Showing (off) your Roon setup - description and photos

Color matching the power cords could be the icings on the cake.

I’m not playing darts anymore. And no, I don’t want holes in my Dali’s either. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

@Kelly_Burkhart I took that as putting the letters in alphabetical order rather than it actually being true,so Google not required.

2 Likes

Want some dynamics? One may go for a horn system. Roon helped me to tame them (Hornblower 15 HO) and get rid of most of the typical horn colorations.

I did try complete active crossover design (with Okto dac8pro) and completely passive crossovers and ended up with the latter. The use of different Amps makes it very difficult to get the right performance (Could not afford another AMS100).

The current setup:

  • Roon Core on a MAC Mini M1
  • Roon Bridge (ropieee) with Intona USB isolator and a good linear power supply
  • Musical Fidelity M6xDAC
  • Musical Fidelity Primo
  • Musical Fidelity AMS100
  • All cables and interconnects from SUPRA, XLR
  • Drivers: Beyma 15P80FE/N replacing the used JBL 130e. Limmerhorn 870qx with the according drivers from B&C.
  • Roon DSP used with a convolution filter to tame some low frequency issues and resolve the nasal sound issues around 1800hz.

In the active crossover setup I used the Purifi Class D AMPs which are really good and replace the AMS100 in hot summer days.

Now the hornblower is dealing very well also with vocals, piano. Not to mention Symphony Orchestra level of dynamics. The target is to get rid of the convolution filter by optimizing the passive crossovers.

33 Likes

This truly is a great system!

But I’d urge you to rethink the passive x-over approach.
If done properly, convolution for x-over, room-, frequency- and time-domain correction will definitely outperform any passive approach.

The MF and Purify amps should be transparent enough to not exhibit audible personalities.

Anyway, enjoy!

2 Likes

You are right! My Problems started in the Preamp section. Using the DACs preamp did not do the trick. It sounded thin and gave me fatigue by the time. But I‘ll continue. Putting a DSP behind the preamp was painful too.

1 Like

Or you could just listen with some state of the art headphones :rofl: :headphones: :joy:

3 Likes

I like those chairs and the room.

How did you implement the crossovers?

I haven’t got any pictures at the moment, but before I went on the road I upgraded my bedroom setup to include a Powernode playing into a pair of Monitor Audio Silver 100G Green standmounts.

Hopefully they will be run in by the time I get back home in ten days.

1 Like

You’ve been listening only to colored tube equipment if you think all tube equipment is euphonic, or you’re simply being lazy in your commentary. If a designer is going for that sound (Cary Audio, most 300B SET amps), sure, that’s what you will get but the Line Magnetics, Thomas Mayers, and numerous others, are not. Transparency doesn’t exclude tubes.

3 Likes

I appreciate that not all valve amplifiers sound “tubey” - much of it is in the design implementation, output transformers etc.

My previous hybrid amp didn’t sound all “warm, lush and tubey”, especially with NOS Russian 6N23P in the input stage. It was very neutral sounding.

Tubes do generally sound different from solid state though. Harmonic distortion is much higher than the best solid state gear and the spread of harmonics is different.

My original response was to someone with a very strong preference for tubes who described Benchmark gear “as characterless and boring”. It’s not IME. It’s measurably and audibly transparent and with the right speakers sounds superb. Someone who says that of gear is clearly listening to tube equipment which has a substantially coloured/characterful presentation.

It depends greatly on the speakers as to how different amps sound as well. A speaker which has a naturally forward presentation might sound pretty dire on transparent amplification, but may fare better with a more “relaxed” sounding amplifier setup.

I wasn’t dissing tubes - I still have 2 tube headphone amps, I also have 2 solid state ones.

Whilst there are differences, the differences are quite subtle.

1 Like

There are some truly amazing setups listed in this thread.

What are people’s thoughts on room treatment?

Some like vanilla ice cream, some like vanilla bean. It’s all a matter of taste.

It’s a must if you want to get the best listening experience in your room. Room treatment first, DSP second.

5 Likes

I have the Dac 2 and I forgot how to adjust the volume on it. It’s connected to my Naim but it’s like 3/4ths volume and it’s supposed to be set automatic right?

I don’t consider I have a large enough room to accommodate room treatments (I would need bass traps & others) however @Jazzfan_NJ (many thanks) recommended Room correction using your iPhone and HouseCurve which I tried yesterday and my initial results are impressive. I think I will be able to resolve my booming bass problem with a little more tweaking.

1 Like

You’re mixing scopes. Vanilla ice cream is a spectrum of deliciousness. Vanilla bean is but one variant. You are correct, perhaps accidentally. Sorry for you French vanilla fans, vanilla bean is the only correct answer.

Probably another post is warranted. But… WRONG!

I joke, kind of… for me sound hitting my ears AND my body is MUCH more gratifying than headphones. I have some great cans, but it is not the same. I do believe that the best audio experience requires more than ears. Music is felt by the body in addition to sensed by the ears. Sorry for the detour this is probably off topic…

Edit: I created another topic so as not to derail this one: Headphones are NO substitute for speakers!

I mean no offense, we all do what we do…. But we can have an entertaining argument!

3 Likes

Calibration/HT mode selection is on P16.

You can also adjust the output gain on the XLR outputs by moving the internal jumpers around - P25 onwards.

1 Like

I must admit I am quite new to the topic of room treatment. However, I have been experimenting with convolution filters to correct for the room response and my experience so far is that you can limit the peaks, but it is really difficult to fill the dips in the frequency response. Seems like you can pump endless energy to fill the dips without a good result. I guess that is where room treatment is a better solution to take away energy absorbers in the room.

Probably good to start a separate thread on this topic. :slight_smile:

BR,
Richard

2 Likes