Installations

Yesterday Adam and I installed this beautiful system for our new friends and customers in Gig Harbor. For this room we chose Focal’s Aria 948 speakers.

We paired it with our new Marantz Model 40 which has become one of our most popular components and for all the right reasons. It is actually a truly amazing sounding one box, class A/B amplifier, preamp and high resolution streaming device. It also includes a high quality phono input, subwoofer outputs and HDMI ARC input for smart TV’s as well.

We cabled the system with our favorite cable and interconnect company Nordost.

You can tell by the smiles it turned out awesomely.

This time in Twin Falls Idaho.

Matt flew to Boise and then drove to Twin Falls to install and calibrate this system for our new customer Norm. For the last couple months I have been working with Norm, putting together a system that would match exactly what he communicated he wanted. Norm has owned some pretty decent gear over the years but had heard all the buzz on Focal Sopra no3.

After many phone conversations, texts and emails he decided on starting with two pair of these bad boys along with Focal’s matching center channel speaker. As you can probably tell, Norm likes to feel his bass. He has tried several subwoofer systems over the years and ended up with 2 JBL twin 18 inch pro concert level sub cabinets. To isolate the center speaker from these massive woofers, Norm had purchased
4 very large dampeners that are normally used in the aerospace industry. So potential problem solved.

We moved onto upgrading his electronics and chose Anthem’s AVM 70 and MCA 525 gen2 amplifier so that we would have plenty of clean power and quality processing. Anthem’s beautiful room correction was able to harness this beast of a system and control the sound stage at all volume levels. All cabling including speaker cable, power cords, balanced interconnects and line conditioning were from our good friends at Nordost.

Norm actually hasn’t listened to his system yet! He’s debuting his system tonight and going over some of his favorite recordings. He promised to call me Saturday and let me know what he thinks. I have a feeling I’ll get a very excited call from him tonight.

This week we finished this amazing sound system at one of our good customer’s winter home located in Rancho Mirage California. Our customer knows by now what it is like to own a true high end audio system as we have done several for him over the years. This home is a beautiful original mid century modern design.

We wanted to keep the sound system low profile visually yet have a stunning full lifelike presentation that makes one believe they are at a concert. The acoustics of this space presented a bit of a challenge. Lots of tile and glass. However because of today’s modern technology we are able to accomplish all these goals. Adam installed our best Focal In-wall speakers along with JL Audio’s finest low-profile subwoofers next to the rear couch, located under side tables. We used our Nordost Heimdall 2 cabling to make sure no detail got lost in the translation between the speakers and amplifier. His preamp amplifier is from our Danish friends Lyngdorf. We employed their new TDAI 3400.

With it’s amazing “room perfect” digital acoustic room correction technology and built in high resolution streaming ability, our good friend and client can now come home from a hard day of golf and within seconds be enjoying a concert from whatever artist he chooses.

Needless to say… Life is good.

I spoke with my client over the phone after Adam had finished programming and auditioning his new system for him. He was so excited and happy he wouldn’t let me off the phone.

So life is good for us too.

A Special Guest Post from a Happy Customer

It all began with a letter from owner Jim Lee in Spring of 2013.

I had made my first purchase on my maiden visit to Nuts About HiFi… a pair of Grado RS1i headphones meticulously selected from a grand total of two pairs that they had in stock, while I was visiting Silverdale from Ann Arbor, MI. This was my second pair of audiophile headphones: one of anything might be good, but two of them represent the start of a collection. That Grado headphone started me on a journey into the land of headphones, and I have acquired at least 50 pairs and written about many of them on the online forum head-fi.com.

I was amazed, a few weeks after my purchase, to receive a letter (remember those?) from Nuts About HiFi. It was from Jim Lee, thanking me for my purchase and hoping I was happy with the headphones. I called him in amazement to express my appreciation for his follow-up. Eight years later I moved to Poulsbo, WA.

Two weeks ago, in September of 2021, 8-1/2 years later, Matt and Adam of Nuts About HiFi completed the installation in my home of a Samsung QN82Q900RB 82 inch TV with wall mount, two Focal Sopra 3 floor-standing speakers, Focal Aria CC900 center speaker, two Focal Surround BE speakers, a JL Audio F113v2 subwoofer, Anthem AVM 70 audio-visual processor, Aesthetix Atlas stereo amp, Anthem MCA 325 3 channel amp for the surround and center speakers, a Sony UBP-X-1100ES 4K BluRay with SACD capability, a Meridian 218 zone controller, a TS-451+ NAS drive, a Clearaudio Concept turntable with moving magnet, Salamander cabinet, $4,500 worth of cables (6% of system cost), a power module, and MX990 universal remote with MRF350 RF module to control it. Whew!

System design was by Matt, who began with a Meridian Sooloos system as music source, but then changed that to Roon when Meridian froze its development of Sooloos. Nuts About HiFi bought me a lifetime subscription to Roon to compensate for the loss of Sooloos.

