Visit to Marc C.'s (SpiritOfMusic's) House in England

[Barry2013]

In the other thread you said that my suggestion on changing the room was a good one and now you revert to your oft expressed defences.
Something is clearly amiss in your system/room.
If it is not the speakers then it is something else.

 

[spiritofmusic]

Only if I go Apogees that are more challenging on energizing large volumes; as things stand w the Zus, my room is fine.

 

[zerostargeneral]

Dear 213.5,

I added the .5 because I hope the 427 is the beast of choice?

Original Futterman's on naked triple stacked '57 Quads is still to this day one of three pinnacles for me.

Your intelligence and eloquence are matched well to your taste.

Your observations concerning linear are correct to a degree,the Souther provenance bodes well here.However I am compelled to prefer designers that refine the better topology as opposed to pleasing the sales forces that market them.

My own preferences are based on numerous failures that have led me to a singular path.

In lieu I like,with varying levels of enthusiasm,all FRD speakers including ZU.Even Max Hemp omega's float my boat,when I listen to the orchestra I need to feel the "chalk dust" flying in the air before me.Only electrostatics and full range drivers do that in my experience.

Kindest regards,G.

 

[spiritofmusic]

General, for "chalk dust" to you, substitute "sweat" to me.

 

[213Cobra]

>>Your observations concerning linear are correct to a degree,the Souther provenance bodes well here.However I am compelled to prefer designers that refine the better topology as opposed to pleasing the sales forces that market them.<<

When I met Lou Souther in 1981, he had a prototype of his tonearm that was elegant in its mechanics but it didn't quite work. The design goal was to build a passive linear tracking tonearm completely absent of pumps, motors, servos or any other assistive mechanics that had been tried. The motive force of the rotating spiral groove had to be sufficient for moving the tonearm, so total moving mass had to be kept vanishingly low and friction infinitesimal. Lou's tonearm was also born when the high compliance moving magnet phono cartridge prevailed in hifi, but audiophiles were being swayed toward lower compliance moving coil cartridges. The tonearm had to play well with both. By suspending the arm assembly at its centerpoint and positioning the track only slightly behind the radial tracing line across the LP, the tonearm was kept very short and total mass kept very low, since the counterweight was not closer to the vertical axis pivot than the cartridge. With the carriage mass only material to the horizontal axis, the Souther arm assumed some of the characteristics of the other bi-axial tonearms of the day, the Transcriptors Vestigal and the Dynavector 505/507. For its low mass and narrow-tube composition, it was especially inspired by the Transcriptors, and doing so inherited one of the versatile qualities of the Vestigal tonearm: it's ability to work equally well with low compliance and high compliance cartridges without having to match mass to compliance for reaching optimum system resonance. You could install an ADC XLM-III tracking at .5g when that was a thing, and also run a Koetsu, Supex, Denon 103 or even a Decca London with no concern for resonance tuning. Getting it working involved a year of experimentation with materials, repeatable building methods and generally solving for sample-to-sample consistency and ability to survive shipping. Lou was the engineer. He was retired by then and his hearing had eroded some due to a long history of riding motorcycles. He was looking for someone to help him think through the design and implementation obstacles, and be a listening reference.

Lou's tonearm did its job and made easy addition of linear tracking to virtually any turntable a reality. It came to market at the end of the era of vinyl dominance and dealt handily with warped and eccentric stampings common then. But of course Lou wasn't getting younger and his craft business needed a buyer. That he found one was a well-deserved win for him. Clearaudio certainly glitzed it up, and raised perceived value for many customer, supporting a much higher price. But what happened to the Souther arm ran against the grain of Lou's intent to make and keep linear tracking affordable to everyone. As the audiophile market shifted again to medium and lower compliance moving coils and at the same time pivoted tonearm bearings improved, many people who tried linear tracking reverted for a more "grounded" and less ethereal sound.

>>I added the .5 because I hope the 427 is the beast of choice?<<

Rat motor over mouse motor, whenever and wherever possible!

>>Original Futterman's on naked triple stacked '57 Quads is still to this day one of three pinnacles for me.<<

I had double Quads for awhile. Heard triple but didn't own (or have space for) that setup. However I did also use Julius Futterman mono amps to power double Advents, double LS3/5a, and double ProAc EBS, always wired in series for the higher impedances. The Futterman especially loved driving the 30 ohms load of the double LS3/5a.

