Nutznbotz’ system

[ctsooner]

I had the QX5/20, but sold it as I have a server/streamer that has a DAC. They are rebuilding and designing it right now, but I have no idea how it's going to sound.  If I don't like it, I'll just get a new DAC.  

[BKDad]

Oh!  Just like a bespoke Seville Road tailcoat, eh?  If nothing else, it ought to be interesting!

[ctsooner]

It isn't quite bespoke.  I'm the guinea pig for their designs.  It's by far the best server/streamer I've ever heard.  My buddy reviews for TAS adn he had the Taiko and others in.  He still owns what I have.  I have ht eDAC, he doesn't.  The DAC will be very good as the last one was outstanding.  I am trying to get them to spend the extra few $$$ to take the DAC into the 20k+ range.  It's not that far off.  

[Nutznboltz]

Sorry for falling off like that,friends.  Its been a challenging few weeks with tragedy in our Family.  But I'm back with a long overdue update.

The audio planets lined up for me, and a one year old  pair of Quatro CTs hit the local market.  I couldnt pass these up! After much fussing with placement( these seem more particular with placement than my cloth version) and some minor room changes, I'm pretty darn close. Now its down to tube rolling to dial in the last bit.

I had been going back and forth between an Aesthetix Atlas amp and a pair of Quicksilver mono 120s.  I really wanted to stick with the Atlas, as I have a Calypso and Rhea on the front end. But after much A/B listening, my wife and I both prefer the Quickies.  These are wonderful amps and a great value.  I ended up soldering a cap on the input of each amp to accomplish my hi-pass. Its a simple and effective solution, that saved me money on a single ended M5HP. 

These speakers are awesome. Resolution is the big improvement here. Every little change I make, whether it be tubes, caps, or cables; is easily discernable.  that being said,it does no favors for crappy digital recordings.  

Im very fortunate to have landed these, and at the encouragement of my wife! 

Thanks to all that replied to my first post. This is going to be a great place to hang out. Happy listening, Amigos!

[ctsooner]

Thanks for your post and I'm so sorry for the tragedy.  the system looks great.  As you can hear already, these are a different animal.  It's crazy how much tech he's put into these things.  Happy listening.  Share your new music that you are loving.

[Steve Edwards]

On 8/13/2020 at 6:09 PM, Nutznboltz said:

I do.  I think they help in my room, which is upstairs.  I ended up keeping the same tilt, after some experimentation. I may have been a bit off before.  More likely, my newer chairs are a bit taller.   The rake angle doesn’t change, just elevation 

My system (with Quatros Fabric) is downstairs, on laminate plank flooring, floating atop the concrete foundation.  I'm wondering if granite planks would be an improvement in my room .........

[BKDad]

Well, I already placed an order for a pair of granite "stands" per CTSooner's specifications.  So, we'll see in a couple of weeks how it works for us.

[ctsooner]

BK, please keep us posted.  Let us know if using 4 washers works, or do you need a different amount?  Unless I misunderstood Richard, the steel plates or granite would work on any surface.  It's basically to keep the speakers from moving at all and that's why he told me to use the Vandercups or whatever he calls them.  The felt isn't actually felt, but a special material (we all know Ricahrd voices anything he can get his hands on to figure out what sounds and works best, lol.  

[BKDad]

Well, we told them not to rush.  The shop is *very* busy now.   It's not like we need a kitchen counter so that we can cook our meals.  

BTW, Molly has apparently moved on to something else, so we dealt with another person.  Nice fellow.

Edited September 24, 2020 by BKDad

[ctsooner]

Not there?  She must have been let go when covid hit.  That's too bad as she was GREAT at finding hard to find sheets with a ton of character.  Who was it that you dealt with?  I want to use the ones I got for the speakers for my new HP5's and then get a new pair that's cut the same way the Kēnto's have cut.  I just love that look. 

[BKDad]

Sal Caccamo is the guy my wife saw and talked to.  She chose the color for the bases.  I'm not quite sure exactly what she chose, but it's one of the 9851 variations of black.  This one they had in stock, which certainly influenced her choice.

We decided not to go for the Kento look.  Ours will be similar in color, but will be two inches wider and deeper - in other words, one inch per side.  The edges will be rounded a bit, if for no other reason than to make them safer for people and animal feet.   Vacuum cleaner friendlier, too.

Many of the places that do work for home improvements are busy up to their ears.  People are spending lots of money on home work now.  I have a friend who works for a home automation company.  They are very busy.  Where my daughter lives, if you want an inground swimming pool you have to book an appointment now for second half 2022 installation.

 

[ctsooner]

I can't get a contractor to call me back in WI where we have a family lake home that needs to be rebuilt.  Sucks.  Sal is the owner of the place. I never knew it until the install as I had a question and they told me to ask him, lol.  I have a black with gold flex in it.  

[Steve Edwards]

My condolences to you as well; hoping your family is on the mend.  

Congratulations on your Quatro CT's!  While I'm thoroughly enjoying my cloth Quatros (just back from Hanford for servicing), I hope someday to get into a pair of CT's too.  For my room, I would never want for any other model ............ they just "fit" and sound so nice.  Play on 

[ctsooner]

Steve, I'm sure you will.  They will put an even bigger smile on your face. lol.  It's just amazing to me as to how much the CT drivers make a difference for the better.

 

[Steve Edwards]

🙏

[ctsooner]

Well, the mono blocks have been picked up by UPS, so it's only a matter of days. Now if I can get my server/DAC/volume control back to listen to them!!!  Spoke to the server friend and he said by weeks end.  PRAY that's Friday week end and not Saturday!.  

