Vandersteen chez Boom Boom

[Boom Boom]

@ctsooner has been wanting me to post pics of my setups with my Vandersteen 2Ce Signature 3's and I also have a setup with Vandersteen 1C's. I finally got off my lazy duff and took pics to post. Enjoy!

 

 

[Boom Boom]

Top pic is of my humble "reference" system. I have read in other forums where Monster AVS2000 and HTPS7000 owners get a lot of grief. I look beyond the labels and trust my ears. The way I see it, these were designed by Richard Marsh of Marsh Sound Design, Demian Martin and Rick Fryer of Spectral. So if these three talented audio designers combined forces to create state of the art power conditioning (for period technology), Monster had  the resources to manufacture, retail and service the end product. The improvements from the power conditioning were significant in terms of convincing harmonics, natural decay of sounds and relaxed accurate pitch associated with accurate speed from components with moving parts: CD player, HTPC with spinning hard drive, SOTA and Project TTs, not to mention DVD, Bluray and 4k Bluray players. It also improved the performance of my Classe preamp, and flat screens. The power amps have non-current limiting conditioners and are not connected to the Monster products. I am still awaiting to replace the PS Audio NuWave DSD DAC with a Bryston BDA-3. Parts are backordered and Canadian factory employee physical distancing restrictions have just about stalled production and delivery.

2nd pic is what I refer to my "Elegant bedroom system", Lol! I do my laundry and ironing there and can enjoy watching movies, or listening to music to make these tedious chores more enjoyable.

Cheers!

Boom Boom

aka Robert

[ctsooner]

On 8/28/2021 at 7:13 PM, Boom Boom said:

Top pic is of my humble "reference" system. I have read in other forums where Monster AVS2000 and HTPS7000 owners get a lot of grief. I look beyond the labels and trust my ears. The way I see it, these were designed by Richard Marsh of Marsh Sound Design, Demian Martin and Rick Fryer of Spectral. So if these three talented audio designers combined forces to create state of the art power conditioning (for period technology), Monster had  the resources to manufacture, retail and service the end product. The improvements from the power conditioning were significant in terms of convincing harmonics, natural decay of sounds and relaxed accurate pitch associated with accurate speed from components with moving parts: CD player, HTPC with spinning hard drive, SOTA and Project TTs, not to mention DVD, Bluray and 4k Bluray players. It also improved the performance of my Classe preamp, and flat screens. The power amps have non-current limiting conditioners and are not connected to the Monster products. I am still awaiting to replace the PS Audio NuWave DSD DAC with a Bryston BDA-3. Parts are backordered and Canadian factory employee physical distancing restrictions have just about stalled production and delivery.

2nd pic is what I refer to my "Elegant bedroom system", Lol! I do my laundry and ironing there and can enjoy watching movies, or listening to music to make these tedious chores more enjoyable.

Cheers!

Boom Boom

aka Robert

Thanks Robert.  Great looking system. I live Richard Marsh’s designs. My old dealer carries his stuff. He made some great electronics for the cost. Kind of like Belles today. As far as monster cables, the original ones were invented by Bruce Brissom of now MIT fame. He rewired my old Quicksilver Silver monos as well as my full function Quick pre. What a killer sound that was. 

[Boom Boom]

Latest Upgrade.

It has 48 hours of break in. The bass response is starting to awaken. Know not to do any critical listening until it reaches the 100 hour mark. Already it's apparent the PCM reproduction is in a different league.

I had my Bryston BDA-3 customized. They put blue LEDs instead of the standard green so it matches my Simaudio Moon W5 in the shelf below. Instead of amber for other DAC status communication the LED will glow magenta. I'm using HRS Nimbus system on both, also Shunyata Delta NR V2 power chords and Transparent Gen 6 Balanced MusicLink Super XLR interconnects. I like how the black components contrast the lighter Maple wood of my RigidRack cabinet.

[ctsooner]

That's cool that they did that for you.  I too love black components.   

[TomicTime]

16 hours ago, ctsooner said:

That's cool that they did that for you.  I too love black components.   

Black…is the new Black….

[ctsooner]

There are some stunning cabinets out there.  I LOVE the new Playback Designs Dream DAC's look.  Was told by the Vandy dealer in Ontario that he loves the sound of it.  He's like Richard in that he's a true analog guy, but I loved talking DAC's with him as I learned a ton.

I do gravitate to Black when I can get it, but it has to be done correctly.  A beautiful anodized dark grey can also be stunning.

[Steve Edwards]

18 hours ago, ctsooner said:

I do gravitate to Black when I can get it, but it has to be done correctly.  A beautiful anodized dark grey can also be stunning.

Herron Audio offers a really nice dark grey; although, I'm not sure Keith is still manufacturing. 

[Boom Boom]

New Updates for my living room system:

I experimented with room treatment. Due to room size constraints my sofa is close to the back wall. I moved it forward 7 inches and that improved bass response and helped a little with treble. I read that Vandersteen recommended experimenting with a tapestry to start evaluating room treatment. I couldn't remember where until I realized this was from my owners manual. I tried a tapestry and it worked better than I expected. It helped with both highs and mids:

I've been wanting to try a Shunyata Alpha USB cable. It's asking price was more than I could justify. That changed when I discovered Shunyata was having a 20% off promotion and my local high end saloon Definitive Audio acquired the line. Had to wait as it was back-ordered a couple of weeks. It finally settled in. It lived up to its hype and notoriety for extended burn in. After >200 hours it stabilized.

Wow! Much improved over the Transparent Premium USB it replaced. The usual audiophile descriptions for improvements timbre, weight, more solid imaging, more details, etc. apply. I really like how the presentation is more relaxed as well as more detailed. Easier to identify what instruments are playing and when they join in, also words sung by lead and backing vocalists are easier to determine. What hits me over the head is that I regained soundstage height. Going from my old Classe preamp to the Moon 740P was dramatic. It was hard at first to evaluate because the much higher gain from the Classe. But getting over that, the difference in lower noise makes a huge difference. The 740P is much more revealing of my other components and interconnects.

Finally, my Moon W5 is about 20 years old. I cringe to think about replacing it. For pre-planned obsolescence, I took advantage of Definitive Audio's moving sale. They're mostly moved out of Seattle store to their Bellevue Store. I mulled the purchase over and the retail of current replacements are quite a bit more than what I paid for the W5 20 years ago. So I acquired a demo Moon 760A.

Before placing it into storage I hooked it up and tested to make sure it functioned properly. Even with the stock power cable it was sounding good. Better at home than I remembered when we used my amp and preamp combo to audition my 2CE Sig 3's.

I'm pretty much set for my retirement.

😉