LATEST Piece of Gear in Your Stack - What is it?

[mandrix]

I've always been a nite-owl.
Since retirement I rarely go to bed before 3am or get up before noon.
No phone calls, no neighboorhood noise, just quiet peaceful time.
I love it !

Just not a daytime sleeper. I worked shift work for years on and off and hated sleeping in the middle of the day.
For I guess 10 years after I retired I'd be wide awake at 0300. Now I just get up at 0730, turn on the coffee, then linger in bed surfing the net a few hours sipping coffee.

 

[barfle]

In my audio room I also have a very large pc with lots of fans. I've managed to turn them down/off and get the noise floor down to about -45dB with the "puck" mic. I did a little test with the UMIK-1 yesterday and found getting below the "high" 30's tough with the better mic.
I may have to install the Dirac Live pc app on my other pc and see if I can get a lower noise floor with the "big ass" pc turned off.

Ambient noise can be a tough nut to crack. My room is surrounded by 6” of insulation (at least - the floor is thicker) and I still hear the occasional airplane and motorcycle outside. As I often state, “pretty good” is all most mere mortals can hope for.

 

[Tribby2001]

A GraceLink internet radio streamer Hey, it works for what I need.
https://gracedigital.com/products/grace-link

 

[Tribby2001]

My room is surrounded by 6” of insulation (at least - the floor is thicker) and I still hear the occasional airplane and motorcycle outside.

Fiberglass or?
There is a product that injects foam insulation inside existing fiberglass insulated walls. It reduced outside ambient noise significantly but certainly not completely. But not much in the low frequency spectrum. Low frequencies are a hard nut to crack unless you employ leaded curtains.

 

[Sal1950]

Ambient noise can be a tough nut to crack. My room is surrounded by 6” of insulation (at least - the floor is thicker) and I still hear the occasional airplane and motorcycle outside. As I often state, “pretty good” is all most mere mortals can hope for.

Yes it's very difficult.
Last year I was looking to reduce the leakage of sound & noise into my small (800sqft) home and to tame room reflections. The initial idea was to build panels as shown on many DIY sites.
I did my homework and found for my needs 2" Roxul Rockboard 60 looked to be the best material, though a bit pricey.
https://www.amazon.com/Roxul-Rockbo...cphy=9012405&hvtargid=pla-1184068766096&psc=1 In the end I decided on a slightly different path of action. Being a bachelor, without any female sensitivities to deal with, I took a shortcut and just filled in all
the windows cavities with the material and covered them with very acoustically shear draperies.
This killed 3 birds with one stone, reducing noise transfer both in and out, greatly improving room acustics, and hugely improving the thermal insulation factor for the windows. I have no
real interest in seeing outdoors and when I do I have a few cameras around the house.

 

[kap'n krunch]

Well, it ain’t the LATEST but, I moved my surround 5.0 Polkies to my bedroom…am using the partly busted Marantz 7012 as a preamp and the Tonwinner 7 ch amp. Feels rather cramped cause my rears are right next to me but, it’s interesting cause I can use my other SL-QL1 and the other Sony BD player… maybe I will plug the dual cassette deck too!

 

[Sal1950]

and the Tonwinner 7 ch amp

So after a bit of time using it now, what are your feelings on the Tonewinner amp.
Any troubles or bugs?
TIA

 

[mandrix]

Ambient noise can be a tough nut to crack. My room is surrounded by 6” of insulation (at least - the floor is thicker) and I still hear the occasional airplane and motorcycle outside. As I often state, “pretty good” is all most mere mortals can hope for.

Yes. To do the Dirac Live calibrations with the UMIK-1 mic I had to shut down my "really big" pc and run just the "big" pc, lol. It's quieter. Plus I had to turn the mic gain down a little to get the noise floor down around -45dB at the MLP.

I was shooting for 13 measurements but settled for 9 because of where the sub sits I was getting too much input on two low positions (at the volume I had it set) and two were just about impossible for mic placement in the time I had. But it turned out well! I was sort of surprised, because on a whim I moved my side surrounds up higher, a good bit above ear level because one was blocked from the mic on some measurements.
A boom mic stand would have made things easier but I already had a camera tripod so I bought an adapter to hold the mic in place.
I literally finished a few minutes before I heard my wife return from town.

I did not do any adjustments yet, just loaded the results into the Onkyo and I'm pretty happy so far.

