My latest Setup The MG way

Happy new year Michael and to all tunelanders!!!

2020 has been a long and tiring year with covid kicking in. Hope all has been well with everyone here in tuneland.

I have been continuiously keeping my system in tune with what I have learned so far over the years from Michael, Sonic, Heindl01 and from rest of the write up here on tuneland. Looking back at my journey it has been a long, winding and at times frustrating journey that I have endured lol. Starting from establising my setup in my living room with my HEA system, moving to a dedicated tunable room which Michael helped to design and finally ended up ditching my HEA setup (ARC's and SF) for a super light mass setup. Each step was a huge leap forward and a huge eye opener for me on how much better everything sounded.

As seen from my previous posting in tuneland when I finally moved towards a light mass setup, I tried various types of class d amps with various power supply(lpu and smps). After a year of trying i have finally now settled down with Maggie cd player and rotel 820a intergrated amp as seen below. I got this motivation to try out the rotel from Mats and hearing his discription was something that I too wanted to try out myself. Thanks Mats!



The total cost of this 2 equipment itself doesn't even justify the sound stage and music that it is producing currently. All I can say with a clear conscious mind that it has bested my most expensive setup which is Arc's and SF setup.

As before I have been using Michael's rev 6 signature speaker for the past 2.5yrs. This has been another eye opener on how glorious it sounded and how huge it can throw a stage. A combination of light mass equipment and Rev 6 signature speaker has now given me what I have always yearned for a huge holographic sound stage, detailed yet full body and beautiful floats all around my room. Although it is still lacking on that final low end bass department in my dedicated room, but in my computer room the Rev 6 signature bass easily goes seriously low. Im sure there's some pockets of PZ in my dedicate room that im still yet to find and tap on. No matter what the Rev 6 signature just sounds amazing in every other aspect a speaker can ever perform.




A little bit on the Rotel as shown here I have clipped off all the cable ties seen except for the ones nearing the board (it was hard for me to get in between the ties to snip it off) I didn't want to risk damaging that solder point on that board. Also I have cracked the screws on the amp board. By simply practicing this 2 steps it gave a very significant jump on how the sound opened up. It just totally transformed the Rotel by giving more life into it. The stage just expanded in a matter of minutes and after a period of 3 days it sounded slightly warm and fuller. After 5 days of continuous running in it has now settled in beautifully. There's still a few more steps that I have yet to do and that is loosening the transformer screws attaching to its chassis and removing more of the amp chassis. All will be done slowly but for now this is where I am at.



From the full picture view of my system above one can see more goodies from Michael and yes I have gone full MG way with with speaker and equipment platforms. Wish I could explain it more here but I will reserve that on my next post.

Hi there Michael and fellow tuners

Continuation on my previous post, as I have shown I have finally gone full MG way with Michael's platforms (speaker and equipment). Along with this Michael has also provided me with his latest LTR blocks, western red cedar blocks and small LTR cubes as seen from the picture below.





This was a whole lot of goodies from Michael! I got them acclimatised  by removing them from its plastic wraps and rested them in my living room area for 1 week before I assembled them. Getting the platforms assembled was not difficult as everything was already predrilled but it was tiring as I had no power drill and there was lots of screwing to be done lol. As I was assembling them Michael was there to guide me all the way which was a huge help!



Post assembling I brought them to my listening room and left it for another 1 week to acclimatise to room humidity. As you can see the whole package comes in 2 parts a platform and it's rails. In total I have 5 platforms but I installed 4 of them since I'm now using Rotel which removes 1 more equipment in my audio chain.

I started off by placing the speaker platforms first, it was not an easy task as I had to take into account on all the tuning over the side walls and ceiling side I had done previously for the Rev 6 when it was placed on the floor. But with the speaker platforms in I have effectively raised the speaker height by around 5 inches. This made the sound to be diffused and caused the sound stage to shrunk. After having a small pause I remembered I had my previous SF speaker markings. The SF height is almost the same as the rev 6 with its platform in. So moving them away from me by 6 inches to my previous SF speaker markings managed to bring back that familiar soundstage and it's imaging I had before. Although it was not as in tuned like before but that was good start. My next step was to re-tune my room by removing my previous side wall tuning and celling bits. I used Michael's latest small tuning LTR cubes on the speaker, platforms and side walls as seen below.



