HFA Audio Setup History
7 August 2005
Main picture above: this must have been somewhere around 1976. This is me with a radio glued to my ear: the fascination really was there early on.
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16 September 2005
All wood furniture; tables, wall fixtures and cabinets that you can see in many pictures are designed and made by me. Over the years I went from highly curvy shapes to more linear furniture.
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19 November 2005
Ramping up to the high-end
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7 August 2009
The complete setup as it was in December 2008. Individual component changes aside, the setup 's main components remained unchanged until 2009 and many reviews were written using this system.
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8 May 2010
I was sure of it: the Rowlands had to go. They were set aside but I had not yet sold them. Meanwhile I had bought a McIntosh MA6900 integrated amp. How simple could an audio setup be? But this would be short-lived.
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8 August 2010
August 2010 The setup is now completely and utterly tweaked to my liking and is configured in a perfect way. For the first time in a very long time I feel that I can live with the setup for a while without tweaking it… The main picture above shows the setup in its entirety. The […]
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12 August 2011
While my Levinson 390S was away for repairs, I had an Ayre CD player on loan, and once again tried a bunch of Marantzes. This time not just any Marantz though: after concluding that the CD80 was nice enough as a transport but not great as an integrated player and trying the ancient CD74 and […]
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21 December 2012
The above picture illustrates where we left off on the previous page, with no more room for the Meridian MD600. Once it seemed proven to me that integrated CD players invariably beat separate transport-DAC combos and that going by the results obtained so far, this also seems to extend to streaming (as evidenced by the […]
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14 May 2013
Cinema setup – before the room was to be combined with the bedroom, computer room and hallway I used to have a small but dedicated room for all video purposes. This prevented having a TV in the livingroom that interferes with the audio system. The bonus was that the cinema is very well damped and […]
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14 May 2013
Bedroom system – before the room was to be combined with the cinema room, computer room and hallway The bedroom double-functioned as 2nd TV room at the time. Pretty unneccesary really, but I still had the TV as a leftover from the previous house so I went and installed it in the tiny bedroom. Like […]
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14 December 2013
Transitional change – Bedroom turns Media Room For a short while, I moved the bed to the cinema room, keeping the video components intact for the time being. This was done to empty the small former bedroom to function solely as a computer media room so that the computer setup could be removed from the […]
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3 March 2014
After having turned the former bedroom into a Media Room I started feeling trapped in the small space. As I work long days behind the computer I felt it important to feel at ease in the space around me. After all, that is why I decided to make a dedicated room for this! To add […]
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18 April 2014
The Media Room v1 was just finished and looked great, but I didn’t feel at home in it. As I spend large amounts of time here, I felt it important to feel well while working. That’s why I decided to break down the walls as can be read in the previous chapter. The new Media […]
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26 July 2015
Wadia 121 connected to the PC using a KingRex uART USB cable, and standard DAP XLR cables (experiments will surely follow…) to the active Genelec 8050 monitors. On these photos the room seems narrow, but it is actually 4 meters wide, and 7 meters deep. Wadia 121 – used as the hub of this system: […]
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4 December 2014
Turntables and Home Cinema One of the latest incarnations of the system, right before I changed the entire room. Thanks to the extra Artesania Turntable Platforms, there is room for 2 turntables and their associated pre-pre’s – the rest of them are on a separate table. I had built a separate Turntable-table, to give my […]
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19 January 2015
After a quick experiment, it was evident that I have had the speakers on the wrong side of the room for years!
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7 February 2016
This system's sound was surprisingly good considering that the speakers are so close to the rear wall and the listening seat is pretty close to the speakers.
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13 March 2016
After being unhappy with the placement of the listening sofa, some more construction work was in order… This is what the secondary setup looked like end 2015: a nice, cozy place to listen to music and watch TV. To make this setup possible I had already removed several walls. Still, I was unhappy with the […]
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13 March 2016
After completing the construction work it was time to reposition the Apogees The Duettas and associated equipment were moved into position and with anticipation I sat down on the listening sofa, only to be overwhelmed with bassy room modes. Of course I could have known. With the initial sofa placement smack in the middle of the room […]
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16 May 2016
After completing the wall construction work, my new setup lasted only 3 months...
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16 May 2016
Martin Logans, like any dipole speaker, need lots of space around them The listening section of my secondary listening room is only 4 meters wide, but with careful positioning of the speakers I have been able to get excellent bass out of them with seemingly ruler-flat response, much better in that respect than in the […]
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17 April 2017
This setup is based around a pair of Genelec 8050 active speakers and an Exogal Comet DAC. Source is my regular computer, on which I also maintain this website. The room is practically stuffed with bass traps, necessary because of a very persistent room mode. This very room mode made me want to give up […]
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26 May 2017
I guess I just like being busy and keep experimenting. Oh and these speakers do sound fantastic, so it is a waste never to connect them up!
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26 July 2017
After the troubles with room modes that I could not get sorted I reverted to using the secondary room as a media room again. After all, I spent most of my time behind the computer so I might as well dedicate an entire room to that, with an optimized audio monitoring system, right?
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24 August 2017
After the halfway-there secondary listening rooms and the media room set ups, now I finally have a secondary listening room that spans the entire width of the appartment.
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17 April 2017
An overview of the main system as it was in place for most of 2017.
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26 August 2017
If all my experiments over the years have taught me one thing then it is that amplifier and speaker performance is highly relative.
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12 August 2018
I had started a quest to find the perfect amplifier, for my Diva situation at least. By now I knew that there were amplifiers that are more expressive and lively than my precious Rowlands, but so far none of them was a match in terms of treble refinement and low-level resolution.
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Amplifier Reviews,
HFA Audio Setup History,
Passive Speakers Reviews,
SPDIF DAC Reviews,
USB DAC Reviews
18 August 2018
Finding my next reference speakers and amplifiers - part 2
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Amplifier Reviews,
HFA Audio Setup History,
Passive Speakers Reviews,
SPDIF DAC Reviews,
USB DAC Reviews
18 August 2018
Finding my next reference speakers and amplifiers - part 3
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3 July 2021
Since I was content with the sound in the Main Setup, it was time to accommodate the video section to the new situation. As it would turn out, beamer issues would lead to the start of a new Secondary Audio Setup / Cinema Room.
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2 February 2022
For some time after Ben's efforts as part of his Acoustic Matters services, I was happy with the Wilson system. But soon, annoyances crept up again. This was because as part of the main issue was addressed, other issues were now made more abundantly clear.
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