I know I'm not the only one thinking this, but there are some ass ugly rooms housing some of these great systems. We may have great ears, but we have no sense when it comes to making our rooms look good, with a few exceptions, of course. Any comments? JP
04-23-08: Ckoffend I think more than the appearance of the room, which for some in a dedicated room is not as important, is the number of systems in these tiny little rooms. I have seen some systems with upwards of $25,000 - $50,000 worth of equipment in rooms that don't appear to be more than 8-10 feet wide. Some of these systems are running large, very large speakers that appear to be about 1 foot from the side walls and about 4 feet apart.
Personally I think speakers with 1 foot clear distance from side walls are not a good thing even with some serious acoustical treatments. My room is 11' wide and although I have treatments at both side walls, my speakers performed better with a clear distance of 2' from side walls as opposed to 1.5'.
I do agree that we all have compromises of some degree on room shapes and sizes, and some do ignore the match between the system(speakers) and the room. Room treatments can only help to a certain level and for optimum results it is really important to choose the right size of equipment particularly the speakers for the available space.
CWlondon: Yes, I am in the "looks matter" camp. HST, if it came down to either/or . . I would take the equipment. I am fortunate to have both the room and the equipment.
And, yes Shadorne, I agree with you also.
I am fussy and as any fussy person knows - it is a personality defect that is insurmountable.
Ryder, You can get great sound in a small room, I have done so myself in about the size of yours. The small room does not dictate that good sound can't be achieved and you are correct in your statements in my mind as well.
It is the 10 foot wide room with the 30" wide speakers angled in running two 12-15" woofers, etc. . . that confuses me. These rooms must become overpressurized well before properly driving these huge speakers.
OK so who do members think has the best looking room?
My vote off hand would go to Grr6001, or Mikelavigne in that order, these are truely beautiful rooms and of the ones members post both these rooms are for the most part a universe ahead of the rest.
True, it is apparent that many people have allocated all of their money for a stereo or they just don't give a hoot about how the room looks. I have noticed this though, why spend a fortune for good looking equipment only to put it in a room that looks like the set from Roseanne. Also, I love when people have a $40,000 stereo in a tiny cheapo looking apartment.
Not quite as bad but my brother lived in a trailer while going to college and had several thousand worth of stereo equipment, and this was not a nice trailer.
I currently have a ten grand system squished into a basement bedroom while waiting to complete the HT room, 5.1 system in 12x14' furnished bedroom is interesting to say the least.
I feel very fotunate to have a great listening room.Of course it is a recession/deco man cave ,complete with acoustic treatment made from old temperpedic mattress cover (bass traps),mostly empty(now)wine rack which acts as a diffuser,NOS sofa (purchased from a consignment shop),humidor,scotch glasses and mid century furniture picked up at a yard sale. The room is about 16ft wide and a whopping 30 feet long! This makes for pretty good acoustic,though the ceiling is low. My Acoustat 2s work very well here.
The best part is that I can entertain my audiophile friends with wine,single malts,brandy,port and cigars while we listen at any volume we wish without disturbing the neighbors and pissing off the significant other.My friends seem to like it,though it is not posh in a Mid town Manhattan/Silicon Valley way. It is my style and my room and I like it.And so do the boys.
In the late 80's, I had a buddy who's hifi would fit the title of this post. His listening room was in the basement which had some acoustical treatment. He had taken the grills off of his Quad ESL's and mounted these speakers into rigid wooden frames made with 2X4's and weighted down in the back with concrete block. So they looked like a pair of copper panels reflecting your image at you when sitting in the center. He had welding cable for speaker cables. He had his Sota tt mounted on a modified Billy Bags turntable stand. He had a highly modified ARC SP-6b pre-amp that was closer to being an SP-8 and he had a Quicksilver Tube amp with the cage removed. Next to all this was a 1 Farad capacitor- a large grey metal can to filter the AC power into his system. From a looks standpoint this room was a 1. But being a couple of engineers I could appreciate how that room looked- extremely technical but not pleasing to the eye. When he turned out the lights and with just a warm glow filling the room from his amp, magic happened. Those Quads put a soundstage in front of me as tangible as the artists standing there in front of me. I can still remember the first few records he played for me. I was so blown away.
Today, many $$ later, I think I am there, but the impact factor is past me now. I never built a system/room that looked that rugged, but I didn't focus too much on looks until the last 10 years or so.
My room is 14.5' x 20' x 8'. Not as large as I want but will do for now. As for the WAF, my wife stays out of my room design. She can suggest but can not add without my okay. It is a man cave not an US cave. Maybe just maybe if the items she wants in MY room came some cash, I might, I said might add them to the room. She does help with finding items I cannot locate thou and is very understanding of my affliction. BTW to build my cave also cost me the money to finish the attic space 20'X30'X8' with walkout deck for her
As I thought about it last night, he was on the leading edge of the state of the art in audio. I think he talked to people all around the Mi, Mn area including people at ARC. Back in 1989, I paid him, if I recall correctly, about $400 to upgrade my ARC SP-6b pre-amp. He turned it into a musical instrument. He replaced the RCA jacks with Gold/Teflon type, all the resistors from Carbon to wire wound, Litz wire throughout, new Volume pot, new voltage bias pots for the tubes and all the film capacitors with WonderCaps. I also recall that he added more capacitance in some places. I enjoyed that pre-amp for 14 years and only upgraded so I could try low output MC cartridges. Even his homemade speaker cables made from welding cables were good for the time because the cables were very thick and welders operate at high frequencies. That's what started me down the path making my own mod's and tweaks to my system components through the late 80s and 90s.
You must have a verified phone number and physical address in order to post in the Audiogon Forums. Please return to Audiogon.com and complete this step. If you have any questions please contact Support.
