots of fun too.

Other tweaks not mentioned in the listing below include: Xtreme AV Quicksilver Gold Contact Treatment, Extreme AV Liquid Resolution, Machina Dynamica Codename Turquoise, Herbie's Black Hole CD Matts, RSAD Cable Risers, Misc. Room Treatment, Dedicated Cryo'd 220 Lines Split For 120 Balanced AC For Mono Block Amps and Mono Block Phono Stages, Dedicated 120 Cryo'd line for Front End Electronics. Demagnitized and Tourmaline injected Brown Peanut M&Ms pointing South For Resonance Tuning - NOT.
Read more...

Components Toggle details

    • Current Music Room: Ridge Street Audio Designs
    RSAD Music Room: Artist Rendition 9/2007
    • GIK 242 and 244 Room Treatment Panels
    With judiacial and thoughtful use these panels do an outstanding job at taming room resonances and abnormalities that screw up imaging and soundatage, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
    • Previous Music Room... Ridge Street Audio Designs
    This was our original music room prior to 1999 on Ridge Street, LaPorte, IN
    • Previous Music Room... ...Another View.
    This was our original music room prior to 1999 on Ridge Street, LaPorte, IN
    • Mac Mini 2010
    Mac Mini 2010 with Snow Leopard OS, Hardware and Software Modifications.
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Mac Mini CLD-15 System
    A custom project consisting of three point fixed spike footers for the Mini with a 15lb loaded damping brick on top of the Mini. Yeah, it works wonders!
    • Ultra Fi DAC - 41
    To these ears the DAC - 41 raises the bar for NOS USB DACs for anything up to around $6k. Great Piece!
    • GNS Modified Resolution Audio Opus 21 CDP
    Very good CDP, especially with the GNS Mods. Also added Michina Dynamic's
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs RA Opus 21 Exousias Umbilical
    An awesome upgrade to our GNS modified Resolution Audio Opus 21 CDP.
    • Marantz CD-63 se
    "...That music is comming from a deck you paid $200.00 for?" Yea...but I spent over three times that to get it there. I actually have three of these decks. I love playing with this thing. It's almost become a hobby in and of itself! New precision clock with it's own power supply, new Op-Amps in the analog stage with a dedicated regulated power supply for it and the HDAM module. Completely re-worked output satge. Furutech IEC AC receptical added to accomodate different AC cords. A 75 ohm digital input has been added to accommodate a seperate transport. Chasis and transport bracing and damping along with numerous diode, capacitor, resistor and regulator upgrades. I gotta be nuts!
    • Turn Table & Arm Project RSA Designs
    Silicone Damped Hung Suspension. Custom Built Tone Arm after Well Tempered
    • Sumiko Bluepoint Special
    Rebuilt by Van den Hal and a few othe mods done here. Great little cart.
    • Well Tempered Labs Reference
    Always loved this table and arm. An engineering marvel.
    • Benz Micro M-09
    Benz Micro M09
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs On going project...
    Not really a preamp but this unit is the phono amp with RIAA equalization we use for our analog front end. The whole unit was built here and is in it's forth iteration. Chassis built from silicon steel, aluminum, Plexiglas and Corian. Bottom module is the regulated power supply, top is the audio circuitry. Circuit boards are something new I'm working on that's essentially "no circuit board". Audio circuitry is IC based with two gain stages. All parts are...too expensive! This phono amp has enough gain to drive our amps directly eliminating the need for a formal preamp. Volume is controlled outside the signal path...novel idea that works better than any control I've used in the signal path. We like it.
    • Pass Labs Aleph 3
    I actually have a pair of these that I've modified to work as vertical bi-amp mono blocks. Ahead of the AC transformer the power supply is now fully discrete for the B+ and B- voltage rails and the left and right channels. One channel to drive the woofer, one channel to drive the tweet per speaker. Virtually four amps from two. The inputs are now paralelled into one and the input impedance has been changed to a more accommodating 100k. Key capacitors and resistors have been replaced with more esotaric parts and the voltage rails now include smaller value bypass caps. At only 30 watts, this was probably the best sounding amp in the Aleph series when used appropriately. Great little amp made greater!
    • Luxman Vintage 3045 Mono Blocks
    This is a rebuild/upgrade project when I can get to it. Looking forward to seeing how much performance I can squeeze out of these.
