Steven Stone's Review Backgrounder

 
 
 Musical interests:

 
Bluegrass, American roots, contemporary acoustic music, folk music, singer/songwriters, symphonic music, chamber music

 
Listening concerns:
 
1. Realism triggers – Inner detail, spatial and dimensional presentation, harmonic accuracy, dynamic micro and macro contrast

 
2. Realism inhibitors – artificiality caused by excessive high frequency emphasis, box resonances, poor bass representation, electronic grain and texture, homogenization of inner details
 
Rooms: 
 
Large Room - Rectangle, 24.94’ x 23.46’ x 7.88’ with a concrete floor and plywood subfloor over most of the room – the sub-floor is filled with acoustic dampening and the sub floor has 2/4 studs on their sides for support so it is only 2’ over the concrete. The purpose of this floor is two-fold. It changes the ceiling height so that the prime seated listening position height does not end up a 4’ in an 8’ high room, which would be the worst place to be in terms of room resonances. Also it eliminates the problems that concrete floors create in the bass region of excessive hardness, bonkiness and midrange and upper frequency floor bounce. The floor is also carpeted and I use thick Persian rugs in primary floor reflection areas. I also use a pair of ASC tube trap half-rounds on the floor in front of the main reflection point of the center speaker to reduce floor bounce. All the walls and ceiling except for the rear wall use ¾ wallboard The rear wall uses a special acoustical wallboard designed to be lossy so that bass frequencies can pass through and not be contained in the room as well as conventional wallboard. This again reduces bass node build-ups. I also use ASC wall treatments at precise intervals, ASC tube traps in the corners and beside the projection screen and two large custom built first reflection absorbers that also serve as CD racks holding 1000 CDs each. 
Power supplied by 2 dedicated 20 amp, 120VAC circuits with Hospital-grade AC outlets.
 
Equipment in the large room:
 
Speakers: Dunlavy SC VI speakers L/R, Dunlavy SV IV speaker for center, Dunlavy SC IAV speakers for rears. Genesis Advanced Technologies G-928 subwoofers (2), EarthQuake SuperNova mk V 15’ subwoofers (2), Snell THX 550 passive subwoofers driven by Bryston Powerpack 120 amplifier (2),
 
Electronics: Pass Labs X-3 power amplifier for L/R/C speakers, Bel Canto M-300 for rear L/R speakers, Meridian 568.2 preamp, Meridian 518 digital signal processor,
 
Cables: Synergistic Designer’s Reference speaker cables and balanced interconnects (for front three channels) Various AC power, digital coaxial, and interconnect cables from AudioQuest, Wire World, Kimber, Audio Magic, PS Audio, XLO, Monster,
 
AC Gear: PS Audio Premier Power Plant AC power regenerator (for front end devices) Chang Lightspeed CLS 6400 (for power amps) Quiet Line AC noise suppressors (8), PS Audio Noise Harvesters (4), Shakti Stones (3),
 
Sources: VPI TNT III on VPI stand with Brightstar sand base and Brightstar air base, VPI PLC, Graham 2.1 tonearm, ClearAudio Victory cartridge, Vendetta Research SC-2b phono preamp, Solid isolation power supply for Vendetta unit, Meridian 598 CD player with Meridian MHR smart-link connection, Logitech Squeezebox Duet wireless digital media player with Channel Islands Audio VDC 9 power supply, Direct TV HR-20, Sony BDP-S300 BluRay player, Oppo 981H DVD player, Toshiba HD A-1 DVD-HD player, Sony PCM 701 recorder/player with Sony SL-2710 recorder for PCM F1 tapes, Pioneer D-05 DAT recorder/player, Pioneer PDR-555RW CDR recorder/player, Pioneer MJ-D-508 mini-disk recorder/player, Pioneer CT-93 Dolby S/C/D cassette player, Pioneer CLD-D704 laserdisc player, two Revox A-77 reel-to-reel recorders, Grado RS-1 headphones, Sony HW-50 projector, Stewart 91’ diagonal 4x3 aspect ratio Studiotek 130 screen masked to 16 x 9 format.
 
Computer Audio Room – Rectangle 13’ 3” x 9’ 1” x 7’ 11” with 8’ x 3’ setback filled with file cabinets with concrete floor covered by wall to wall carpet,. ¾ wallboard with 3M “Quiet Line” insulation material between the 18” spaced studs. Room treatment includes ¾ thick industrial felt on the computer work surface, 3” thick free-standing 1’x1’ acoustic foam squares at the back of the desk area and two 2’ by 2’ RoomTunes ceiling clouds above seating area.
 
