System #45 (Monolith IIIx, SL3XC, Sequel II)

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And a very well deserved breather to be sure, as everything you're doing is a helluva lot of work. And yup, the AVP is one heavy sucker! Yes, a lot of people who used Meridian loved the Trifield, it will be interesting to see how PLIIx Music compares. In my setup for 2 channel CD playback I use Pure Direct. I find the sound to be superb! I haven't really tried out any surround processing for music. But I rarely listen to CD's anymore now that I stream WAV files from my PC. The sound is exceptionally good, and so good that I use it to demo for guests. When streaming music, Pure Direct is not available but Direct is, and it takes the sound up to another level over Stereo mode. PLIIx is available for streamed music as well if not mistaken, I need to give it a try and see what I think of it.

I really think you're going to love the AVP's streaming capability.:)

I am also looking forward to how TrueHD and DTS-HD MA sound through your system. I know that it has impressed me so much that I now only want to watch Blu-rays and HD DVD's with lossless audio. Believe me the dynamic improvement over the legacy formats isn't subtle. Give Alien vs. Predator 2, Spider-Man 3, or Rambo a listen and you'll know what I'm talking about. It's good stuff!

You've still got your work cut out for you over the weekend. Hopefully if everything goes as planned I'll be looking forward to your initial impressions sometime Sunday.

Have fun and enjoy your 4th!


Seth
 
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Whew!

14+ hours of installation later, and We have sound again :rocker:

I tell ya, it’s no picnic making changes to such a large and complex system.

I had to move the DriveRacks around to place them closer to the preamp so the balanced cables could reach. This means moving shelves on the highly adjustable Salamander Synergy racks.
I love these racks BTW – Every time I make major changes, these racks allow me to adapt to the new.

I placed the new pre-amp on one of the middle fixed shelves, as they are rated for hundreds of pounds, so a measly 65 lb. preamp should be fine :haha1:

It took both my wife and I to drag that bad boy into the room and carefully place it in the rack. Again, it fills the Synergy racks as much as the big Sunfire amps do. It’s a behemoth alright.

I took so long also because as I took out gear, I cleaned up really well, some of that gear had been sitting there for six plus years :eek:

I also focused on being neat on the new install, using tons of zip-ties to strap down the cables in key locales (see pics below). So the rats nest is largely gone. Still, there are tons of cables. But now, except for one lone feed from the LD player, everything is some form of a digital cable from the sources.

The connections from the pre-amp to downstream processors and amps are all Balanced now :cool:

So after lots of wiring and double checking, I fired it up and she ran right out of the gate.

Once I did the automated setup, it generated he Audessey corrections. Mostly a serious reduction in low-end (the IB sub is a beast in its own right), and a good bit of boost on the highs.
Even though the room is very well treated acoustically now, the corrections across the board are significant. So I’ll pull out he measuring rig tomorrow and double check.

I’m now finally able to relax with some wine and enjoy a Porcupine Tree Concert on DVD.

Sounds very good, but I still need to tune the rear speakers a bit more on Sunday.
 
One hot pre!

Oh, the Denon AVP is not only huge, but generates heat proportional to its size and weight! :wow:

Good thing the equipment room has its own dedicated AC now. Otherwise I'd worry about it.

I even have 7" inches of airspace above it just to be sure it gets good airflow.

If you get this pre-amp, count of dealing with cooling challenges.
 
JonFo said:
Whew!

14+ hours of installation later, and We have sound again :rocker:

I tell ya, it’s no picnic making changes to such a large and complex system.

I had to move the DriveRacks around to place them closer to the preamp so the balanced cables could reach. This means moving shelves on the highly adjustable Salamander Synergy racks.
I love these racks BTW – Every time I make major changes, these racks allow me to adapt to the new.

