Below is the FINAL FINAL version of the living room stereo. No, really, it's final! Sheesh!
I bought a SACD via eBay of the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony live.
If you know nothing of SACDs, you are not alone. There have been three different formats created to improve the sound of standard "Red Book" CDs: HDCD, SACD and DVD-Audio.
There are universal players that will play most of them, but I think HDCD players are the hardest to find as are HDCD titles.
Super Audio CDs use technology similar to DVDs in that they use much smaller pits to hold the info, thus can contain a lot more. They are often "Hybrid" in that they have a standard CD layer and a SACD layer. Often, that layer also has stereo AND 5.1 channel surround recordings of the same music. The above LSO disc is that way.
SO, I took it down to the family room which has a SONY DVD/SACD player hooked up with all six (5.1) channels hooked to a Yamaha surround sound receiver. The main (front) speakers are the BOSE 301 Series V speakers that Nancy bought for me hoping I would stop using the large Optimus PRO 4000 speakers in the living room.
The rest of the speakers are a centrally located 12" powered sub-woofer, a Pioneer center channel speaker and a pair of DUAL rear channel speakers.
I pulled all the furniture to the rear of the room except the rocker and glider footrest that I centered in front of the equipment, and pressed play.
Almost immediately I was amazed by the breadth of the sound stage and utter realism of the sound that I was hearing. As I listened to the whole piece, I was carried away and by the end I was almost in tears at the beauty of the performance and fantastic reproduction I just heard.
So, since I was home alone, I took it up to the living room to hear how much better it could sound on the main stereo. To my utter amazement and shock, it did not sound anywhere nearly as good as it did downstairs. How could this be? There is thousands of dollars of equipment here and countless hours of setting it up for the best sound!
First, I took the MXR equalizer out of the loop and it sounded a little better. Then, I thought that I'd try it with the Eosone/Lyric speakers I'd built. Now, that was better!
Titling them upward a bit made it even better. So, today I literally pulled the MXR out of the system and placed the SONY SACD player in it's place. I then took the blue Liberty cables
that had gone to and from the MXR and put them to and from the PIONEER CD recorder.
Then I put the red Liberty cables to and from the cassette deck.
Now ALL the RCA interconnects are Liberty ones. Thus the second part of the blog's title.
Then, I removed the Eosone/Lyric speakers from their home in the carcasses of the Optimus PRO 4000 speakers. Therefore having a much smaller speaker in the living room which pleases Nancy.
I drilled holes in the bottom of the speaker cabinets and inserted the spikes that were under the DCM KX 12 speakers. The same 2" lift at the front and only the cones at the rear. This aligns the drivers so that they fire directly at the seated listener's ears.
A test with the LSO SACD satisfied me and banished the fleeting thoughts of selling the whole
kit and kaboodle. So, it still doesn't sound quite as lifelike as the BOSE 301s do, but I'm still happy.
I read a review by a long time BOSE 901 speaker lover that test listened to a pair of 301 speakers and immediately sold the (expensive) 901s! They sound THAT good.
So, you may be thinking why not just move the BOSE speakers up to the living room? Well, the family room is a rectangle and I have them positioned exactly the same distance from their side walls as well as centered on the wall. Plus, they are mounted on TV wall stands that place them a distance from the wall behind them. This careful placement allows the BOSE "Direct-Reflecting" design to work perfectly.
The living room/dining room/stairwell/hall upstairs is not a good shape nor anywhere near symmetrical. So, the 301s wouldn't sound as good.
Here is the fully Liberated rear of the stereo:
Here is the Eosone drivers in the Lyric cabinet:
Tomorrow I hope the weather is better as we have things to do outside and both of us are working Sunday.
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