The upgrade from Sooloos to a Roon subscription is just one example of a whole series of customer amenities that Nuts has offered me. System design began prior to COVID, and the TV, power supply, and cabinet were installed in early 2020. We could not resume installation until May of 2021, and some manufacturers had updated their items, so Nuts updated the diagram. Adam provided excellent installation, particularly in the art of running the ARC Anthem Room Correction, wrestling with a shortage of wall height in placing the center speaker, and programming the remote so that it truly does replace the 4 remotes that we had been using.

Yesterday, I received my first SACD disk (Miles Davis – Kind Of Blue). In listening with eyes closed, I just knew that his jazz band was right in front of me… yes, right there… don’t you see it!?

Thank you, Adam, Connie, Jim, and Matt!!!

John G. Ackenhusen

BarBaCoa, most likely the finest food truck in the Northwest, just added some tasty sound to their menu. You can follow Chef Dan Miller and his BarBaCoa food truck on his website: chefdanielmiller.com.

Highly recommend it.

Nuts About Hi-Fi had the pleasure of designing and installing a complete home theater and whole-home sound system for a beautiful custom home recently built overlooking the magnificent Hood Canal. This home is featured in the latest issue of West Sound Home & Garden magazine. Thanks to the Church family for allowing us to be a part of this fantastic project. Here’s the article where you can read all the details:

SunDog Ranch

A sample from the article:

The Churches gather for a weekly family movie night. The home theater turned out to be a bonus during lockdown as their extended pod of grandkids, nieces and nephews joined in.

Jim Lee and his Nuts About Hi-Fi team designed and installed the theater’s sound and video system and the placement of acoustic panels, as well as the home’s interior and exterior sound systems. Other bells and whistles, 21st-century style, make the property energy-efficient and green: on-demand, hot-water, high-tech heat pump; LED lighting and a super security system.

West Sound Home & Garden magazine recently wrote a really nice feature story on a Kitsap home that we have upgraded with a complete home, audio / video installation. We’re the ones you call when you want the sweetest sound and video setup imaginable. Here’s a link to the article:

Aloha, Hood Canal

Here are a few samples from the article:

Upstairs, a theater with a large screen and sound system comes with a lively history. When Brent Stinnett lived in Poulsbo, he asked a cable company tech who could help him with a whole-house sound system. The tech recommended Nuts About Hi-Fi so he called Jim Lee, the owner. Little did they know what capers would come of their meeting.

Lee installed a sound system with a music library called Sooloos that put 15,000 albums at the fingertips of Stinnett, who expands his access to music further with a subscription website called Tidal. Oh, happy days! Stinnett lights up as he talks about their love of all kinds of music. Well, except rap.

Meanwhile, Nuts About Hi-Fi installed a new setup in the downstairs entertainment room and tweaked the existing central-sound system. The outdoor room sports a drop-down screen and barrel speakers. Donna Stinnett says sometimes the guys are out around the fireplace watching a ballgame and the gals are down the hall singing karaoke.

Yesterday we installed a beautiful pair of Focal Sopra 3 speakers for a great customer and friend Bill Galloway.

Bill and I have been working together on his listening system over the past 15 years or so. Each year we have performed at least one component upgrade. Bill obviously loves his music and it has been both fun and interesting hearing these upgrades and getting his feedback.

We are using our Aesthetix Mimas for the preamp and amplifier, our Clear Audio turntable and a Meridian Audio music library running currently with their Sooloos software. Nordost interconnects, cabling and line conditioning tie this beautiful system together. The Sopra 3’s along with our JL Audio F112 subwoofer fill this room with a spacious, realistic music presence that anyone could appreciate and enjoy.

Bill recently retired so he now has plenty of time to enjoy his listening room and share it with friends and family.

Thanks again Bill for everything and allowing us to share this post.

West Sound Home & Garden magazine just did a wonderful feature story on us and the state-of-the-art, entire home, audio / video installation we’ve been designing and installing for the past couple of years. We’re providing a few snippets from the article, but you should read the whole thing. You’ll get the full picture of what we can do to make your audio/video dreams come true. Here’s a link to the article:

Serious About Home Entertainment

A few samples from the article:

The heart of their home would center around music and home entertainment to bring friends and family together for fun and memory-making. They wanted entertainment of all kinds: a billiard table, golf-simulation games, music and movies both indoors and out. To make that particular part of the dream come true, they hired Jim Lee and his crew at Nuts About Hi-Fi.

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From start to finish, this project took two years. Lee, Krawoski and Huson spent around 20 hours talking, demonstrating and designing with their clients. The project fills three closets with equipment racks to manage the seven-zone, surround-sound system and screens. No room in the home was left out of the plan, including the garage. The zones can operate as a whole-house system or as individual rooms.

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Once the system is installed, the equipment is balanced to the acoustics of each room. The Nuts About HiFi team live for the moment when they finally crank up the sound system for their clients. These two broke into wonderous smiles and danced to the music.