Well, I suppose my year was not unlike many peoples’.  I worked from home the entire year.  But I was able to do most of my work in my listening room, listening to my system when I wasn’t on a call or web conference.

My system remains a mac mini running Audirvana/Tidal, Mytek Brooklyn Dac+, zbit, 25th Anniversary Zen and open baffle speakers made up of the Lii Audio Crystal 10s and the Acoustic Elegance LO15s.  I also run a super tweeter at times.

I did do some tweaks over the course of the year and found some new music.  I’d be interested to hear what other did.

I decided to forget about my old speaker and chair placement and follow some online advice.  I experimented with the “proper” distance of the speakers from walls, toe in, chair placement in the room, etc.  If I had any silver bullets, I’d link in a article or video, but after all the experiments, I ended up in exactly the same position as I had before for both speakers and chair.  Moral of the story is trust your ears.

Given how much I listened, I changed out power tubes but my UFO25 tube compliment remains relatively unchanged.   I tried other tubes but again gravitated back to where I started.  For input I use the 1975 Reflektor 6N23P Silver Shield.  Power tubes are the  6P15P-EV I got from Steve.  Sophia Aqua rectifier.  Sylvania OA3s in the back and I forget what funky regulator I have in front by Lon turned me on to it.

My Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ was relatively new when this all hit.  Progrob did stop by at one point in the year and blew me away with his Denafrips Terminator DAC.  https://www.denafrips.com/terminator

As a result, I played around with settings in Audirvana and ended up outputting DSD128 to the dac because I thought it got me closer to the sound I heard with the Denafrips.

With my DAC having a separate RCA output, I started running that into the Crown amp which powers my Acoustic Elegance LO15 woofers in my OBs.  I found that better than running the “magic cable” off the speaker taps on the 25th.   Seemed to dig deeper, but I’ve since measured it and it looks the same on REW, so I don’t know what it did.

Anyway, I kept missing the low low bass in some electronic music so I tossed a 15” sub I made back into the system.  I got a couple of splitters and run the same DAC RCA output to both the crown and a plate amp.  There are some swings in the low end signal below 50Hz but I now get 20Hz out of the sub and REW shows it actually going a little lower.

I was tempted to buy the new Lii Audio Silver 10s but decided to stick it out with the Crystals.  I really get good sound out of these C10s so I am hanging on to them.  Progrob has my F15 based OBs on loan still.  It will be interesting to listen to those again at some point.

I did find a QRD diffuser build that was relatively inexpensive.   I posted about it in the room treatments forum.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Wv9eB6wrg  

Two QRD13s for around 90 bucks is pretty reasonable.

One other DIY build that I did that produced some really nice results were these speaker wires:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfjQJxeTANE

I didn’t want to spend much on it since it was an experiment, so I bought what I think is the same wire and rope on ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/12TC-PTFE-OCC-Speaker-Cable-HIFI-Audio-Wire-Power-Cord-...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/7-16-in-x-100-ft-Solid-Braid-Poly-Rope/174538087557?ssP...

They needed some time to break in but these offer and very smooth, detailed and sophisticated sound.  A definite lift in quality for around $100.

I found a good amount of new music by just running Shazam in auto mode while I watched audio review videos on Youtube while working out.   I mostly put it into existing Audivana playlists but here are two I haven’t shared yet (I think).  Mostly, these are background music playlists while I work.  One is fairly chill while the other has more electronic with a repeating beat.  I don’t know why, but I found that to help when I was working.

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/df228179-7fe9-48b2-b7ed-b832aeaf236d

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/4aed1475-f128-44fc-91b7-858a59e75d06

The next decision date on whether we go back into the office is July 1.  While there are some downsides, I sure don't miss commuting to downtown Chicago every day and I don't care if I never get on another jet again.

How well I hear you on downtown Chicago.  Prior to Covid I had to travel throgh that mess at least once a week.  Love the city but the traffic is horrible.

Got laid off lest July with no hope of ever returning.  As bad as that sounds it has it's advantages.  The number one priority has been refining the audio in the house.

After visiting the Mother Ship and listening to the Cambridge Audio CXN in Steve's listening room it was time for one more DAC.  I am new to streaming.  Where have I been?  To think of all the CD's on my shelf that I never listen to this is a true money saver.

Then after all the praise on these forums I invested in a gently used ZROCK-2 25th.  This system sounded very good prior to the ZROCK but now it is even more everything.

Have spent many hours working with room treatments.  The bass traps have negated any need for a sub-woofer.  The RL3's are capable of deep bass if the room is set up right.  My spectrum analyzer shows a beautiful curve down to at least 30hz.  The lower bass is right at the speakers and not at all in another room.  That was an issue that I have fought for years.