>>Only electrostatics and full range drivers do that in my experience.<<

Agreed. Zu's early breakthrough was to put real dynamic shove, efficiency *and* power handling behind that electrostat/FRD experience.

Phil

 

[spiritofmusic]

Phil, I'm biased to be favourable twds you as a fellow Zu fanboy, but I always love it when I hear of guys w long and winding journeys, broad perspectives, fascinating systems, in other words, full and impressive audio CVs.

You fit this very well, as does The General and quite a few other guys on the forum.

I truly believe this makes your opinions if not necessarily right, at the very least weighted w the merit of experience, bad and good decisions, and current viewpoints focussed thru the prism of all this.
And thus v well worth reading.

 

[Blue58]

Hello All,

I would like to post an update on Marc's system after my visit yesterday to his lovely chapel in rural England.
I believe Marc has made some upgrades including new tubes, further Stacore platforms and new power supplies to his TT. I will let Marc bore you with the details should he wish to contribute. Try stopping him!
I also know he changed his seating position and reduced his bass output after taking onboard various WBF members decision to remove subs or similar from their systems.

After settling back into his enormous loft space and adjusting to the acoustics, the room 'sounds' different to my room, Marc was in total control of music selection as he wanted to present his system in the best possible light.

Up first were three tracks from Michael Hedges. Immediately I heard a very wide guitar, in fact too wide, the guitar almost appeared to be split in two between left and right speaker. Was this the new near field position Marc likes?
Second track was the same split presentation. I was beginning to wonder what is happening and finally the third track revealed a locked in image just off centre with little L/R action, almost mono.
This all perplexed me and I started to think it was the near field listening position that was responsible for this disparity.

Marc then played some Steve Morse tracks. Different presentation but once again I heard weird anomalies within the soundstage. The central image was locked in but distinct in tonal quality from the L/R sounds that were forward in the mix. Was this just a poor mix?
Another track from Steve Morse and a more distant seating position gave greater homogenisation of the soundstage ie. the band were now together but still I wasn't happy with the now more distant presentation even though we lifted the volume 1 click to compensate for the farther field listening. (We didn't have any measurement equipment to accurately check volume levels).

Much deliberation on my part ensued and Marc was dumbfounded? He thought his system was sounding the best it had been for a long time.

We had a little break and chatting whilst walking around the room I noticed that his once damped loft space now had the front area more live sounding, after removing all his GIK panels, and the back area even more damped than previously heard. So he effectively had this steep slope of dampening from back to front.

I suggested we add the panels back into the front area, 1st reflection points, centre front 2 stacked high and doubled up the front corner bass traps. To be brief, this transformed, IMO, the entire soundstage. There was now a much more holographic soundstage with wonderful spread between the speakers and extending further back from the plane of the speakers without losing the even tonal quality. The difference between the two seat positions was also much less noticeable and came down to personal preference.

I was now happy with the sound we achieved so far.

Marc then played my bass torture track, James Blake - Overgrown. Oh shit! Disaster!
Overblown, uncontrolled, slow, plodding, you name it, it was awful.
Marc had reduced the bass on his subs, we checked with a test disc and there was nothing much useful below 50Hz. Was this just the bass above 50Hz we were hearing and so oddly flabby? I strongly suspect the bass driver just can not keep up with the much more responsive full range drivers but it could be bass settings too. Something Marc will once again have to play with.

At the end of the day we played Previn's Panets from Vinyl and finally I was able to hear a huge soundstage from farthermost back L/R and spread between the speakers. In fact this is the first time I've ever heard Zu speakers disappear. I think we now have an optimum toe in, slightly further back seating position and adequate absorption in the room with only minor adjustments to make to the bass settings. It may not be perfect but probably the best we'll get from the Zu.

One last note, Marc tried several brands of speaker feet and settled on a newcomer, Revopods which I'll ask Marc to comment on. They look the business and are much smaller than expected. Something to consider for my tube amps perhaps.

Make of this what you will but I can't identify one single component at fault, however, it would be very interesting to substitute the Zus to resolve some of the issues faced.

