Last Friday morning, Justyn, Erik, and I had the pleasure of upgrading a truly amazing sounding system that belongs to my good friend and long-time customer, Gary. We have been working on building this system together for over ten years. Music has always been an extremely important part of Gary’s life, and despite unfortunately losing his eyesight a few years ago due to medical issues, he has maintained a keen ear for fidelity.

These recent upgrades included the amazing Focal Maestro Utopia EVO loudspeakers and a pair of Aesthetix Atlas Signature monoblock amplifiers.

Technology now allows Gary to stream high-resolution recordings to these components using Amazon voice commands. While this technology is not yet perfect, it does enable him to access his music collection easily.

Gary is telling me he is loving these upgrades. We plan to return in a few weeks after his Maestro speakers have broken in to tweak the acoustics and install the floor spikes.

Enjoy the Music,
Jim Lee

I wanted to share some photos of a recent Vicoustic cinema premium panel installation that Eli and Erik completed last week for a customer on Bainbridge Island.

I called the customer the following morning to get his thoughts, and he was very pleased with the new look. More importantly, he and his wife are thrilled with how the room now allows them to hear every nuance of their soundtracks, and it has significantly improved their ability to hear dialogue.

Hi everyone,

This week, we had the pleasure of installing a fantastic new system for Ron and Janet, who were referred to us by two couples and close friends in Woodinville, both long-term Nuts About Hi-Fi clients.

Justyn and our newest employee, Erik, meticulously set up all the equipment and ran the Nordost Heimdall 2 speaker cables through the crawl space. We used wall-mounted brush plates both behind the electronics and speakers to ensure a clean, low-profile aesthetic.

After visiting their friends’ homes in Woodinville and experiencing their listening rooms, Ron and Janet decided to move forward with a system of their own. A few weeks ago, at their request, I drove to their beautiful home in Port Angeles to assess the possibilities. The room we chose to be their new “listening room,” directly off their bedroom, is one of the most acoustically balanced rooms we have had the pleasure to work in. Not to mention, the furniture in this room makes you never want to leave the couch!

Ron had been doing some online research and had already decided on the Scala Utopia in a blue finish. These are being custom-made for them in France, and we were able to loan them the white pair shown in the photos as a temporary measure. The Marantz Model 30, also pictured, is a placeholder while we await the arrival of the new Aesthetix Pallene and Dione preamp/amp combination. This is currently being handmade for them by Jim White and his team at Aesthetix. The Marantz 30 we temporarily installed was actually owned by one of their friends in Woodinville that I recently took in trade towards a Mola Mola Tambaqui.

The other day I was just joking with Brad, their other friend, that with as much business as he and Erik are sending us that we will now have to refer to their listening rooms as “Nuts About Hi-Fi – Woodinville branch.”

So after some adjustments, getting this set up and tuned, Ron and I listened to several tracks, including a Led Zeppelin song that I hadn’t heard for years. We were both taken aback by the level of detail, able to hear nuances in this 50-year-old-recording that neither of us had ever heard before. The band was almost in the room with us. And this was after only about 25 minutes of listening to a system that needs at least a week to fully break in.

We still have a few more tweaks to do in this room. Janet has volunteered to make a drapery for the window between the bedroom and the listening room. This will soften and diffuse any high-frequency reflections that might occur during high volume playback. We also will be back into the crawl area to finish cabling the JL Audio F113 Series 2 subwoofer, which is discreetly placed to the left of their couch.

I will follow up with more photos when the system is complete.

Thanks so much, everyone, for allowing us to do what we love, and thanks to all our customers who care enough to refer our services.