Yesterday, Justyn and I, along with help from our friend Alex from United Moving & Storage, delivered yet another pair of the beautiful Focal Maestro Utopia EVO loudspeakers.

For going on 13 years, my good customer and friend, Robert, has allowed me to guide him on this journey towards audio utopia. About once or twice a year, Robert and I have great conversations about our next upgrade to improve his sound systems. I say systems because Robert is a snowbird and winters in California. He also allowed me to design and install a custom Focal Utopia and JL Audio system in his beautiful desert home.

As you will see from the photos, this is a vast open space, and we needed the best possible choice in speakers to fill the room. We wanted a full-size concert-level presentation. Focal does make two larger brother versions in their Utopia line but we were physically limited by the hallways adjacent to the fireplace. This, however, was not an issue as we incorporated JL Audio’s massive Fathom series F212 subwoofer to take up any slack in the deepest of bass regions.

We had custom-ordered these beautiful speakers a few months ago and I have been quite excited to install them. So after uncrating these heavy buggers, we opened the large double doors to roll them into the room. All of a sudden a hummingbird flew in to join the party. He was, needless to say, quite a distraction. After flying around the room for a few minutes, he calmly sat down on the window ledge. I walked over to him and explained that as beautiful as he was, he had to go!

Obviously, the last thing you want in a system of this caliber is “humming.”

I was able to pick him up and carefully carry him outside. Then off he flew. I felt sort of sorry for him that he wouldn’t be there to hear the finished product but I’m sure he had a great story to tell his friends. After all, it’s not every day you get to witness this level of high-end audio.

The sound in this room is quite amazing even though the speakers will have a week or so to break in.

His Aesthetix pre-amp and amp, Molo Mola Tambaqui DAC and Nordost cabling he has purchased from us over the years will allow these speakers to sound their very best.

Thanks again Robert for allowing us to be a part of this. Enjoy!

Yesterday, Justyn, Eli, and myself installed this beautiful pair of Focal Maestro Utopia EVO speakers for my longtime customer and close friend Scott. I can tell you that Scott is as nuts about hi-fi as Nuts About Hi-Fi. He and I have created some of the most amazing systems for over thirty years.

We have now completed four homes with him and currently maintain 9+ systems, some of which are so elaborate that they actually make this incredible system seem fairly tame.

This room is an outbuilding with a second garage about 250 feet from his main house. It sits in a beautiful wooded area that feels magical. This gives Scott a place where he can truly get away and enjoy music or concerts in total privacy any time he wishes.

We are planning our next steps to improve the acoustics and take this system to its next level. Also, with the generous trade-up program from our friends at Nordost. We will upgrade his cabling to keep up with the evolution of this system.

Thank you, my friend, what a fun one this is!

I want to share with you one of our most interesting clients. Bob is deaf in both ears, and yet is truly one of the best Audiophiles I know. He cannot hear a word I say. We communicate using handwritten notes, along with his ability to read lips.

I first met Bob about 15 years ago. He had initially found out about us because of an article he read in one of the trade magazines on the breakthrough technologies Nordost had made on cabling and noise isolation products. He asked if I would bring some to his home for demonstration. I remember feeling skeptical. Thinking “If he can’t even hear my voice, how would he be able to perceive the differences in cabling, noise isolation products, etc.?” I was intrigued, so we scheduled an appointment later that week. He ushered me to his listening room when I arrived at his home.

At that time, the room was pretty simple. As I remember, it had a small sofa, a listening chair, and a fairly decent stereo system. Next to the listening chair sat a few balloons and a small air pump. He played a short repertoire of music for me through his system. I’ve been accused of sometimes playing my music fairly loud. I can easily justify this because I want to feel I am at the recorded venue. And sometimes that venue happens to be a Rock Concert.

But let me tell you…
Bob plays his music loud!

He sits in his listening chair, closes his eyes, caresses a balloon inflated to the appropriate level and feels the vibrations of the music through his fingers.

After listening to his system, that first day, I swapped out his speaker cables with a pair of Nordost. He and I went over the same tracks, and all of the sudden, a huge smile came to his face and he spoke loudly “Much better!” I asked to borrow his balloon and almost immediately, I was able to feel the vibrations through my fingers. It gave me goosebumps, and I suddenly understood how this remarkable man had trained himself to adapt to his inability to hear with his ears.

Years have passed and Bob’s listening room has now transformed into what I can only describe as a very comfortable music sanctuary. It is indeed a tribute to the art of recorded music. He has hundreds of albums, not one but two elaborate stereo systems set up on opposite ends of the room facing each other. Located between these systems sits a listening chair that he swivels 180 degrees depending on which system he wants to enjoy. His various balloons and air pump sit close by.

We are now in the process of upgrading his main system with some of our favorite Aesthetix gear and Nordost Sort Kones and their remarkable Q-Base MK 3 primary earth grounding system. I will follow up with some more photographs when this upgrade is installed.

This week Justyn, Eli and I had the pleasure of updating this exceptional listening system for two of my favorite customers in Port Angeles. I met these folks about 15 years ago when they were building their home. I remember during our first meeting they told me they wanted to be able to sip wine, enjoy their view and simultaneously feel as if they were at a concert.

Definitely our kind of customers!

They stopped into our showroom a few weeks ago to see and hear what is available today in the world of high end audio music systems. We auditioned our Mola Mola Tambaqui, Aesthetix Memus, Focal Sopra No. 3 speakers (which I have been bugging George to come in and listen to since they first came out), along with our Nordost array of support for cabling and noise isolation products.

Fortunately we had originally pre-wired this room with Nordost speaker cabling so we have the ability to get every last drop of detail to our speakers fully intact without problems with phasing or noise issues. We had originally installed a pair of Focal Chorus 936 tower speakers which are still sounding quite good. I know this as I am listening to them here in our showroom as I write this. We traded them towards their new Sopra 3s.

We also originally employed one of our favorite of all time subwoofer, JL Audio’s F113. After 14 years, it still is reaching down to the last octave of bass and providing a believable impact of a kick drum, even in this very large space.

We are retiring the original Krell integrated amplifier and will be replacing it with our Aesthetix Memus. The Memus, for those of you who are not familiar with Aesthetix, is their award winning, “affordable” hybrid tube-preamp and solid state output integrated amplifier. This beautiful hand crafted component not only sounds like silk but also has an amazing ability to allow a listener to find the perfect volume level. This might seem trivial to some but anyone who owns a goose bump machine like this will tell you getting the volume level not just close but perfect is quite satisfying. The Krell Integrated amp we are replacing utilized a digital volume control and it has become a bit finicky, sometimes jumping up the volume steps when it shouldn’t.

I know I have said this before, but the Mola Mola Tambaqui is a truly musical game changer. The way it presents digital recordings goes well beyond anything we have ever been able to offer a customer. After every customer demonstration I have done it is always the same response, “I want this!”

We will have to wait on Memus as they are built-to-order. Jim White, the owner of Aesthetix, will not release any product until it is thoroughly tested and listened to. It sort of reminds me of the old TV commercial, “We will sell no wine before it’s time.” But in our customer’s case this actually works out just fine as the Sopras need to break in for a few weeks anyway.

Here are a few photos of this lovely listening room. I will post an update as soon as we are able to finish their upgrades.