System #454 (Summit, Stage Vista, Abbys)

System #454 (Summit, Stage, Vista, Abyss)

Name: Bart T
Location: USA, North NJ
ML models: SUMMIT (2010), VISTA (2008), STAGE (2012), ABYSS (2010)

It all started by "accidently" walking in to a fancy audio equipment dealer to just "look around". Dealer sat me in front of ML Clarity driven by some Mcintosh rig and magic happened. He also tried to convince me to some crazy expensive Sonus Farber but it was already too late for me......
Clarity was my first ML model. Soon, Vista came along. After that Summit and Stage to complete my dream of full electrostatic multi channel system.

As of now my system looks like that:

M-channel:
- Conrad Johnson MET1 preamp
- Musical Fidelity 750K mono blocks driving Summits
- DIY AMB Beta24 DIY mono blocks driving Vistas
- Emotiva UPA-1 for center speaker
- OPPO BDP-95
- 2x Martin Logan Abyss
- DEQ2496 to EQ subs

Stereo:
- Krell kav-280p
- Marantz SA-11S1

Welcome aboard Bart, given the wide angle view, your HT set up looks larger than life !

Nice system there......love those Behringer things to EQ subs......I couldn't use a sub without one!

twich54 said:

Welcome aboard Bart, given the wide angle view, your HT set up looks larger than life !

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Thanks to my 8mm circular fisheye lens - the only wide angle lens I have. It looks deceiving but room isn't large and I have a lot of work making it sound right using acoustical treatments.

amey01 said:

Nice system there......love those Behringer things to EQ subs......I couldn't use a sub without one!

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I haven't play with this one yet even though I bought it years ago. But that's the plan to employ it with dual subs EQ using RoomEQ Wizard.

My pride: Christmas present Conrad Johnson MET1 tube multi channel preamp

Some other view of my system

Vista as rear speakers driven by my DIY amp

I echo what Dave and Adam already said, great looking set up. Looks like a great room to watch movies. Tell us some more about the DIY amp (it doesn't look like a home made piece of gear by the way, very professional). Welcome to the group!

MiTT said:

I echo what Dave and Adam already said, great looking set up. Looks like a great room to watch movies. Tell us some more about the DIY amp (it doesn't look like a home made piece of gear by the way, very professional). Welcome to the group!

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Thanks,
DIY amps are Beta24 mono blocks designed by AMB (http://www.amb.org/audio/beta24/) built by me. It was hell of a project and lots of work to make it look nicer than average diy project. Very nice piece of engineering done by AMB.

I'll try to find some pics showing inside of the amp but in the mean time:

Welcome Bart! What a nice system! Job well done on the DIY gear, I second Tim's statement that it looks professional.

One of my DIY amps stripped and exposed.

Nice work on the mono blocs, and a really great system.

Windows shopping turned out quite expensive for you ! System looks really nice.

Could you offer more info on the mono-blocks you built? I looked at the website and they don't seem to offer much in the form of info. Do you have schematics or anything? I just finished building a plasma speaker and this could be a cool follow-up project for me!

JordanD said:

Could you offer more info on the mono-blocks you built? I looked at the website and they don't seem to offer much in the form of info. Do you have schematics or anything? I just finished building a plasma speaker and this could be a cool follow-up project for me!

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There used to be a lot of info on headwize.com but forums had been removed from this site and now all info is gone. You can inquire directly to AMB (designer) for detiled documentation with all the info you'd need to build the amplifier. (there is a link to do so on his webpage). You also can get superb support from him with any problems you may encounter with your project and his forum (linked also on his webpage).

P.S. it may cost you about $1500+ to build it but it's really rewarding project and the amps are a reference class.

Finally done EQing with REW and DEQ2496 on both subs. Repositioning subs also turned out to be crucial to supplement digital EQ. I must say I'm quite pleased with results.
Given the nature of the room (read: small it's really difficult to correct for room modes. For now I have to fight with 100Hz dip, also known as SBIR.
Subs are crossed at 80Hz with Summits for this excercise....

A really nice DIY amp looks like a factory built design amp very good job you have done there. Diy is very fun and it give so much satisfaction when the project is finished working and looking good. I post apicture on my DIY amp no longer for sale unfortunally but it is a dual mono pure class A amp ( A/B with a switch) and balanced. I bought it in the late 90`s and it still kick my Sl3, probably it is time for upgrade i assume.

svenake56,

The amp looks impressive. I bet you need help moving it around.....wild guess: 30kg of of fine electronics?

With DIY projects enclosure tends to be the most challenging and expensive. Also planning and arranging all components is crutial to make it look it presentable, professional nad neat. In your case it's top-notch! Mine was rather: plan as I go

MrBT said:

svenake56,

The amp looks impressive. I bet you need help moving it around.....wild guess: 30kg of of fine electronics?

With DIY projects enclosure tends to be the most challenging and expensive. Also planning and arranging all components is crutial to make it look it presentable, professional nad neat. In your case it's top-notch! Mine was rather: plan as I go

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Well honestly i was lucky ( or not in perspective DIY) with this amp i bought their " demo amp" so i did not have to do so much work on it but some changes i did ,top cover and a little other stuff. But it was truly an DIY amp from the beginning. But i have done some other DIY projects, a tube amp that you had to build from the ground and also make the chassie. Now i am rebuilding my turntable ( Thorens) with a new plint in acrylic glass, so DIY is rather fun stuff

Cool thank you for the response! I did email to get some more info, I haven't had a chance to check it all out yet. It is seems like an expensive project, but I may build it over the next couple years because I am still in college so most of my money goes to school haha. Thank you still!

Crossover modification

My Summits received new crossover capacitors. For experimentation I've chosen "cheaper solution" with well regarded Sonicaps Gen 1. Didn't want to spend more $$$ not knowing what to expect but it turn out to be very positive improvement.

Stereo imagining and spaciousness improved noticeably. Also, new caps cured this weird, fluctuating and very slight frequency imbalance between panels.

Next step will be bypassing and sometime in the future I plan on rebuilding crossovers with "more premium" parts.

Franken_OPPO 95 modification

All of my components were modified to some extent. The most modifications received the most heated/loved component: OPPO 95
Despite all the hype and hundreds of million of people shouting out loud about all the greatness of this player, I was almost lonely voice wispering otherwise.
Although I love oppo for its functionality but I hate it for it's sound. The moment I brought oppo95 home I had reference player Marantz sa11-s1 for direct comparison. I just couldn't live with oppo digitisis disease. It sounded way too lean, dry, non3D-flat, fatiguing, not-involving-in-music and DIGITAL......

however.... a couple of months of prototyping and experimenting:

The FrankenOppo:
The big chaos:

SS fully discrete output stage with separate for each DAC hi precision oscillators with dedicated power supplies.

Vacuum Tube output stage LAMPIZATOR


At this point player is being powered by all discrete (non IC based) linear circuits. Noisy SMPS is a history.


Summary:
- Tube output stage
- SS fully discrete output stage
- high precision oscillators for DACs
- High precision oscillator for main board processor
- dedicated PSUs for oscillators
- fully linear PSU all over(all discrete - no noisy IC regulators). most important are +/-15v for output stage and +5v for digital main board (huge improvement).
- No switching PSU

Still in prototype phase but it really is different beat now......getting better and better....luckily far far away from original oppo95 performance.