My K50 and friends

My system is a testament to a very accommodating wife, who allows me to one, buy this stuff that threatens to put us in the poor house, and two, place it in our living room. What’s even more amazing is, the other side of the wall you see is our bedroom, and she goes to bed before I do!

The various parts and pieces are as follows:
K50 Music Server
Vinnie Rossi L2i-SE Integrated
Merason DAC 1
Raven Audio Corvus Tower System
Network Acoustics ENO
Swisscables and Silnote cables
Core Audio Designs rack

I am a long time Antipodes fan, having owned a DX for many years before trading it in on the K50. Have always appreciated the quality of both their products and service.



4 Likes

Phenomenal system! It looks great too.

1 Like

Thanks Kenny. The thing I am most proud of are the acoustic panels. My son in law gave me the amp pics about the time I was thinking about adding something there. I am not a handyman by any stretch and am still amazed that I was able to hang those puppies and have it turn out looking half way decent :thinking:

1 Like

Very nice. I absolutely love the looks of the Vinnie Rossi L2i-SE integrated. That & the other components from the same collection are all visually quite stunning & I thought that from the first time I ever laid eyes on them.

But tell me, have they ceased production of that series? I consider it a great shame if they have, because stylistically it was absolutely stand-out. All I can see on their website now is the Brama collection.

There’s nothing wrong as such with the Brama collection & it’s clearly beautifully made, it’s just the visuals don’t grab my attention in quite the same way.

1 Like

Yes the L2 series has been discontinued. The Brama is remarkable engineering but WAY out of my league. Fortunately my L2i-SE has a ten year warranty.

Where in your system do you use Swiss Cables? I know from having heard some of their range that they can be very beneficial if a system is lacking a little warmth & in need of fleshing out. Is that an issue you were previously experiencing?

Also, with regards to the acoustic panels, how would you rate their success, how did you decide upon that particular placement & to what degree have they affected the overall sound?

It’s not that I’m thinking of fitting acoustic panels as such, it’s just something I’ve ever played with & I’m very interested that’s all.

All my cables are Swisscables except for my digital cable and the power cable to my DAC. I didn’t buy them to provide more warmth but because they were more transparent/detailed and a big step up in overall sq than what I had before. They are great cables, but I have found the Silnote to be even better in my system at a lower price point so am transitioning another power cord and my speaker cables to Silnote. One thing I can say for sure, cables have had a tremendous impact on sq for me and I definitely consider them to be as important a component as any of the others.
As to the panels, my house is 100% tile flooring and needed some taming down, which I accomplished with the big wool rug and the panels. I am a real novice when it comes to room acoustics so the placement was mostly just about providing some absorption on that front wall.

1 Like

One of the best upgrades one can perform is to place stacks of ASC isothermal tube traps in the front corners of their listening room. These might seem expensive but they are actually a bargain given how much goodness they bring.

Our rooms can mask the sound coming from our speakers due to sound bounced off our walls arriving at our ears. ASC’s goal is to dry up what they call “head end ringing” so that what arrives at our ears comes only from our speakers. It’s quite remarkable musically to hear what happens when this smearing is removed. Tones and timbres become much more pure and realistic. Dynamics become more explosive as well. ASC has some really good information about this posted to their website.

One doesn’t have to only use ASC’s products to achieve this though some less expensive panels can do more harm than good.

I use a combination of ASC tube traps and Stillpoints Aperture panels. The Aperture panels can make it seem as if they are actually causing walls to disappear. The soundstage is able to more convincingly expand beyond the boundary our walls create.

A friend had taken this much further than I and it was quite remarkable. I had closed my eyes to listen and almost fell out of my chair when I opened my eyes again as I was astonished to find the speakers and walls so close to me. The recording had transported me to a much larger venue.

I recognize that not everyone can get away with placing these panels and traps in their living rooms. The Aperture panels probably have the best chance maybe. These have little downside sonically relative to cheaper panels and they are more effective per square foot. The ASC traps provide a much bigger bang for the buck though.

I have 3 Aperture panels: one on the front wall behind my audio rack and one on each side wall at the second reflection point. I also have 4 stacks of ASC isothermal tube traps. A stack is comprised of two traps, one on top of the other. You can see some of these in the photo on my system page.

Thanks for picking up that ball and running with it Kenny. I was actually going to mention you as a resource but forgot your handle haha

1 Like

A good quote from the following: ‘When we add TubeTraps to the front of the room, we dry up the build-up and storage of perpendicular sound as it is being created, and also during the quiet time between each tone burst.”

1 Like

Thanks for the information. I’m not at all dissatisfied with the sound I’m getting, but nor am I so naive as to believe it couldn’t be improved with properly applied acoustic treatment to the room. However, whilst this subject isn’t entirely straightforward anyway, it becomes considerably more complicated with Radialstrahlers. Even more so than on the video, as my MBL 116f’s are more hybridised than the loudspeaker shown in the video.

I’ve been at this hobby for over three decades. If I could go back in time and advise my younger self, there are two things I’d tell myself to prioritize: power delivery and room treatments. In both cases I was profoundly struck by how profoundly my investment had been hindered over so many years.

The Shunyata Denali v1 made me aware of a haze I had been listening through for two decades. That haze masked details and made colors less saturated. That lead to a more fatiguing sound.

Even more profound was the realization of how much my room had been hindering my gear. I was honestly floored by what my speakers were able to do. I had owned them since the mid-90s and yet I was left stunned by their ability to reproduce natural timbre and lifelike transients after treating my room.

As far speakers with different radiation patterns like the MBL, I believe ASC’s room treatment approach is agnostic. It aims to address what the room adds to the music. Any speaker should perform better the less harm the room does.

Hi Greg,
In asking questions about your lovely system I appear to have rather inadvertently led to your thread getting hi-jacked. Please accept my apologies.

1 Like

No apologies necessary @Chilli. I appreciate you taking the time to comment on my system, especially since seeing your incredible setup inspired me to post some pics of mine as well. I have had some interaction with @kennyb123 in the past and always learn something new whenever he posts his thoughts on various hifi subjects.

2 Likes