Ron's Speaker, Turntable, Power and Room Treatment Upgrades

[DaveyF]

I wish it were construction. This is obviously not my field but I understand that new construction often is easier and faster than repair/replace/rebuild.

The project is mostly destruction and then repair/replace/rebuild. The below grade excavation and re-waterproofing of the retaining wall (23' below street level, 120' long) commenced four years ago.

All of the remodels I have been involved in (many) have involved repair/replace/rebuild...some of them as large, or larger, than 15k Square feet; none of them took more than one year....
The permitting process is usually what is taking the time, the demo is very quick, the construction also goes fairly quickly.....assuming that there is some planning behind it! (we would never consider the project unless it was planned out from the start...and all of the sub contractors were known)
Do you have a general on the job?
I do see all of the change orders and modifications, but four years in the ground??? Wow, I wouldn’t have the patience, nor the inclination...never mind the budget

 

[Hi-FiGuy]

From my own project management work I knew very well that the worst thing we could do is to make material changes or add sub-projects after we signed the original construction contract and agreed on a project and parts list.

So halfway through we decided to re-do completely the entire kitchen (whereas originally we decided we would not touch the kitchen).

Then I realized that extending slightly the length of a toilet area in the master bathroom could facilitate a wholesale renovation of the master bathroom and closet into separate, his and hers, bathrooms and closets.

Then we decided to add a 7' X 7' skylight to the master bedroom ceiling (necessitating, of course, a re-work and reframing of the roof and a re-routing of all electrical and HVAC ducts).

Then we decided to hire a water feature designer to custom design a unique water feature for a platform area outside the entryway.

Then we decided to renovate the entire rear deck with a fire pit area.

Then we decided to graft in a video intercom system and remote control of everything with an Elan system.

Then we decided to divide the equipment room for the stereo into a home theater area.

Then we decided to re-do the entire fireplace wall in the living room with the same stone veneer we are employing on parts of the exterior.

Then we decided to replace the fireplace with the largest gas fireplace available from Flare Fireplace (the "Ferrari" of fireplaces), an Israeli company: 102" long and 30" tall. Of course this occasioned replacement of the fireplace venting system.

Question, has your contractor told you to go on a year vacation yet?
With what little I know about you having never met you in person, I am quite certain we share a lot of behaviors and I will just hang back and patiently wait for the finished product that will be spectacular to be sure.
Its killing me to not see that floor shined up and glossy as hell!

 

[Ron Resnick]

No, I think he is grateful for the help. I do a lot of the sourcing of materials and parts and ordering, just to help him out some. I also help him wrangle the architect.

Also, by meeting at the house once or twice a week, and walking around with the contractors and the subs, I have come up with good ideas for improvements small and large which never would have occurred to me if I had not been so deep in the weeds.

This may sound silly and mundane but I have been excited about the fact that as a result of walking around the house with an eye towards renovations many dozens of times I discovered and planned for five additional small storage spaces and closets. Coming from Manhattan every square foot is highly valuable, so creating five additional small storage spaces and closets is fun and very worthwhile to me.

 

[Bobvin]

From my own project management work I knew very well that the worst thing we could do is to make material changes or add sub-projects after we signed the original construction contract and agreed on a project and parts list.

So halfway through we decided to re-do completely the entire kitchen (whereas originally we decided we would not touch the kitchen).

Then I realized that extending slightly the length of a toilet area in the master bathroom could facilitate a wholesale renovation of the master bathroom and closet into separate, his and hers, bathrooms and closets.

Then we decided to add a 7' X 7' skylight to the master bedroom ceiling (necessitating, of course, a re-work and reframing of the roof and a re-routing of all electrical and HVAC ducts).

Then we decided to hire a water feature designer to custom design a unique water feature for a platform area outside the entryway.

Then we decided to renovate the entire rear deck with a fire pit area.

Then we decided to graft in a video intercom system and remote control of everything with an Elan system.

Then we decided to divide the equipment room for the stereo into a home theater area.

Then we decided to re-do the entire fireplace wall in the living room with the same stone veneer we are employing on parts of the exterior.

Then we decided to replace the fireplace with the largest gas fireplace available from Flare Fireplace (the "Ferrari" of fireplaces), an Israeli company: 102" long and 30" tall. Of course this occasioned replacement of the fireplace venting system.

The dreaded feature creep... How are you ever going to get to v2 when v1 never ends? You must be blessed with an abundance of resources (and an amazingly patient wife.) Many startups have failed result of the dreaded feature creep, burning through the seed money before realizing a penny of revenue. (Yeah, yeah, I know you’re not starting a business, but surely keeping a few afloat!)

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thank you, Bob. Sadly, no abundance of resources. I am burning through a lot of life savings making these repairs to the house.

My wife is patient, but no patience on her part is required for the house repairs. She realised about a year ago sooner than I did that the house was about to become utterly uninhabitable as the work progressed and our change orders made the renovation more extensive.

It has been “pencils down” for us on the change orders for several months now. The project brief finally is static, and now just has to be price-estimated and implemented.