This made quite a substantial change in a very positive way! 1st thing I noticed was the whole front stage was filled with music it was everywhere. Stage expanded width, height and depth giving me a huge stage to look at. Looking at speaker I just couldn't hear even 1 note coming out from them, its like the speaker has totally disappeared. I even stood up and walked close by up to 1 feet away from the speaker and yet I didn't feel like any music was coming out from the speaker. On to tone here it was quite interesting I was getting more midrange and midbass. Listening to Jennifer Warners The Panther those shimmers on its initial 30 secs of the song was getting slightly more pronounced but the highs sounded slightly subdued with less air however  from low end side I could hear more undertones especially with drums. Strangely details was still preserved on certain instruments. It is quite confusing to describe but one thing for sure I'm happy with the results. I left everything as such untouched for the next few days and then I revisited where I left off. The highs began to appear, it sounded razor like but not bright at all. Acoustic guitar sounds very realistic, plucking sounded detailed and strumming notes tend to linger on longer. Is this an exaggeration of notes being produced or am I tapping onto unheard notes before I'm not sure but it is certainly an amazing listening experience I was hearing.

At this stage with the speaker platforms in and the LTR cubes applied it has already brought out more performance from Rev 6 signature than before and this is huge! I was having second thoughts on how should I proceed next cause the sound I'm getting right now has already surpassed my previous setup and I was enjoying it. I felt like I didn't want to disturb anything for now and just soak up all that I'm getting with the speaker platforms in. But after having Michael commenting about the blockage that he saw on my front side at center area of my equipment with its clusters of previous tuning boards that I used for my old setup, I decided to redo that whole area up.



So few days later I removed all of those center cluster and introduced MG platforms for the Rotel and Maggie. The center area looked more empty and I find it looks better now than before. However that holographic stage disappeared, sounding flat and once again I was back with a diffused image with a slightly smaller stage than before lol. But one thing I have learned is to trust the tunes and every move made is a learning curve for an even bigger step forward.

I will continue my next post with a follow up on this until next time take care and stay safe

Hi Michael and fellow tunees,

Been a while since I posted as usual I got caught up with work. So picking off from where I left after cleaning up that center cluster mess over the front stage side, this has caused the sound stage to shrink a bit. All that I have gained from that lovely holographic headphone stage from my previous tuning has lessen. In total I would say the whole stage has shrunk by around 20%. At this point im not too worried as I know now exact area of my front stage has good amount of pressure zone that I can tap on.

 



Looking from the picture above as you can see more goodies from Michael, by using his base boards and LTR blocks I managed to retrieve back all that I have loss previously but this time things got slightly emphasized on the center stage pushing the vocals more towards the back of my head lol. This was the same effect I had initially when I got my room done and with my first setup 3-4 yrs back . Well one thing I have learned from my previous tuning adventure is when I get this type of stage it's time to work on my ceiling area which was my next step. Based on what I have learned from Michael and had done previously using few wooden tuning bits I placed over the ceiling. This time I applied Michael's LTR cubes and immediately I was able to pull back the center stage from back of my head to around my head area and slightly in front of my face this way I was able to once again regain back that headphone effect. Now one thing after tuning for quite sometime in my room I have realized that it has gotten to a point that it is very sensitive. Even with the slightest change on wood placements in millimeters or just off by few degrees will set off a different stage presentation. Each presentation varies from sounding slightly diffuse to sounding clear like all instruments have gelled in together beautifully but the stage height might be high or even at times certain areas of the stage there will be holes. Usually when this happens I will have to re-tune those celling wooden bits or my side wall areas to bring it back. Why this happens is usually because I might have moved them unintentionally while tuning around that area or at times with all the vibrations running through the wooden panels it may have caused those wooden bits to move by it self.





As you can see from this image above this is my ceiling area few inches away from my head the LTR cubes I got from Michael are applied. And if you look closely they are not in line together where one is angled slightly more than the other. Why 2 and not 1 are used? Well I started off with 1 piece and later after optimizing its placement I decided to try out another piece because the center stage was getting better but it was still not hitting that exact spot that I was getting initially. With 2 of them placed as such I managed to get back that center stage and this time I found the tone is more neutral. Is this due to Michael's LTR wood material used or is it due to the size of the cubes in relation to the other smaller cubes I have been using as can be seen beside them? Well I don't know lol, hope Michael could answer that . I did try a 3rd cube but that gave a total opposite effect. So 2 it is and the 2nd cube was angled slightly as seen from the picture above.

