Showing (off) your Roon setup - description and photos [2015-04 .. 2021-03]

Er, what happened :joy:

Nope, I never notice anything from the listening position.

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Not sure I’m willing to disclose: the story potential is endless here… :smiley:

But for clarity’s sake: @Grump came over to listen to mine before buying a pair of his own. Afterwards, one of mine came down with the flu (still blaming that New Order track). And since, one his his new speakers got delivered – the other one is still in the back of a van, it appears.

Just set Roon to downmix to mono. He did as well, I believe. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Laurel & Hardy spring to mind :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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That’s a fantastic picture of the comedic duo.

Which New Order track do you believe caused the damage? I once crashed and totaled my car listening to Shellshock. Cant listen to it any more without having flashbacks.

I believe it was the track about an MQA coloured Monday. Must be the cause of it all… :slight_smile:

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Whoever called it Wireless Audio ?

Ok while we are it…maybe we should have a how bad are your cables thread :open_mouth: It is about to be detangled at the very least as its totally out of hand right now :stuck_out_tongue:

The mancave is not much better…lots of gear in other places too … woe is me as SWMBO wants my cave for her office now so its going to have to be culled quite a bit :sob:

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Thats more like it! Very relatable!

How could that classic cause any damage. Its a gem of the highest order.

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Looking at your rig picture yesterday and all the kit you have in it, thiis ia not really surprising. Lol you spend all that money on clean psu’s all the time and look at that. Shame on you you might as well just use smps and save the money.

Now, that’s a proper tasty looking mancave. Lots of luvverly toys to play with!

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I make a lot of my own gear and cables. I don’t spend that much on lmps until the 2 Hdplex 200w units and more for proof of finding some improvements.

I’m in a large block of units with everything on the red phase … it’s not ideal. Regeneration might be my best bet for clean power I think…or online ups for the cave at least and maybe the lounge listening room

SWMBO can hear noises that I don’t.

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Hi Cable-Folks, what I see is a mess. But it’s really not necessary. And it is not a question of money. You only need a hardware store, a bit of technical understanding and a little craftsmanship. This is my Stereo (Stereo Two). As you can easily see, everything is on or under an open lowboard. I discovered the broken plate and immediately knew that it would become my new lowboard. However, a challenge for a proper cable installation.

In sum, it’s about a lot of devices.

  • BluRay 4k Player
  • 65 inches TV
  • Harddsik for multimedia-files
  • Wireless headphone
  • Hub for Harmony remote
  • Netgear switch
  • Cirrus7 Roon server
  • Integrated amplifier
  • DAC / Streamer 1
  • DAC / Streamer 2
  • DAC / headphone amplifier
  • Self-built media server

Each individual device thus requires connections and power supply. That’s a lot of cables. But do you see them? Hardly…

The secret behind it…

So you only need a cable duct, a reasonable power strip, a few brass dowels and a hammer drill. And of course, each cable is shortened to the required length. And if there are cables that can not be shortened, you can roll them up with a few cable ties.

Another example:

This is my old but still good stereo (Stereo One) in the living room. I’m still stuck on the rack that I designed, welded and painted myself about 20 years ago. Again, there are quite a few devices that need to be connected and powered.

  • Turntable
  • Preamp
  • DAC / Streamer
  • CD player
  • Netgear switch with serveral network connections
  • Power supply for notebook
  • Power supply for lighting

As you can see, the preamp and the devices are on one side of the room, the power amp and the speakers on the other. And you can see any cable in spite of the open design or even speaker cables that run across the room?

The secret behind it…
A reasonable power strip, which is screwed to the rack.

In the cable duct which I’ve dangled on the ceiling of the basement runs the XLR connection between preamp and poweramt, also the toslink optical cable from the TV to the DAC.

Here you can see how the cables disappear in the wall.

And here they come out on the other side.

Granted, not a little work, but worth it. Everything done by myself and I am not an electrician.