 

[Ron Resnick]

LEFT SIDE WALL

View attachment 38408



RIGHT SIDE WALL

View attachment 38409



My next step is to figure out which combination of wall materials to use on the wood framing side of the room, and which combination of wall materials to use on the opposing cinder block side of the room, to make the wood framing side and the cinder block side as similar in acoustic performance as possible. I will be covering the wood framing with one layer of Hardiebacker, and then Green Glueing a layer of common drywall to the Hardiebacker. (Bonnie has not blessed this plan yet. I am awaiting her answer to this specific question.) The wood framing will be filled in with blue jeans insulation.

Should I affix two layers of common drywall to the cinder block side opposing the wood framing side, or should I affix to the cinder block side the same Hardiebacker plus common drywall combination I will affix to the wood framing side?

What will be a better acoustic match for drywall Green Glued over Hardiebacker over wood framing: drywall over Hardiebacker over cinder block, or two layers of drywall over cinder block?

 

[Bobvin]

Bonnie had told me she never measured any benefit from the green glue, and I might suggest she'd want to put noise-out over the insulation before you apply the sheetrock.



Are you fir-ing out the cinderblock at all? Are you planning to leave the finished textured sheetrock as your visible wall finish or planning to go with a fabric-wall? From the beginning of my project I knew I wanted a fabric-wall so I could hide all acoustic measures from view. Alternately, you might end up putting up panels like this one I put on a hallway wall (to reduce the sound travelling down to the wing of bedrooms that are also on the lower level where my listening room is.) That panel is 4' x 8' x 2". I put a similar panel on the wall across from the wine cellar, though that one is only 1/2" and behind the fabric instead of hard-fiberglass like the larger panel, I used left-over Vibramat carpet padding (dense sponge padding bonded to mass loaded vinyl.) These panels were not part of the acoustic design, but completely eliminated slap echo in the hallway. (There is no door in the hallway, we used the acoustic curtains to separate the hallway/wine cellar from the listening room.

 

[Tango]

View attachment 38527

This is very nice. Musch better than flat wall. Simple, subtle, but more dimensions, shadow and texture.

Kind regards,
Tang

 

[Ron Resnick]

Bob,

I will not be firring our the side walls at all, as I do not want to lose any width in the room.

I think your fabric walls look fantastic, but at this point I am not planning to do anything over the drywall.

 

[Bobvin]

Bob,

I will not be firring our the side walls at all, as I do not want to lose any width in the room.

I think your fabric walls look fantastic, but at this point I am not planning to do anything over the drywall.

Bonnie will get you dialed in I'm sure, but from what I have read of Mike L.'s room, he found adding even a single sheet of fabric over his walls offered a positive improvement. Of course, if you did that Bonnie would calculate the correct value depending on the fabric chosen.

Are the cinderblock walls to be adjacent to your speakers? I'd easily sacrifice a couple inches both sides to fir out and insulate vs. putting drywall over that surface directly. Maybe I'm misunderstanding? My walls were assembled blue-jeans, noiseout, sheetrock, hard fiberglass insulation, custom BAD panel for absorption/diffusion, fabric. That isn't to say this would be correct over cinderblock, but theoretically would allow your walls to behave similarly.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Dear Bob,

Thank you very much for your thoughts, and for your detailed explanation of the treatment of your walls.

Historically I like the sound of a fairly damped room. But I also recognise that I may have a tendency to want to over damp a room.

I feel like I can always add more absorption to the walls in the future, and so I am inclined to start on the undamped side.

I am much more sensitive than I used to be to the philosophy of preserving the natural energy in a listening room, and not damping to the point which I have gone to in prior, fairly well-damped listening rooms.

I also want to preserve my ability to experiment with diffusion on the sidewalls rather than absorption on the sidewalls. While Mike has found effective the judicious placement of fabric on certain of his walls, I know his general philosophy is to preserve the natural energy in the room, and to not over-damp.

I want to start with (1) plain drywall on the exterior of the walls, (2) absorbent drapes and absorber panels behind the listening position (which will be very close to the rear wall), (3) the absorbent drapes will actually cover in a square “U” shape the opening at the rear third of the left side wall and the opening at the rear third of the right wall — as well as the rear wall, and (4) I want to experiment with absorption panels versus SMT diffuser wings at the first reflection points on the side walls.

 

[Bobvin]

I completely understand where you're coming from. My big fear was my room would also be over-damped, and still when I go in the room I sometimes have that sense, until I play some music, or interestingly, until I have a conversation with someone. Speech intelligibility is simply amazing in my room, and the overall "feel" of the room, while very subjective, is wonderful. It is a place where once you're there, you don't want to leave.

I have a big "cloud" in the room, and you can definitely hear a difference if you speak directly under the cloud vs off to the side where the cloud does not extend. Also note my room was designed with some very recent research into how much diffusion or absorption has to be in place before it is noticed. Bonnie incorporated that research into her design of my room. I probably linked to it back in my room thread.

