- Two things about me: A ) I’m a cheap rat bastard. I find the cheapest way to get results worth 5 to 100 times or more than what I spent. And B ) I’m lazy. Well not really lazy, I just want to get the results I want as quickly, easily and cheaply as possible and I will do what it takes to get there and no more, so that I can enjoy the results and go on to the next thing.
- My wife and I bought a distressed 1865 4.5 story brick townhouse based on the #5 design in Villas & Cottages by Calvert Vaux (one of the designers of Central Park and Prospect Park in Manhattan and Brooklyn) for $5,780. The building had been abandoned for 26 years and was largely gutted. We hauled 82.5 tons (not a typo) of garbage and construction debris out before we could start with a top to bottom restoration and rehab to 85% of Passive House performance standards.
- the room was used prior to its current use for 26 years by crack heads who squatted there. There was evidence of 4 fires in the building. It’s a miracle it was still standing.
- to get to 85% of Passive House performance, we need to add significant amounts of insulation and building envelope tightness to a very high standard, beyond what code requires (though code is catching up), yet since it is an important historic building in New York State’s second largest historic district, we had to do it in a way that the city’s architectural review committee would approve of. Rockwool is the ideal material for this historic + energy performance construction because of its thermal barrier qualities and because it doesn’t begin to melt until temperatures of 2,000 degrees are reached. Blown in foam insulation is the last thing one wants to use: it’s not reversible, it gases off for years, it ignites at 380 degrees, and once it starts burning, it generates more heat, causing other things to catch fire and it burns until it burns out. By using this material, we are making sure that this historic building has a great chance to last another 160 years
- our architect specialized in marrying architectural preservation with building energy performance. He also had designed a few recording studios. He knew that I had been involved in this hobby since I built a Dyna 70 kit at age 14, and he knew that I lived in a spectacularly wonderful 2,000 sq ft Lower Manhattan loft that was nevertheless an acoustical nightmare. Since the energy specs called for 6” of rockwool in all the envelope walls and 12”+ in the roof, and since rockwool also is great for acoustic room treatment (many acoustic panels and audio room treatment products use the material), he said that instead of covering the audio room (the entire 400 sq ft attic) with sheet rock, to cover it with fire resistant burlap and I would have for FREE what his clients spent $250,000 - $400,000 on for their recording studios.
- I do not see why you would not aspire to the best room performance that you can afford. Recording studios must achieve a high performance standard because the recording engineers need to hear what is being recorded as accurately as possible. I’ve captured that performance level for zero dollars. Please explain to me why that would not be desirable.
- As a visual artist, I put a lot of work into creating something that I hope my audiences will spend the time and effort that it takes to appreciate it. Similarly, recording artists go to sometimes great lengths in the recording studio to achieve a desired result. I believe that the ideal we all strive for here at audiogon is to have a playback environment that reproduces the recording artist’s intentions with as much fidelity as possible.
- As for my being “scientific”, I don’t really know where that is coming from. As I think I said before, I am hardly as anal as many people here at audiogon. Like most people, I make do with what my grasp can reach, and rely on research and common sense to get the best results out of my room, which is suited due to its shape (the gabled roof yields few right angles) and what I did with it based on my limited learnings.
- I’ll be the first to admit that my approach is not for everybody. My approach is for me. It works for me. My single mindedness and simplicity of approach, adherence to basic - not rocket science - principles, and reliance on vintage components are maybe the most important take aways for members of audiogon to use or ignore as they see fit.
- RESULTS: I don’t get the “I’m into the music not the gear” thing. As I just explained above, the gear is at the service of bringing out all of the artist’s musical expression and intention. Art is in part about emotion. For about three months since Jon Specter spent 3 months rebuilding my amps, I’ve had people up to The Attic about every other week. Half the time, guests literally start crying because they have never experienced music like that and simply cannot believe what they are hearing. The word that is invariably offered to describe the physiological phenomena of the sound in the room is holographic. The music both surrounds them and penetrates them physically (I not infrequently hear very high quality systems, as good and sometimes in some ways better than mine, that leave me cold because the music stays on a plane in front of me, as if being etched on a blackboard).
- As for my charming personality: I used to be a shy quiet nerd. Then I moved to nyc. Then I started working for big ad agencies. I did well. You don’t do well in that business without developing very sharp elbows. Maybe in the final third of my life I will learn to mellow out again.
sorry everyone if I’m being redundant but somehow it seems like I’m not making myself clear enough to some here.