Installations

Hi folks,

We have an exciting system update to share!

Yesterday, Justyn installed our first set of the new Aesthetix Pallene and Dion components. Our valued customers, who ordered these a couple of months ago, noted a significant improvement over the Marantz Model 50 integrated amp we were using as a placeholder. I will be meeting with them later this evening and look forward to hearing more about their experience.

Here is a recent review from Absolute Sound Magazine.

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.

Hi folks,

I wanted to share an update on a long-term project with my good friend and customer, John. We started designing his listening room over 15 years ago. His beautiful home, perched on a hillside overlooking Hood Canal, was once a bed and breakfast and has always been one of my favorite places to visit. The stunning gardens, his incredible art collection, and the old-world architecture make it feel like a comfortable museum.

Our journey began when John and his wife wanted a high-end home theater system, which we installed on the upper floor of their home. During the theater design process, John and I would often take breaks to enjoy music in our listening room. As a true music connoisseur, John quickly became captivated by the possibilities of high-end audio and decided to embark on this lifelong adventure. Even with so many rooms in his home, he chose to add a dedicated wing just for music.

As technology has advanced, we’ve continuously upgraded his system over the years. Our most recent upgrade a few months ago was the Mola Mola Tambaqui, which elevated the overall music performance to a new level.

Yesterday, we replaced his power conditioner with the new Nordost Reference QB 10. I had recently installed this amazing device in our showroom and was so impressed that I called him the same day to tell him about it.

Given John’s background as a scientist, we like to use a scientific approach during our listening sessions to evaluate how a new product truly affects the sound. Carefully noting the exact volume levels and our listening positions, we first listened to an Emmylou Harris track John had been enjoying recently.

Then, we replaced his older line conditioner with the new QB 10 and started over. It took less than ten seconds to realize we were both hearing what seemed like a completely different recording. The best way to describe the difference was a calming sense of realism, Emmylou’s voice was no longer lost among the surrounding instruments but was clear and pure.

Next, we moved on to a very familiar recording of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, which is frankly one of the most difficult pieces to get right on any system. I wish all my customers could hear what we heard. Joshua Bell’s violin, even during the crescendos of the entire Berlin Philharmonic, remained so precise we could hear every nuance of every string.

John turned to me and simply said, “Can I write you a check?”

Here is a quick update of my favorite “basic” garage sound-system. Yesterday, we added the most amazing subwoofer we carry in our inventory, the JL Audio Gotham™ v2 Powered Subwoofer. It did the trick as far as reaching down to the last octave and provided a new dimension which is impossible to describe.

We have one of these bad boys in our showroom. Stop in and we are happy to show you what is possible.

For the last couple of days, Eli and Justyn were busy meticulously installing Vicoustic acoustical treatment panels in the garage owned by my good friend and customer Scott.

This is an update from a previous post we did a couple of months ago, when we had first installed a beautiful pair of Focal Maestro Utopia EVO Speakers. Scott had decided to transform his garage into a “man cave”, a place he could use to get away, smoke an occasional cigar, and crank up his tunes without bothering his wife.

This project started with him telling me he wanted a “simple system”. I think it’s safe to say we have gotten a bit carried away. Anyway, the acoustics in this garage were tough to say the least. The dimensions of the space were just shy of a cube, which is always challenging, especially for bass, but the real issue was his concrete floors.

It didn’t sound like a racquetball court, but it was close.

Another challenge was positioning the speakers. The listening chairs are on casters to allow for flexibility, as he occasionally still parks one or two vehicles in there. So he sometimes has to pull his chairs up close to his equipment cabinet. We carefully positioned the speakers to allow for this.

We didn’t want to carpet the floor for obvious reasons, so we decided to do the next best thing and dampen the ceiling with 72 Vicoustic premium ceiling panels. I’ve used these for years in difficult rooms, and they always do the trick.

So yesterday afternoon, I drove to his home to listen as Justyn and Eli finished the panel installation. The moment Scott and I walked in, we could tell just from the sound of our voices that the panels had transformed the room into a very natural, enjoyable listening space. The system sounded amazingly better.

We still have a bass issue, but we can fix it easily with a second JL Audio subwoofer. This will smooth out the lowest frequencies and add a lot more impact. I will post again when we have it finished.

Thanks very much, Scott, for allowing us to do what we love.

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of installing another of our favorite DAC/streamers, the Mola Mola Tambaqui.

If you’d like to read more about it, here’s The Absolute Sound’s latest review: Best DACs Series: Mola Mola Tambaqui.

Our good customer Sheri stopped in Saturday and joined an impromptu listening session I was having with another longtime client, Rich. Suddenly I got busy with a few other clients, so I handed my iPad to Rich and Sheri and they spent about an hour listening and sharing some of their favorite tunes.

By the time I got back to them, they had both decided that “life is too short not to own one.”

Rich is picking his up today. Sheri’s sounds amazing in her room, and we were both thrilled with the upgrade.

Thanks, you two, enjoy your music!

A couple of days ago, Eli and I had the pleasure of upgrading the system for one of my all-time favorite customers. Over the past 15 years, Jerry and I have had a lot of fun improving his sound system. He loves his music and is always curious about how to make it even better.

Jerry stopped in to the showroom a few weeks ago and we listened to the Sopra 3s together. He decided it was time to upgrade from his smaller Sopra No1, which he’s owned and enjoyed for several years.

One thing led to another, and I gave him a demo of our new favorite DAC, the Mola Mola Tambaqui. We also hooked up the Aesthetix Mimus, and Jerry was immediately all in.

After ordering all his new gear, we waited a few weeks to sync up our schedules for installation. I’d been looking forward to this one, his setup is approaching the best possible sound we can achieve in his room. With his listening chair just about ten feet from the speakers (which have a set location in the room), I hoped we wouldn’t lose any of that big, immersive soundstage or depth.

Eli did a terrific job installing and calibrating everything to the room. When I arrived later that afternoon and sat down in Jerry’s chair, I honestly think it sounded every bit as good, if not better, than in our showroom. This is one of those systems I wish every one of our customers could hear. You truly feel as if you’re in the room with the musicians, enjoying a private concert from the best seat in the house.

A big thank you to Jerry for allowing us to have so much fun pushing the limits of audio perfection.

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!