Well, my "covid project" was updating/upgrading my system that had been mostly unchanged for 15+ years.

Out went my AR preamp, Coph Nia phono stage, Pass Labs power amps and Totem speakers.

In came a Woo Audio pre/headphone amp, Mapletree Audio phono stage and a Luxman SUT, Omega Super AlNiCo montiors and a pair of UFO amps (with stepped attenuators, the copper signal cap and the power supply bypass caps) configured as balanced monoblocks. I kept my Yamaha CD-S2100 that I use as a DAC and the Audiolab 6000CDT transport.

I was happy with my old system, but it was literally wearing out. And I was always interested getting a SET amp but my Scottish Heritage couldn't handle the idea of paying hundreds of dollars a shot for "consumable" 300B or 2A3 tubes. Then I found Decware (actually searching for a tube rectified  phono stage) and long story short fell in love with the idea of the UFO amps and Omega speakers.

Fast forward 5 months and a day from when I placed my order and the UFOs arrived. I was hoping the new system would equal what I had before, for less money then I spent back in the day. I was prepared for it to sound good, but I wasn't prepared for it to blow away my previous system. And now that it is broken in and I've optimized the tubes I just can't get over how good it sounds. I've wandered rather far off the reservation with UFOs and am using Tesla pinch waist 6CC42 input tubes, Siemens EL83 power tubes and old National Union 5Z3 rectifiers.

I'm semi-retired and do computer and network stuff part time at UC Santa Barbara. For better or worse part of my part time gig includes helping run the campus remote instruction server, so when the lockdown hit my part time job became round-the-clock for a while. And music was my great escape from all the stress of trying to make remote instruction work on a system that was never intended to support what it was being asked to do.

Donnie,

My dream project is to do a he-shed similar to what Randy has done and build it from the ground up as a listening space.  If you don't need furniture grade looking treatments, it can be done relatively inexpensively.

I have 2 additional lots next to the cottage in Michigan so I have lots of room to do it.  I have to look into how the taxes would increase.

BTW, if you think your taxes are nuts, come to Chicagoland.  Unbelievable.

Also, I meant to mention that it seems I haven't yet mined the full depths of the 25th Anniversay Zen.  I have no doubt that better input and ICs, etc would reveal more.

If you get bored Donnie and we get far enough along with the whole covid situation, you should come up again.  I'd love to hear what your DAC sounds like and I think you'd be impressed with how good my room sounds.

I'm in the same general boat.  Working from home, got some new stuff, ordered some new stuff (UFO2...few weeks away!), listening to music all day unless on calls.

Cleaning house with some stuff I have been sitting on and doing an all-new computer system.  Also looking to trade my big integrated for a proper pre-amp, and when it's all said and done I will have 3-4 amps (big and little tube, big and little SS) and be able to mix those.  Not touching my main speakers, but thinking of a second pair to mix things up.

With major home renovations under way in 2020-21 my budget is pretty limited. Did upgrade my phono preamp and I'm auditioning a set of Hapa Audio Quiescence Silver interconnects. The cables are sounding really good.

HK

I'm pretty sure that there is a way to seal it up. It sounds like I need to do some research.

Donnie, did you come up with anything?

I think what I'm going to do is paint a couple layers using acrylic laquer, then paint them.

All,

I just sent an email in to Greg Rael at PI Audio Group, I'll post his reply when I get it.

- Brad

All,

So far I got a partial reply from PI Audio:

Morning Brad,
What a wonderful system. Perfect for your room. I want to discuss your room with Dave but between diffusers your absorption panels which we can help you with, and your ingenious bass traps you will have an even better sounding room.

You will find the diffusers very rigid, but you are right. A flat paint will have more absorption than a semi-gloss or a high gloss paint. That is why we use eggshell. Its kind of in the middle.

Greg

---------------------

So for the paint, he recommends an eggshell finish.

In had also asked him about applying something like acrylic laquer first, before painting, and have followed up on that.....waiting on his reply.

If anyone wanted to try the input tube which has been my go to, here is a pair available in Australia for a decent price.  Back before the price went bonkers, I think I paid $30 a tube.  I've seen them as high as $120.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sop=10&_stpos=60532&_nkw=%22%226n23p%22%22+%22%...

Got a reply from Greg Rael at PI Audio re: hardening the paint finish when painting styrofoam diffusers: THEY USE ELMER'S GLUE. MIX WITH PAINT WITH AN EGGSHELL FINISH. NOT MUCH IS NEEDED.

6 to 8 coats is needed.