Compared to my system (Duos/SET/Streamer/Dac) Marc's has greater soundstage width and depth, but less resolution and less dynamics. Perfect for him, perfect for me.

Blue58

 

[spiritofmusic]

Ahem, yes Barry, there's nothing so sad as the audiophile who thinks that after 21 years hard slog upgrading and optimising, good money spent on gear, tweaks and room, and the inflated ego that comes w all this, to be instantly taken down a peg or two by a friend who has a truly well sorted system, a supportively critical outlook, and has some of the solutions.

It does make me wonder where I get my self satisfied halo from.

It's true that I had been on a journey to tone down my Zu subs output. Partially because it sounded like the right thing to do, partially upon hearing Tang and SteveW dispense w their subs.

To my credit hopefully, I'm much less defensive about criticisms of my system, and from Barry these are genuinely borne of setup issues, and I'll freely admit the basic sonic signature of Zus, and my finally hitting the glass ceiling w them.

What was so productive about Barry's visit was that he was able to identify shortcomings, theorise as to their origin, and make the suggestion on dealing w them.

So re my phasing issues, we deduced that maybe this was a flutter echo issue. Once Barry had noticed that my room veered from very lively at the spkrs end, and deader at the rear, we took the rear wall corner bass traps and effectively doubled up the front wall corner ones.

Then we reintroduced my side wall reflection points absorption panels, and most critically panels on the central front wall, doubling height and thickness.

After a little experimenting w Zus toe in and laser pointer alignment, we were both amazed by the holistic improvements.

Focus and stage depth were brought into sharp relief. Wispy trails and flostiness in multi tracked acoustic guitars and percussion were made solid, still delicate, but just more deliberate sounding.

Less like a foggy dusk, more a crisp, bracing sunrise.

*Ron's hyperbole police on standby*

This session ended w me taking Barry and Ra out for a meal, he's without doubt the most cost effective acoustician in the UK.

Upon returning to the system sans Barry, my remaining highlighted issue him ie my perceived shortfall in bass, remains a hurdle to negotiate.

I'll freely admit, it's been a dog to get right, in my old strident acoustic I could never reconcile the need to up subs output to fight my cold stark space, leading to alternating bloat or thinness when I turned things down.

Here, the reduced subs output seemed to suit my warmer, more cohesive acoustic.

But alerted by Barry's misgivings, I installed a new set of Siemens 6N23P NOS tubes from Upscale Audio c/o Ron Resnick that I'd just received, and thought I might try and boost the subs output.

Out of the box, these tubes are proving to be top to bottom more extended, textured, warm and agile. All round better than my existing Voskhod Rockets. Much quieter too.

And amazingly, together w the Arya Audio RevOPods I've installed to replace current footers under my Zus, I seem to have a much broader range of subs output available to me that are increasing bass extension and warmth, w no apparent smearing of mids or highs.

Atm, I've gone from 40Hz, 3/10, to a little higher, w commensurate adjusting of PEQ freq and gain.

Now I'm getting the soundstage impvts Barry wrangled for me, with greater impact and immersion in lower frequencies.

But I've learnt my lesson, no more crowing about how I've cracked things "finally".

I'm due to sort a final set of Sablon Elites pwr cords mods, add some damping plates on my phono, pre amp, cdp and psus.

Then I'll get Barry over again. And he can give me the final seal of approval. Or not LOL.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Marc, I am sure you will be fine. You never told me you removed the acoustic treatment from the front end of the room. I would have counseled against doing that. In fact, when you told me you wanted to experiment with additional acoustic treatment, I said keep it simple and just get ASC Tube Traps for the front wall corners and live with them for a while.

What was your thinking in removing the acoustic panels to deal with the first reflection points? (I would’ve kept those in place also.)

 

[spiritofmusic]

Ron, you know how it goes. There was a period where things sounded overdamped, and removing those panels seemed to help.

Well yesterday they went back in, the major difference being that I've taken the panels from the rear wall and effectively doubled up the ones on the front wall.

My only curiosity is whether to add some diffusers, either side of the central front wall absorbers and/or on the descending eaves.

 

[bonzo75]

Marc, I am sure you will be fine.