Equipment in computer audio room:
 
Source Devices: EAD 8000 Pro CD/DVD player and transport, CEC TL-2 CD Transport, MacPro model 1.1 Intel Xeon 2.66 GHz computer with 14 GB of memory with OS 10.6.2, running iTunes 8.2 and Amarra 1.1 music playing software
 
DACS: Empirical Audio Off-Ramp 3, Bel Canto DAC 3, April Music Stello DA-100, Perpetual Technologies PA-1, Weiss Minerva DAC, Bel Canto 96/24 converter box
 
Preamps: Reference Line Preeminence One B passive controller
 
Amplifiers: Bel Canto S-300 stereo amplifier, Accuphase P-300 power amplifier, Edge Electronics AV-6 amplifier, Modified Dyna St-70 amplifier, April Music Stello Ai 500
 
Speakers: Joseph Audio Pulsars, ATC SCM7s, Paradigm S1s, Aerial Acoustics 5Bs, Role Audio Kayaks, Earthquake Supernova mk IV 10 subwoofer
 
Cables and Accessories: Locus Design Polestar USB cable, Locus Design Nucleus USB cable, PS Audio Quintet, AudioQuest CV 4.2 speaker cable, AudioQuest Colorado interconnect, Empirical Audio Coax digital cable.
 
 
Family Room – A rectangle within a larger room. The main room is 24’ 7” x 29’ 6” x 9’, but the listening area is 13’ by 14’ by 9’. Flooring is a Mannington laminate over plywood over concrete. The walls have ASC SoundPanels on the front wall and tube traps in the corners and as  room dividers behind the listening position. 18” diameter tube traps are also used as speaker stands for the rear speakers in this room. The ceiling is treated with six evenly-spaced 2’ x 2’ Room Tunes clouds.
 
Equipment in the family room:

 
Source Devices: EAD 8000 Pro CD/DVD player and transport, CEC TL-2 CD Transport, Sonos Z-90, Apple TV, Oppo BDP-83, Direct TV HR-20, Sony XDR-F1HD tuner, Monarchy Audio DIP Combo, Sony BDP-S300 BluRay player, Technics SV-DA10 DAT recorder/player, VPI HRW-19 Turntable with extensive mods, PLC power supply, Souther SLA-3 tonearm, Denon/VanDenHul 103D cartridge, Michael Yee pfe-1 preamp,
 
Preamps: Lexicon MC-12B HD w/V 2.0 firmware.
 
Amplifiers: Bel Canto M-1000 II monoblock amplifies (3) for L/C/R, Bel Canto S-300 (1) for rear L/R,
 
Speakers: Genesis 6.1 speakers system with 6.1 R/L, 6.1C center, and 6.1 SR rear  R/L, AV123 X-Static w/Ninja Msster QXX upgrade, Av123  Voce center speaker w/Ninja Elite upgrade, Genesis 4/8 subwoofer, Genesis S 2/12 T subwoofers (2), JL Labs F112 subwoofers (2)
 
Cables and Accessories: Synergistic Designer’s Reference XLR interconnects and speaker cables, Monster HTPS 7000 and Monster AVS 2000 AC conditioners, PS Audio Quintets and Duets for all power amplifiers, Arcici suspension rack,
 
Video Equipment: Optoma HD-80 projector, DVDO Edge video processor, Screen Research Nova screen
 
Music Background: 
Played guitar from age 10. Professional giging during college including short stints with Bo Diddley and the Muddy Water Blues Bands. Took up the mandolin in 1996. Currently play mandolin, mandola and guitar with the Knapweed bluegrass band. 
 

 
Primary live interests/venues: Boulder Macky auditorium where I have been the recording engineer for the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra since 1994, Rockygrass Bluegrass Academy and Festival
 

 
Instruments
 
Guitars: 1936 Martin 000-18, 2002 Gibson Advanced Jumbo, 2009 Gibson J-45 TV, Composite Acoustics Bluegrass Performer, 2004 Gibson L-7C, 1960 Guild M-20, Gibson Johnny A signature #43, Guild F-512, 1977 Ibanez Johnny Smith
 
Mandolins: 1930 Gibson F-5, 2001 Gibson F-5 varnished Fern, 1997 Gilchrist F-5, 2004 Hilburn F-5, 2008 Lebada A-4 Deluxe, 2007 Eastman 615 mandola, Kaycraft octave mandolin, Eastwood electric mandolin
 
I’ll supply some room pix in a few days…