    • Golden Tube SE-40se
    Actually A system Image. The SE 40's are great little amps made better with numerous mods and tweeks. The small pair of amps under the turntable are custom RSA Designs mono block phono amps. They drive the amps directly and also feature volume control outside the signal path...novel idea!
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Sason Ltd/Si Granite Loudspeaker
    State of the art Two Way design. Custom Danish Kevlar Mid/Woofer and custom Danish soft dome tweeter. State of the art custom crossover components from Duelund of Denmark. RSAD custom fabricated silver wire harness.110lb Ganite cabinets. Awesome performance that's more akin to a great full range speaker while maintaining the virtues of a two way monitor.
    • Reference 3A MM DeCapo i
    Unassuming but wonderful two way. Once you get a handle on it's own (musical) character, it'll tell you just about everything you wanted and didn't want to know about the recording and gear. No pic till I'm done with new cabs. Already changed the cap to a Mundorf silver & oil supreme and replaced the wire harness with a custom Poiema!! harness.
    • Energy C-2
    Modified C-2 Project: New Cabinets, Out Board Cryo-Treated Cross Overs. All Cross Over Components Replaced With 10ga Air Core Inductors, Film and Foil Caps and Precision Wire Wound Resistors. Cross Overs matched to .5% Tolerance.
    • Early Loud Speaker Project RSA Designs
    2 way MTM with Lead Damped Cabinet. Out Board Cry-Treated Cross Overs.
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Poiema!!!R-v3 Signature Biwire S/Cs
    Custom silver based speaker cable. No harsheness or thinness. Just the music as it is. Very life like in its portrayal. One of the best...but of course!
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Alethias! Signature Biwire S/Cs
    As good as the Poiema!!! Sig. S/Cs are and as much as we enjoy our music with them in the chain, the Alethias! Sig. is trumps!
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Poiema!!!R-v3 Signature I/Cs
    Silver based interconnect. No harsheness or thinness. A great I/C that just gets it right. Perspective is convincingly real as well which most I/Cs seem to miss.
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs The Enopias!! USB Digital Master
    Unique innovative design isolates Data and Vbus within the server all the way through to the DAC.
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Alethias!! USB Digital Master
    A substantial upgrade from the Poiema!!! R-v3 USB cable.
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Poiema!!! R-v3 USB Digital Master
    USB cable done right. A Better USB cable doesn't make a difference?...Yea, right!
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Alethias!! & Alethias!! Sig AC Cord
    The Alethias!! series AC cords have convinced us that properly designed AC line cords are the foundation to a system's performance capabilities.
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Alethias!! C7 Power Correction Cord
    Designed around the Mac Mini and terminated with the required C-7 connector from Furutech at the CPU business end
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Alethias!! TD Power Correction Cord
    Providing AC duties for our digital front end. Great Cord with Z correction to optimize Power Factor of DACs and Transports.
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Poiema!!!R-v3 Sig. ACPower Cords
    These cords were on par to a signal cabling upgrade. One of the very few cords I've experienced that relegate AC filtering devices virtually unnecessary! Theses AC cords together with our cryo-treated AC lines and Z-der BlocK or Bloom Box allows our system to perform way beyond what I expected. I love it!
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Cable Risers
    If I may say so myself...A well thought out clever idea I came up with years ago before there was any talk or debate about elevating cables off the floor. They work great improving clarity and focus
    • Ridge Street Audio Designs Z-der BlocK AC Re-Clocking Device
    Along with the other things we produce, if we wouldn't use it here, it doesn't become a product we offer. No power conditioning of any kind used in our room. The Z-der BlocKs on the back of each of our components stay!

Comments 32

Showing all comments by nilgna.

View all comments

Contact Jeff at Sonicraft concerning your SE-40 Upgrades. I had my SE-40's upgraded by Jeff and they sound wonderful. You can get better sounding amps; however, you would have to spend a bunch of money to better the sonics of the upgraded SE-40's.

nilgna