I placed the new pre-amp on one of the middle fixed shelves, as they are rated for hundreds of pounds, so a measly 65 lb. preamp should be fine :haha1:

It took both my wife and I to drag that bad boy into the room and carefully place it in the rack. Again, it fills the Synergy racks as much as the big Sunfire amps do. It’s a behemoth alright.

I took so long also because as I took out gear, I cleaned up really well, some of that gear had been sitting there for six plus years :eek:

I also focused on being neat on the new install, using tons of zip-ties to strap down the cables in key locales (see pics below). So the rats nest is largely gone. Still, there are tons of cables. But now, except for one lone feed from the LD player, everything is some form of a digital cable from the sources.

The connections from the pre-amp to downstream processors and amps are all Balanced now :cool:

So after lots of wiring and double checking, I fired it up and she ran right out of the gate.

Once I did the automated setup, it generated he Audessey corrections. Mostly a serious reduction in low-end (the IB sub is a beast in its own right), and a good bit of boost on the highs.
Even though the room is very well treated acoustically now, the corrections across the board are significant. So I’ll pull out he measuring rig tomorrow and double check.

I’m now finally able to relax with some wine and enjoy a Porcupine Tree Concert on DVD.

Sounds very good, but I still need to tune the rear speakers a bit more on Sunday.
Click to expand...

Yikes, that was an all day install! But I can only imagine all that was involved with everything you have going in that setup. I'll bet you're tired. Glad to hear that everything went smoothly, and that after you were finished for the day that all was a success! Good to know that initial listening is really good. After you get it all fine tuned, I'm looking forward to your impressions. Thanks for sharing that with us.

JonFo said:
Oh, the Denon AVP is not only huge, but generates heat proportional to its size and weight! :wow:

Good thing the equipment room has its own dedicated AC now. Otherwise I'd worry about it.

I even have 7" inches of airspace above it just to be sure it gets good airflow.

If you get this pre-amp, count of dealing with cooling challenges.
Click to expand...

Yes the AVP gets a bit warm, and like you, I have also allowed plenty of breathing room for mine. After using mine for many months, I have found it to now run even cooler. It now gets only moderately warm but never hot.

There is no denying that this thing is a beast of a pre/pro.


Seth
 
With all them inputs and outputs , I would have to take a long hard drink to get my head right......... I am glad I run, ONE ,thats right, 1 set of IC . Well if you count the sub woofer hook up I guess there is two:mad::mad: .........:banana::banana:

I bet it runs warm with all that hardware stuffed in there. Great to hear its working out for ya Jon! I would love to hear your system some day if I'm traveling through town !
 
STV said:
... Yes the AVP gets a bit warm, and like you, I have also allowed plenty of breathing room for mine. After using mine for many months, I have found it to now run even cooler. It now gets only moderately warm but never hot.

There is no denying that this thing is a beast of a pre/pro.


Seth
Click to expand...


Hi Seth, interesting to hear it would run cooler after settling in.

Mine is still in its hot as Hades phase.

C.A.P said:
...

I bet it runs warm with all that hardware stuffed in there. Great to hear its working out for ya Jon! I would love to hear your system some day if I'm traveling through town !
Click to expand...

C.A.P. Anytime your are in the area, there is an open invite.


The funny thing is, as I spent all those hours in the equipment room yesterday, I actually got a bit of a chill from the steady stream of cold air. :p
 
Finally, the photo lab got me my pictures ;)

Here is a shot of the business end of the AVP and the speaker processors.
The purple cable is a Cat5e Network cable.

Can you believe that I ran out of network jacks next to my rack? I installed four jacks when I built the thing in ‘99, and now have six devices that require a network connection :eek:

Good thing the 24port switch is less than 20’ away within the same room :)
 

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As you can see in this shot from above, there is a lot less clutter than before.

Still, way too many cables!

And this is after removing seven or eight devices and dozens of cables.

At least I tried to do more zip-ties this time, which helps keep the area behind the gear a bit more open.

Also, since the AVP consolidates so many features (Scaler, switcher, processor, preamp) it really does simplify the setup.