Everything will turn out fine, Marc. We are with you

 

[spiritofmusic]

Just moved my double height absorber column on central front wall down to single height, and moved the two previously higher panels to reflection points on front wall.

So, on front wall now have double stacked corner traps, and three equidistant single absorbers.

Have adjusted my Zus subs from 40Hz to 70Hz, level 3/10 to 7/10, PEQ Freq to 38Hz and PEQ Gain to 3dB.

In my old space, that would have just overblown and smeared the mids beyond any usefulness. Here, the confluence of room, GIKs, Sablon Elite pwr cords, laser aligned spkrs placement, closer listening position, Townshend supertweeters, RevOPods spkrs footers, and Siemens NOS tubes to preamp, has resulted in the ability for the Zus to stretch out, and the subs to be much more involved.

I'm happy as a pig in $hit LOL.

 

[spiritofmusic]

You're all heart, Ked.

 

[Ron Resnick]

Ron, you know how it goes. There was a period where things sounded overdamped, and removing those panels seemed to help.

Well yesterday they went back in, the major difference being that I've taken the panels from the rear wall and effectively doubled up the ones on the front wall.

My only curiosity is whether to add some diffusers, either side of the central front wall absorbers and/or on the descending eaves.

Your rear wall is so wonderfully far away I don’t think you have to worry about any acoustic treatment there.

 

[spiritofmusic]

So far away, I can site my home cinema AND drumkit LOL.

 

[Zero000]

I take it those Siemens valves are actually E88CC gold pins?

They are extremely good. I found something marginally better in the shape of Tesla E88CC cross swords which I had at the same time. It's so close as to very nearly be irrelevant, though.

I WhatsApp'd a pic of them to you ages ago but I think you missed it.

Anyway keep playing around

 

[spiritofmusic]

Justin, they are stupendous. Beat my Voshkod Rockets all ends up, and they are no slouches themselves.

I just mentioned your "playing around" comment to Ra...

 

[DaveyF]

Marc, maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t get why you — as they say in the UK ...keep flogging a dead horse! If the sound isn’t working for you in some way with the Zu’s..
Dump the Zu’s.
There are so many great speakers on the market that will work great in your surroundings, that to have to keep on fighting with your existing speakers makes no sense...at least to me.
For example, yesterday, I had the pleasure of listening once again to the excellent Harbeths. The model 30.1 and the current 40.2. I was surprised how the smaller 30.1 could really portray accurate and deep bass. The 40.2’s even more so, and here’s the thing, we had them in a room that benefited a near field
Listening experience...and they were great.
The room probably had acoustic issues, maybe like yours, but the synergy with the Harbeths was excellent...and not at all hard to accomplish.
Harbeth’s are just a few of the many excellent speakers out there...

 

[spiritofmusic]

As I said to Barry, I knew chatting more about my Zus would lead to comments to dump them.

I get it Davey. I realise I defend them more than is reasonable. Tbh, and IMHO, they only remain testing in one way, and that's sub bass integration.

Maybe I'm wrong headed on this, but the Zus are hugely communicative in what they do well, and I rarely hear this aspect in other reasonably priced spkrs.

And I'd like to know what speakers can energise an 800 sq ft space off medium power SETs and sound full and saturated at lower volumes. I can't think of many other than my Zus except for horns or Voxativ full range Pi 9.87's.

I'll check out Harbeth.

Am I really the only person online who has been able to address limitations on gear, or does everyone else hit paydirt w speakers in particular, and have hour after hour of unadulterated joy?

E.g., I've heard four pairs of speakers in rooms recently that on the surface are all superior to my Zus.

However one only really sounds of it's best w the very best pressings being so ruthlessly revealing, one doesn't have the mids density that I find addictive in my Zus, one is overly relentless w poorly recorded vintage prog rock music that is the mainstay of my library, one is overly energetic and too much larger than life. If I owned any of these spkrs, these traits would start to dominate in my mind, and Id probably fret online.

 

[DaveyF]

Marc, if the budget allows, check out the Harbeth 40.2’s. They can be driven by as little as 10 watts/ch and are able to scale beautifully. I would think they will easily work in your somewhat larger space.
As to mid density, they are superb in that area as well, plus they are made in Ole Blighty.