The room
31ft x 19ft. Dedicated to this purpose. It is acoustically dead. The air handler vents are oversize, and the louvers are special models to reduce turbulence. The electricity is separate from the rest of the house. The end you are seeing with the shelves is underground, and the house is on a dead end just above the James River, and we have no neighbors.
You can hear your heart beat ... if it is still beating.
The toys
SACD: Onkyo SP502. It's cheap. It works. The analog output is converted to 24bit/96KHz digital.
Blu-ray: Sony basic player sold by Costco. The transport is incredibly quiet, and it makes a good digital disc spinner. In this room, you can hear the discs spin in the other transports.
Bits: Apple TV
Volume, Balance and EQ: Behringer Ultracurve
Crossover: Behrigner Ultradrive (set to 51Hz for the ESLs and 57Hz for the Celestions, 48dB/octave)
Headphones: Sennheiser HD650 and HD600. I spend a lot of time listening via headphones.
Amplifiers: 2 @ Meridian 505, serial numbers 22 and 23.
Speakers:
- QUAD ESL 988 ... or ...
- Celestion SL700SE pair #512, expertly refurbished by Tim Stinson. The ESLs have custom made, 75 year old solid rosewood end caps. They are not tweaks, merely cosmetic improvements over black plastic.
Subwoofer: Meridian M2500, with a 20Hz, four pole, high pass filter (I added) on it. If you have heard even one recording made in Henry Wood Hall, you know why this sub-sonic exclusion zone is needed.
TV: Doubles as a sound absorption device. The rear of the TV is covered with RPG diffusors.
Tweaks
Late 20th century Maneki Neko that a friend picked up for a dollar in Hong Kong just after the handover. Since Maneki Neko are Japanese, this one from Hong Kong is obviously a fake. I also have an origami unicorn and a miniature Budda ornament. Blade Runner was a movie, so this is also a fake.
I almost forgot to mention the music.