Archive - Nuts About Hi-Fi Blog

Breathtaking Media Room

These last two days we have been busy upgrading the media room of one of our favorite customers. As you can see from the photos, this is truly an inspirational system.

Atlas Mono Block Amps

Two weeks ago, Matt and I were there installing two new pair of custom made Aesthetix Atlas mono block amplifiers which replaced a vintage pair of Krell KAS mono blocks. Jim White from Aesthetix personally designed and crafted these amplifiers using all Nordost internal wiring and specific crossovers to match the Focal Grand Utopia loudspeakers.

Clearaudio Statement Turntable

For the benefit of our fellow “Hi Fi Nuts,” the rest of the components in this system include Clearaudio’s Limited Edition Statement Turntable fitted with with the flagship Goldfinger Statement Cartridge. The phono preamp is an Aesthetix IO Eclipse Reference Signature.

Sooloos Music Server

For our digital music playback we use the Meridian / Sooloos music server loaded with over 8000 full resolution compact discs. The Krell 707 does a beautiful job as the main stereo preamp and audio processor. For movie and concert presentations we installed a pair of matching sidewall mounted Focal Electra 1000 be surround speakers which are being driven by a vintage pair of Krell KAS 2 mono block amplifiers. To add even more visceral bass impact, we incorporated JL Audio’s Gotham subwoofer. All the cabling and interconnects are from our friends at Nordost and the electrical outlets and line conditioning are from PS Audio.

Now for the reason we were there this week…
Our client has always wanted an exceptional video presentation. Something good enough to keep up with the sound in this room. Until recently there really hasn’t been a combination of products that we felt would fit this level of expectation. And the size, not to mention the noise of a commercial system was out of the question. So for a place holder we have been using a beautiful older Pioneer Elite 60 inch plasma screen. It is still in great shape and now makes for a killer garage TV.

Garage TV

Enter stage left Sony. Sony adapted some exciting technology from their commercial theater projectors and has brought to market a projection system that can actually produce an amazing image, over 4 times the resolution of Blu-ray Disc: the Sony VW1000ES. And now with the advancements in projection screen technology by Screen Innovations, we are able to drop a trap door style, motorized 92 inch black diamond screen in between our Grand Utopia speakers. Even in broad daylight with the rooms lights on, this picture will absolutely take your breath away. My camera didn’t capture near the stunning experience we all saw in his room today. However we can show you a demonstration of this in our showroom if you would like to see it.

Breathtaking Media Room

Thanks Matthew, Adam and Grant for a beautiful (as always) installation. A special thanks to Mr. Chris Brunhaver from Sony for his assistance and expertise in video calibration. And mostly a huge thanks to our very good friend and client, Scott. We all love what we do. And we sincerely appreciate you for allowing us to do it.

Lots of fun to say the least.

Music Hall MMF 2.2 – Vinyl without breaking the bank!

Music Hall - MMF 2.2

Music Hall MMF 2.2 – $449.00 – complete with cartridge

This year we have helped more customers buy turntables than I can ever remember, Including the late 1970’s. It’s interesting to see our customers in all age groups returning to this format. Now with the availability of new-release, exceptional quality recordings, a nice sounding turntable can maximize the presentation of any good audio system. One of our customers commented recently that when she pops on one of her older favorite albums it makes her feel like she is a kid again. There is definitely a warm musical feeling from vinyl that’s difficult to get from digital recordings.

So in the end is vinyl really better? Let me give you another quick example and you can decide:

Another one of our customers who has seriously gone back into vinyl now owns a Clearaudio Master Innovation with 2 tone arms, one for mono recordings and the other for stereo. He uses an Aesthetix Rhea Signature phono preamp to feed his system. When I asked him which format he prefers he said, “Let me put it this way, when I go to treat myself to a wonderful meal, like say an excellent steak, I cook it on my gas stove and pay close attention to how it simmers. But when I’m just hungry for a quick bite, I usually just pop something in the microwave because its fast and simple. This is how I feel about vinyl verses my digital music server. My phono system is my gas cooktop,and my music server is my microwave.” And this is from a guy who only a couple of years ago told me he would never own another turntable.

So if you have been thinking about recapturing your childhood or treating yourself to a good meal, come in and give this a listen.

Incredible Listening Room with Vicoustics

Listening Room - Vicoustics

Yesterday Matthew and Adam did a beautiful job of installing Vicoustics acoustic treatment in one of our favorite customer’s listening room. This client is an accomplished musician and definitely has an ear for what his recordings should sound like. So over the past couple years he has allowed us to help him build his audio system to the level of performance that most people have never experienced.

Musician's Room

For vinyl playback he chose the Clearaudio Innovation turntable with the Goldfinger Statement moving coil phono cartridge. This feeds the music downstream to the wonderful Aesthetix Janus Signature Preamplifier. From there, using all Nordost Heimdall-2 balanced interconnects, the signal flows out to a matching pair of Aesthetix Atlas Mono Blocks and, because our customer is a bass player and doesn’t want to miss a beat, a wonderful JL Audio Gotham subwoofer. The speaker cabling is Nordost Vahalla and the main speakers are the beautiful Focal Scalla Utopia speakers. For digital playback he chose the Aesthetix Romulus CD player and Digital to Analog Converter and our very popular Sooloos Music Library server.

Listening Room - Gotham

One would think this state of the art combination would knock your socks off. Normally a system like this does. It sounded great, however this room’s overly lively acoustics got in the way of the focus and tonal balance of the presentation. So we invited the talented folks from Vicoustics to help us fix this this problem. Kiera from Vicoustics came out and measured all aspects of placement issues and sent theses specifications to their acoustics engineers located in Lisbon,Portugal. From there they ran several sophisticated computer based evaluations and gave us recommendations along with a menu of products for us to choose from.

Vicoustics Ceiling

The big smile on my customers face last night said it all. We sat with a nice bottle of wine and thoroughly enjoyed listening to this incredible system. I know, I know…. it’s a tough job but someone has to do it.

Enjoying Listening

Here’s the message I received from our customer later after he’d had more time to experience his new system:

“Am I hallucinating or am I getting tons more bass out of the scalas? So I am going to say something really stupid and you can quote me… but I really feel that I am listening to my stereo system for the first time versus istening to the room.”

A Complete Aesthetix System

Aesthetix System

Today we fired up a complete Aesthetix System in our main listening room. It included the Romulus CD / DAC, the Calypso Signature preamp and the Rhea Signature Phono Preamp, along with a pair of Atlas mono block amplifiers. We have been going between the Focal Diablo Utopia and one of our favorites the Stella Utopia. The Calypso is a new addition and we’re just breaking it in. However already I think this is one of the most 3 dimensional sounds we have experienced in our showroom. I recently installed the same system for a client in Canada and felt the same sense of dimension while listening in his room. I just wanted to invite whoever wants a wonderful listening experience to come on in to hear it with your own ears. You won’t believe how good it sounds.

A big heartfelt thanks to our friend and colleague, Mr. Jim White of Aesthetix, for paying very close attention to what can be sometimes overlooked in our industry: musicality and detail but also a wonderfully rich presentation of the physical space sometimes seemingly hidden and often lost inside the recordings.