[Steve Edwards]

"The waiting is the hardest part"  

                                          Tom Petty

[BKDad]

It's even worse.

Once they're in his house. he has to wait for them to warm up and burn-in.  Out of sight is out of mind, more of less, but these will be sitting there in front of him.

[ctsooner]

WORSE....I changed the crossover to 100hz.  All set right?  NO!  Server/DAC isn't even ready as promised.  I'm starting to loose faith in this designer/company.  Best server in the world (after a massive upper echelon shootout, it wasn't close), but it's not in my system.  I also have to get an electrician in to conduit two dedicated 20amp lines from an adjacent wall as I don't have any outlets left no the audio/tv wall.   Frustrating as heck.  They LOOK great, lol.  I have then on the granite plinths for the Quatro's.  I think I'm going to have new ones made for the speakers that are a bit larger footprint than the original ones that the amps will preside on.

 

BK, you don't know any good electricians in the Berlin area do you?  lol.  What town are you in?

[BKDad]

The last time we used an electrician was nine years ago.  Time sure flies, doesn't it?

We had very good results working with Apple Valley Electric in Southington.  They even have a snazzy website now:  https://www.applevalleyelectricct.com

There's a lot of people who have good technical reasons why you should run your entire system from a single service line to an outlet strip or conditioner, or from multiple outlets in the wall all connected to the same line.  Ideally, this line isn't shared with any other electrical equipment.  The reasoning is way beyond something that can be discussed in a forum like this one.  But, here is a recognized expert discussing this some:

http://www.hottconsultants.com/pdf_files/Audio Interconnections.pdf

Bill Whitlock has written a lot on the subject as well:

https://www.jensen-transformers.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/AES-Ground-Loops-Rest-of-Story-Whitlock-Fox-Generic-Version.pdf

https://www.bennettprescott.com/downloads/grounding_tutorial.pdf

https://web.mit.edu/jhawk/tmp/p/EST016_Ground_Loops_handout.pdf

The late Pete Goudreau (very good guy lost too soon) wrote about this in an audio publication more than two decades ago:

http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/articles/pete01.htm

Hans Polak had an article on the subject in Volume 10 of "Linear Audio".

Most of these articles offer not just theory, but measurements as well.  There's also great text books by Henry Ott and Ralph Morrision, too.

I know - more than you ever wanted to ever know...  (BTW, these same articles and books clearly explain why different cables are likely to sound different, and sound different in different systems.)

One takeaway that I can give you that's not really highlighted in the above is that common mode currents are not just limited to the 50 or 60 Hz current that powers the gear.  Depending on the equipment design, there's higher frequency currents generated by the rectification process used to develop the DC used, there's audio signal currents, and there's all those currents generated by various digital components running at well above the usual audio band.  With switching supplies, you get yet another source.

This is why Ayre uses no ground connections to the AC mains in their products.  They instead use a well understood technique known as double insulation.  It's an accepted safety standard used a lot in appliances - look at your toaster.  Why more companies don't use this approach, I haven't a clue.  It's easy enough that I use it in all the gear I build myself.

I notice that the fancy power conditioners manufactured and sold by Audioquest makes a point of trying to isolate the ground connections of each piece of gear for high frequency currents, which goes along with Ott's and Whitlock's theory.  They even patented the idea: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8988168B2/en  (How they got a patent on the idea, which has been around for decades, is a tribute to their patent attorney.)  The explanation for the AQ device on their web site was written with marketing in mind, so it isn't entirely helpful in understanding what they've done there.  

 

[ctsooner]

BK, what a great post and THANKS!!!  I'll call Apple to see what they say. I have two in the room as I was told to run digital on it's own, but wiht the AQ Niagara, I don't think I need that.  What I may do is run all the audio gear on one line and the TV, Cable, Apple TV, Router and the LPS for the boxes on another.  I have an old Power Company 5 banger that I could use on the TV and other 'gear'.  I like that one for video, but not audio, lol.  I'm nothing close to an engineer, but I usually understand reading these types of articles.  

Time to watch NFL and read some of these, lol.  

[BKDad]

"There will be no charge." - Jacques Clouseau, 1975

[ctsooner]

BK, what town are you in?

[ctsooner]

So I have two electricians coming in to quote.  I have 2 dedicated circuits in the room.  I installed them when the place was built.  I ended up moving the audio to the another wall.  I read those articles and much was over my head.  It seemed like they were talking about balanced connections vs RCA's. I use balanced already.  I need to know the best way to wire the electrical.  I'm hoping that I can just have them run a conduit that looks decent above the baseboard to the wall next to it (the system is on that wall).  I also wonder if my Niagara as well as the amps (plugged directly into the wall) should be on the same circuit or should the speakers and mono blocks be on one circuit and the Niagara be on a separate one.  Do I just have them use Romex or is there a better option?  I already use the AQ Edison outlets.  

 

Thoughts anyone?  Should I have them take the 20amps circuits out of the main box and put them in their own box wiht their own separate copper rod ground?  Is there any filtering or safety devices I need at the main board?  So many questions, lol. I can't spend an arm and a leg and I don't know how much it will cost to run these to the other wall (anyone done this before and have an idea of cost?).  Thanks 

[BKDad]

I'm sorry that you didn't find anything helpful in those articles I linked to.

I'm neither a licensed electrician nor licensed professional engineer in the state of CT.   So, I sure wouldn't take any advice I might have on any of this.  To make that easier, I won't offer any.  

I also don't like to tell anybody how to spend their own money - not my place.

There's certainly a lot of bad information on this subject floating around the internet, both with regard to performance and safety, so it's probably best that you ask a professional if you don't feel confident in what you've read and digested.