Top to bottom- Left stack:
  • HR20 DirecTV DVR
  • Sony PS3 (BluRay player and driving games)
  • Denon 2930 Universal DVD player - DenonLink3 + HDMI hookup
  • The AVP-A1HD
  • DriveRack 4800
  • DriveRack 260
  • Meridian 568 connected via analog mutichannel in (for Ambisonic and Trifield soundfields)
  • Buttkicker Amp (had to relocate due to short cable XLR to TRS, didn’t have extras of those lying around)
  • Pioneer CLD-97 LD player

Top to bottom right stack:
  • Sony SA-T60 DVR (barely visible at top)
  • Crown amp for the IB sub
  • Toshiba HD-DVD player
  • Empty bay with power distribution
  • Sunfire Stereo amp
  • Sunfire CG signature 400x5 amp
  • Sunfire CG 200x5 amp
  • Empty bay
 

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And a view from the front.

Plenty of airspace around the new preamp / toaster :p
 

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Even though there are still a lot of wires, I think you have done an excellent job taming the spaghetti.:) It looks pretty well organized, especially considering the complexity of everything involved. Everything is looking great! Thank you for sharing the pix with us.;)

Well it is good to know that you have excellent A/C for your HT room. Any heat from the AVP should not be an issue. And as I said, mine only gets moderately warm now, and that after using it for entire afternoon music listening sessions and movie watching. Like you, I also keep my HT room as cool as possible.



Seth
 
JonFo said:
[*]Empty bay
[/LIST]
Click to expand...

WOW...

well at least you left room for expansion and your next windmill (dragon) to go chase :p

Seriously... I'm in Atlanta next week and will be making a trip out to hear the new gear.

I just hope I can afford the upgrades I'll 'need' after the visit... :bowdown::rocker:
 
ScottG said:
WOW...

well at least you left room for expansion and your next windmill (dragon) to go chase :p

Seriously... I'm in Atlanta next week and will be making a trip out to hear the new gear.

I just hope I can afford the upgrades I'll 'need' after the visit... :bowdown::rocker:
Click to expand...


Hey Scott, great news! Look forward to having you up here.

You'll even be the first to experience the 'new and improved' acoustics treatments that have yet to be revealed. :cool:
 
The new pre-amp is an endless source of entertainment. I’ve now done four Audessey EQ runs. The first few were to learn the process. So today I just spent three hours this am re-tuning the EQ's on the system, since the recently finished next wave of acoustic treatments were done. So today was the 'definitive' measuring session, including an 8 position Audessey EQ measurement marathon (that alone took an hour).

I also took some independent measurements of the Center and right Channel with and without Audessey EQ to see just how well it did.
Results are quite good. It does a really good job on the mids and highs. As others with Audessey solutions have pointed out, it does tend to flatten the bass a bit too much, but no problem, I can always dial it up a bit in the DriveRack. I also need to get the pro-version of the Audessey kit so I can tune the results directly, as well as integrate many more measurement locations.

Right now listening to one of my reference DVD-A’s and the sound is indeed improved yet again. It’s just amazing how much one can do to continually improve results, although admittedly, it’s both costing more and taking more time to make progress now.

Pushing the envelope is always a thing for me, so I’m having fun for sure. :cool:
 
Alan, sure thing. But first, here is a REW measurement of the right channel both before and after the Audessey corrections.

The red trace is with Audessey, and the purple is the 'before' untreated signal.
 

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Front Channels - Audessey Std.

Here come the screen caps of the Audessey EQ settings generated from this mornings measurement sessions.

Front Channel L/R
 

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Center

The Center:
 

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Surround Side

In my rig, I have two sets of 'surround' speakers.

Side speakers high on the side wall and the Sequels behind the seating area, but to the sides. So I run the processor with dual sides, known as A and B.

Here are the settings for A (sides) alone:
 

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