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  1. Chris, this is heresy to most audiophiles, but with state of the art DSP, there are many more speaker placement options available. I’ve got my TAD R1s tucked in the corners of my 12 by 18 room, and they sound fantastic. There is quite a lot of sound damping in the corner and side wall to control mid bass and up reflections. And the bass boost of 10-15db must be addressed with DSP, which Mitch Barnett does masterfully. The end result is quite astonishing. The extra headroom in the bass is amazing. As Andrew Jones put it, your woofers are barely moving. If you go to the pro side you will see Genelec suggests speakers should either be very close or very far from the wall behind them. Now with DSP very close is a real option and it provides much deeper, smoother and more powerful bass.
  2. View Classified Focal Arche Headphone Amp/DAC Original owner, near mint condition. Very lightly since 11/2020 purchase as I mostly listen to me speakers. Seller pga Date 03/30/23 Price 999.00 USD Category Headphone Amplifiers  
  3. View Classified Audio Alchemy DMP-1 Roon ready streamer with PS-5 linear power supply Purchased in 2016, slight scratches where the two units tend to rub together. This is a fantastic sounding streamer with USB and AES/EBU outputs. Works perfectly with Roon. I used it with a Berkeley Reference DAC using the AES output and saw no need to use the Berkeley Alpha USB, which I also have for sale. The PS-5 power supply can power two devices at the same time, such as the matching preamp. Seller pga Date 03/30/23 Price 599.00 USD Category Music Servers / Streamers  
  4. Berkeley Audio Design Alpha USB View Classified Mint condition, no original box, will include custom Marutani Consulting 1.5m AES cable Seller pga Date 03/29/23 Price 1,149.00 USD Category Digital to Digital Converters  
  5. MA3 is not the least bit bright in my system with TAD R1s, that tend to be very sensitive to anything bright. I would say the treble is the most natural, analogue like that I’ve heard at home.
  6. I’m quite happy with my MA3. It replaced a Berkeley Reference Ser2 MQA. Both are excellent DACs, but to my ears, in my system, the MA3 had a more natural organic sound, while preserving the detailed sound I got from the Berkeley. Ergonomically, the MA3 is a more modern, easier to use product with full Roon integration via the Net input, that also sounds great. Absolutely a home run by Ed and his team.
  7. Just recently started playing this old guitar that I learned to play on in 1970. This is a classical guitar made in the traditional Spanish style by Miguel Company. Miguel was born in Spain, moved to Cuba and became the premier luthier on the island. He fled Cuba on a raft when Castro took over, bringing Cuban wood with him. He set up shop in Miami, where he worked until his 80s. Miguel is best known for the 12 string guitars he made for CSN & Young. I recently had my 51 year old guitar refurbished by a younger Cuban luthier that studied the craft in Spain, Bill Glez. I learned a lot from Bill on just how delicate the process is to build a classical guitar. Bill is a big Miguel Company fan, and even bought from Miguel’s widow wood that Miguel had in his shop that came on the raft with him from Cuba.
  8. View Classified Berkeley Audio Design Alpha DAC Reference Series 2 MQA This is a like new, factory fresh unit, rated 9/10 due to age, for sale by original owner. DAC and remote have rarely been touched as a universal remote was always used. DAC was serviced by Berkeley Nov 2021 to replace volume control switch, unit was thoroughly tested and is performing 100% to spec. Hardware was upgraded to Series 2 at the factory on Aug 2016 when Berkeley was offering upgrades (no longer available). Remote, manual and original packaging are included. No returns accepted. Seller pga Date 11/11/21 Price 7,250.00 USD Category Digital to Analog Converters  
  9. The speakers were repositioned after the biamp, so the measurements don’t compare apples to apples. I did near field measurements before and after the biamp. They were very similar as I recall, but I did not save them. You can surely try using REW to optimize a simple parametric EQ. It’s better than nothing and better than trying to do this without the REW optimization. I did this. It’s ok, but not fantastic. REW can also design a convolution filter. I also tried this and it’s a little better than the parametric. Audiolense is a whole other level of sophistication. The Bob Katz article is 8 years old. I have absolutely no relationship with Mitch, other than that he helped me twice to optimize my system. His fees are less than most of the silly cables audiophiles buy. All I can say is give it a try.