Here I am back to what I wanted a huge panoramic sound of my stage panning from left to right shoulder to shoulder and with certain recordings passing behind my SAM wall (left and right side) with a center stage flowing just in front of my head and at times moving pass my head to the back of my head. Although this time I can hear some parts of the stage is not 100% filled up (front left side especially) and there are still some clusters of instruments heard(not much of space between them), I'm not too worried as I will slowly work around them maybe after giving them time to settle down I might be able to get area filled up. Well lets wait and see how it goes. Until then my tuning adventures marches on. Just wish I had more time in a day to tune .

Hi there Michael and fellow tunees,

Been meaning to post up on the continuation of my tuning advances done with my current light mass system but I got diverted with Abby Roads Sun king track lol. But this was a good thing as I now know where exactly my system is based at by referencing and comparing notes with others who have posted up thier findings previously. With Abbey roads recording not only was I was able to identify some small issues I had on my sound stage (depth and height over the left side stage) which sounded awkward but I managed to make good advancement with my latest tune tweaks! But before that what was done previously before Abbey roads can be as seen from the pic below



My thoughts previously was to tune the amp, my mind was like screaming to me to start working on the amp (loosening its chassis screws and transformer screws). So with that in mind, I did a small tweak and that was to loosen the front faceplate screws seen from pic above. Results was pretty amazing just by loosening them slightly I gained richness and texture. It was quite shocking as the changes was quite profound. With these gains there's more details, emotion and I feel like the vocals took a much more neutral tone. This is welcoming indeed as I previously felt there was a slight strain on certain vocal tracks but now it just sounds more pleasant. Basically there was less sibliance especially that "Shh" vocals . I'm not sure if this is suppose to sound as such cause if I listen in my car audio system that sibliance on those certain tracks are apparent and using my stock heaphones that comes with my phone also sounds as such too. Either way I'm not complaining cause what matters in tune world is what I like and what sounds correct to my ears . With the tunes you are the master of your system and that is a powerful tool to have.


So with that tweak towrds my amp was up then next came Abbey Roads listening session. As mentioned earlier on this thread with Sun King and Before track I felt the stage over left side sounded awkward. I felt that my stage depth and height was not as balanced or filled up well but on other tracks it just sounded beautiful, full sounding with a complete wrap around 360° feel stage. So after looking at it and mentioning it to Michael I decided to do some minor tweaks over the front stage.





The area that im talking about is the RT pillow over the center side of my front wall as seen from the picture above. So what was done is I angled the RT pillow to a more acute angle than before from around 60° to 45°. Results was spot on thats all that was needed to hit that magic spot. Beautiful depth! it did affect other areas of the stage but surprisingly in a good way which was huge relief! Usually with any changes made in my room theres always some drawbacks but this time none. With the same tracks(Sun king and Because) the left side now sounds filled up better spacings and with much more depth than before. On other tracks there was more layering and the back part of my listening space which was already filled up  but now they sound much clearer than before. Talk about hitting that jackpot well I was like that, all just fell into place without any drawbacks. So after giving a day's of settling in I came back in and did another listening session and can confirm that I have managed to hit that perfect spot and what I heard before the effect is correct and there was no drawbacks stage wise. The only thing that changed was the tone but only slightly. I find it sounds slightly smoother which makes it sound a tad warmer than before but there was no loss in details, transparency, highs was as usual sweet not bright, bass sounded plump and extensions on both ends(highs/lows) was very nice. Sibliance was gone, nada, not present at all and like i said details are still well preserved. Maybe the tune God's are align with me this time as I really like what im hearing here. 2 tuning steps and both gave positive results!

Looks like I will have to withold for a while on my next tuning adventure as I find them currently sounding really nice with an involving, textured, balanced and perfect wrap around 360° stage. I will be doing some digging out more on CDs that previously sounded bright on certain tracks just to listen how do they sound now. Till then happy tuning my fellow tunees.