Note too that my walls are essentially floor to ceiling BAD panels (binary amplitude diffusion). And the drilling patterns at ear height are different from the rest of the wall. The room might feel a little damped, but with music playing the feeling is anything but. Of course, my large wall behind the speakers includes a large window and two glass doors. I have found I like having the curtains opened, which still means a fair amount of wall is covered with curtain. If the curtains in the rear of the room are open I close the ones in front—so degree of reflection seems to be better. There is a wee-bit more liveliness.


Custom drilling on the BAD panels


Curtains in normally opened position. You can see they still cover a lot of wall, and with the ripple of the lumitex there is a great combination of absorbtion and diffusion. Of course Steve knows how this sounds as he has lumitex in his curtains as well.


Curtains closed.

 

[Folsom]

Mike's whole room is covered in wood. It is far from being a dampened room. But the shape of the wood, and the large size changes everything. His clothe addition only affects the highest frequencies (which will change perception of the other frequencies). It works real well with the size, and his higher radiation pattern needs just that. Were he to downsize to your room his low dampening would be problematic to the wider radiating patterns of his dynamic drivers.

It is almost funny that your room is more suited to your speakers you chose, Ron. The pendragons energy side to side will be much higher in the bass towers, which your options will be very limited in for control. The good news is they are not that critical, so long as there are no huge peaks or dips. The planar style drivers dont have as wide of a power response projection as traditional drivers. Basically you will have a limited sound interactions side to side. A little bit of treatment at a key point along the sidewalls is likely to be the max you need. Perhaps behind you may be beneficial. Would you like me to draw pictures?

If I were you, I would have the backwall covered in wood that is pinned down really well and is fairly thick; to maximize the benefit of the dipole. Deadening on the back wall is better to keep noise out, than to try and cut reflections. You wouldnt want dipole speakers if you did not want reflections to add their benefits. The one condition to reflections is they need to be the correct wavelength distance away from the wall so that their effects either build on the fundamental, or they are so late they cause zero smearing. In your case a min distance is probably best (late sound), because the bass towers are not cardroid, they will never be adjusted for wavelength distance. In order to defeat smearing a min distance of 5ft is about right - no need to go past 6ft.

Why wood? It had a much more even reflection. Drywall is uneven and flat, sounds defeated. (My personal preferance is still safety glass, but the expense is something else, even for well off people, and you need a view behind it)

 

[Mike Lavigne]

every square inch of the fabric over my wood paneling was a result of multiple A/B/A/B listening sessions. the exact arraignment of my side Aural T-fusors and fabric pattern was a month of experimentation. and it was all about chasing a musical reference in my head. and based on my speakers in my room. the advantage i had was musical energy to waste. my room was extremely live. and i had an environment that is single use and luckily sized generously, and built solidly.

in the bass department, i radically overbuilt bass trapping, and starting 6 years into living with the room slowly but surly eliminated almost 100% of all the built in bass trapping over the next 6 years. now it's essentially flat other than a few nodes outside the main listening positions.

to begin with the room was heavily over-damped both in the highs and the bass. then in 2010 i removed the huge (15' x 10') fabric covered side bass traps and then the room was mildly over damped and now the highs were too prominent. it was a stage in my growth, and the room development.

just be open minded.....and don't assume anything......about anything.

it will come to you if you are a seeker. i will be watching with a slight grin on my face.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Thank you Bob, Folsom, Mike!

Folsom — I am building in the flexibility to have the speakers anywhere between five and 10 feet from the front wall. I am very sensitive to the timing of the reflected back wave and I want to be able to experiment with front wall to panel distance.

Mike — Feel free to do the grinning as much as you wish — while I do the hatching!

 

[Ron Resnick]

CURRENT THINKING*

tonearms/cartridges

Certain: ZYX UNIverse Premium on NOS SME 2012R
Considering: Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum or Benz Micro LP-S MR on Acoustical Solutions Axiom


Amplifiers

Alieno LTD 250
AM Audio 833S Ultra
Jadis JA-200 Mk. II


*Subject to change in the next ten minutes

 

[LL21]

CURRENT THINKING*

tonearms/cartridges

Certain: ZYX UNIverse Premium on NOS SME 2012R
Considering: Koetsu Rosewood Signature Platinum or Benz Micro LP-MR on Acoustical Solutions Axiom


Amplifiers

Alieno LTD 250
AM Audio 833S Ultra
Jadis JA-200 Mk. II


*Subject to change in the next ten minutes

Well, its been more than 10 minutes, but assuming you've still got these 3 in mind...what is the difference big-picture between the AM300 and the Wavac 833 Mk II...which also seems to be a 4-box 833-based design?

 

[Ron Resnick]

Hello LL21, The big picture difference is the price.

AM Audio is proud of the fact that he makes his own silver wire wound output transformer.

 

[KeithR]

CURRENT THINKING*

*Subject to change in the next ten minutes

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Hello LL21, The big picture difference is the price.

about $125k difference to the Wavac MkII level.