 

[mandrix]

Yes it's very difficult.
Last year I was looking to reduce the leakage of sound & noise into my small (800sqft) home and to tame room reflections. The initial idea was to build panels as shown on many DIY sites.
I did my homework and found for my needs 2" Roxul Rockboard 60 looked to be the best material, though a bit pricey.
https://www.amazon.com/Roxul-Rockbo...cphy=9012405&hvtargid=pla-1184068766096&psc=1 In the end I decided on a slightly different path of action. Being a bachelor, without any female sensitivities to deal with, I took a shortcut and just filled in all
the windows cavities with the material and covered them with very acoustically shear draperies.
This killed 3 birds with one stone, reducing noise transfer both in and out, greatly improving room acustics, and hugely improving the thermal insulation factor for the windows. I have no
real interest in seeing outdoors and when I do I have a few cameras around the house.

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View attachment 94825
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View attachment 94827

I only have one window in the audio room, being as how it's really a bedroom anyway, a 48" one but with a "storm" window installed inside like I did on all the the 48" windows. Seems to help with noise and provides a sort of "dead air" space.

 

[mandrix]

Well, it ain’t the LATEST but, I moved my surround 5.0 Polkies to my bedroom…am using the partly busted Marantz 7012 as a preamp and the Tonwinner 7 ch amp. Feels rather cramped cause my rears are right next to me but, it’s interesting cause I can use my other SL-QL1 and the other Sony BD player… maybe I will plug the dual cassette deck too!

Lord knows I haven't even had my old dual cassette deck plugged into power in years. Probably the rubber is hard as a rock by now on the tape transports.
But all the recorded / bought tapes would have been ancient by now, all sold at a yard sale many years ago. I had a bunch of TDK SA tapes I recorded decades ago. Held up fairly good though.

 

[barfle]

Fiberglass or?
There is a product that injects foam insulation inside existing fiberglass insulated walls. It reduced outside ambient noise significantly but certainly not completely. But not much in the low frequency spectrum. Low frequencies are a hard nut to crack unless you employ leaded curtains.

Fiberglass. The only surface that has cladding on both sides of the suppoer structure (stids, joists, etc.) is the floor, which is the garage ceiling drywall. The rest is crawlspaces, except for those pesky slanty parts where the roof causes the walls and ceiling to come together at an approximately 45 degree angle (see pics in build thread).

So injected foam is probably not an option.

 

[kap'n krunch]

So after a bit of time using it now, what are your feelings on the Tonewinner amp.
Any troubles or bugs?
TIA

No problemo so far! Knock on wood…

 

[gene_stl]

They look quite interesting and realistically priced.

 

[mandrix]

Fiberglass. The only surface that has cladding on both sides of the suppoer structure (stids, joists, etc.) is the floor, which is the garage ceiling drywall. The rest is crawlspaces, except for those pesky slanty parts where the roof causes the walls and ceiling to come together at an approximately 45 degree angle (see pics in build thread).

So injected foam is probably not an option.

Yeah. I have a slanted roof, def not 45*, but makes overhead speaker placement tricky. (In the audio room only slants in one direction)

 

[Sal1950]

They look quite interesting and realistically priced.

If you're like me and love big VU meters, they look very kool too.
I've been hoping to get review samples for measurement at ASR for a while now.
The AT-300 pre/pro is an interesting piece also.

 

[Sal1950]

I just got this today in the mail, bought off ebay to play with.
Never touched one before, new toy.
Does it count as new gear?

 

[Sonik Wiz]

I just got this today in the mail, bought off ebay to play with.
Never touched one before, new toy.
Does it count as new gear?
View attachment 94854

Yes! But you look more like that guy from PF than that guy from JT...

 

[mandrix]

I just got this today in the mail, bought off ebay to play with.
Never touched one before, new toy.
Does it count as new gear?
View attachment 94854

That's one a them fancy harmonicas, right?
Enjoy!

 

[mandrix]

Yes! But you look more like that guy from PF than that guy from JT...

Nah, Sal actually looks more like some badass biker. But he's def far from being some stereotypical movie version. Actually a pretty smart dude.
(Sal you can send me that fin now) J/K.
BIA.

 

[barfle]

Yeah. I have a slanted roof, def not 45*, but makes overhead speaker placement tricky. (In the audio room only slants in one direction)

I don’t recall the exact slant of the roof, but I needed to know it for some of the cuts I made to drywall and plywood. It’s about 45, but a few dwgrees off. Mistakes I’ve Tried.