  10. It’s a bit hard to see, but if you compare the untreated stock TADs with the biamp version, you van see that they stock TAD is very flat overall up to 10k when it’s on axis. The biamp version does have a small tilt down. The XVR1 active high pass is used in conjunction with the high pass in the speakers. Andrew Jones set this up so they would sum correctly with the woofers that are only using the low pass in the XVR1 with the passive low pass that’s in the TAD totally bi passed. It is unfortunate that high end audio has not moved in the direction of active crossovers and DSP. It is very difficult to build a low pass at 250hz unless you use ferrite core inductors. The ferrite core inductor in the TAD low pass is one of its weak points. With that totally out of the circuit, my woofers are not directly connected to their amplifiers. This made a very big difference in bass definition and dynamics. Also now the amplifiers that drive the coax are not taxed with powering the woofers.
  11. RPG did this work quite a long time ago, so I don’t know how they would do this today. That said, it’s not about having them design a room that’s flat, it’s more about treating reflection points and room modes. RPG will identify the primary room nodes, and these are treated with bass traps. Some may be too low in frequency for a practical approach to exist. For example, this is the case in my room for the node caused by the 18’ dimension. That one you just live with and treat as best you can with DSP. Regarding the reflections, again, some are worth treating and some are not. I didn’t want to block my window, for example. I had removable panels made for this, but it was more work to put them up and down than it was worth. The ceiling is an important reflection point. Same for the front wall, but I like my TV … Back wall has diffusion and abfusion. You don’t want parallel reflective surfaces. But if you treat the ceiling, then the floor is less important to treat. Same for my side walls. The window is untreated, but the other side wall is, so you will not have flutter echo between these. RPG will shoot for a certain reverberation time, that is relatively constant across frequencies. Too much reverberation is sounds sloppy, too little sounds dry. My room is closer to dry than to sloppy. The test Mitch runs reveals much more than the frequency response, it also shows him your reverberation time, which is best addressed by room treatments. Mitch then designs a filter with a target curve, this is what defines your frequency response. I determined that there was just too much I didn’t know about acoustics to try so this without Mitch. One thing I learned is our ears will fill in narrow gaps in the frequency response, even if they are deep. But the6 are very sensitive to wider gaps even if they are shallower. When my TADs were out into the room, they had wider gap in the bass response, from 50-80. But in the corners, they had deeper but narrower gaps. And in the corner that had too much deep base centered at 30 hz. Without DSP you would not want them in the corners, but with DSP you can dial down the bass at 30hz. So now I have flat response easily to below 20hz, with very significant headroom since the speakers are attenuated sharply below 30hz. Also, as good as the TADs are, they are a little bright. You can adjust this with toe in, but it’s better to point them to minimize reflections and just dial in the treble with DSP. The side to side imagining of the TADs after Mitch EQd them is quite amazing. And the center image is also very strong. Most people would think I have a center channel. It’s that good. Also the timbre does not change as things move from left to center to right.
  12. The TV surely is not ideal, but at this point in my journey, convenience is also a big consideration. My system all runs off an MX-450 universal remote with macros. When the TV turns on, the UBS 5v output triggers a Parasound SCAMP signal detector / trigger that turns on my amplifiers. It's 100% plug and play so anyone can operate the system with TV, Roon, Xfinity, AppleTV ... Not much need for surround, center channels or woofers with a properly set up two channel system.
  13. Chris, think about how many studios have soffit mounted speakers built into the wall … they work fine, but these are all professionally installed and calibrated for that location and boundary reinforcement. The corners essentially are increasing the efficiency of the woofers. The main problem with putting R1s closer to the corners is that the stock R1s overall frequency response is not tuned to have the extra level of bass the comes from the speakers being closer to a corner or front wall. But Mitch can easily compensate for this, and the bonus is that the compensation then results in added bass headroom because the woofers are working in a more efficient location. The other problem with the corner placement is side wall reflections. That’s where the RPG treatment comes in. These are 4” to 5” absorbers on the sides and front wall, so there is not much midrange reflection there. And also the TADs are toed in so they point away from the side walls to a location slightly in front of the listening position. Toe in is often used to dial in or attenuate the treble, but with the EQ dialing in the optimal level of energy at all frequencies, you can instead use the toe in to minimize reflections from the side walls. And then you rely on the EQ to set the energy levels of the midrange and treble.
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