Hmm… It seems like I have a different interpretation of it. Thats mine. Built after 40 years of hard work. But:

  • My retreat, sanctuary, place of refuge
  • No entrance for anybody, even my wife has to ask befor going upstairs
  • My working place
  • Also sometimes eating or sleeping
  • My films
  • My pictures
  • My music
  • My volume

I can do what I want without having to justify myself in any way. That’s true freedom.

By the way: Helping to remove the old roof… Nothing in this world works by itself. But it was fun also :grinning:

Supplement (list of devices):

Stereo One (Living room)

  • Turntable: Transrotor Iron
  • Preamp: Burmester 877
  • DAC / Streamer: PS Audio DirectStream DAC with Bridge II
  • CD player: Sony CDP-X 779 ES with Swoboda 2+ modification
  • Poweramp: Burmester 911
  • Loudspeaker: T+A Criterion T230

Stereo Two (Attic)

  • Roon Server Cirrus7 Nimbus V2 with Intel Core i7-8700T, M.2 SSD Samsung 960, SSD Crucial MX500 2TB, 8GB Ram
  • Amp: McIntosh MA9000 AC
  • DAC / Streamer: Linn Akurate DSM / III
  • Headphone amp: Naim DAC V1
  • Headphone: Sennheiser HD 800
  • Loudspeaker: B&W D800 DII
  • Aditional Roon endpoint: Raspberry & HiFiBerry DiGi+ Pro with RoPieee
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A low power system for a small one-bedroom apartment:

Furman Elite-15 PFI
Teddy Pardo 19/3 Linear PSU
Intel NUC with Ubuntu 18.04 & Roon Server
Mojo Audio Mystique V2 SE DAC
Pass Labs HPA-1 headphone preamp
First Watt SIT-3 amplifier
Omega Super Alnico High Output Monitors
Audio rack & speaker stands built by me

A work in progress that still needs a few items, some cable management (my router isn’t near my rack) and a bit more configuring. But thankfully it’s no longer sitting on the floor on the wrong side of the room anymore.:grinning:

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Well,.as a matter of fact I did measure the artefacts of cables influencing each other a couple of times for my work and believe it or not such a total chaos as shown in this picture is actually a whole lot better then neatly arranged cables. Remember Electrons are not humans and don’t have any aestatic feeling.

@StereJo, you have done a really good job keeping the cable monsters at bay! My main issue is space, my main system is an alcove, so you cannot access the back easily. Essentially, you have to take the TV off the top of the rack (or twist it around), then you have to lean over to get to the back of kit (so when tinkering you are doing it upside down!). If you are then switching kit out regularly (I have been upgrading) its easy to get tangled. This is the list of kit;

Display :LG 55" C8
Stereo Amp: Music Fidelity M3i
AV Amp: DenonAVRX3300
Speakers: Monitor Audio Bronze 5.1 (so a centre speaker in the rack and associated wires into the AV amp)
Streamer: Allo USBridge with two wallwarts powering the different boards
DAC: Mytek Liberty and SBooster Linear power supply
Streamer :Nvidia ShieldTV
Console 1: Xbox1X
Console 2: PS4 pro
TV box: BT UHD
Router BT Smart Hub
Switch Netgear 16 port gigabit switch
Gangplug 1: Russ Andrews PowerBar 6
Gangplug 2: Tacima 6 way mains plug
Phone: BT base unit

So its a lot of kit to fit into quite a small space. However I now wonder whether I could attach the switch and maybe one or two other bits to the underneath of the wooden rack creating a bit more space. Something to ponder.

I am pleased that @wizardofoz, @Chrislayeruk and @CrystalGipsy all suffer, to varying degrees, with the cable demons!

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This could be a whole separate thread of its own (and maybe should be). The person that originally installed my home system was compulsive about neatness and carefully routed all cables and even zip-tied them together and carefully looped and tied any excess cable. Looked very pretty, but also created much higher potential for noise leakage between cables – particularly when power and signal cables are lined up next to each other. Much better to have signals cross at close to 90 degree angles – so, as you say, “total chaos” is better than pretty order when it comes to sound quality.

Then again, this is the “Show Off Your Setup” post, so maybe looking good is more important than sounding good? :sunglasses:

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