Seems like 5 minutes ago, but I can't believe I first started this thread full of excitement...almost 6 months ago to the day. I'm a bit gutted tbh, because as of today I'm 99% sure I'm not going to be able to do the "big" project this year, however that said...I'm still going to do something
In reality this will likely be confined to sorting out the living room and at least getting the space ready for the dedicated room. Still not sure when any of this will happen, but hopefully in the next 3 months. In the meantime, here's a couple of updates to kit changes and some speaker porn.
The big Genelecs have been sitting the spare room since I took the photos in post #36. They're so big and heavy that I've just not bothered setting them up even for a day. Shortly after these, I also bought a set of Artcoustics for the living room part of the project, but having spent a ton of cash on all of these "long term" speakers, I was in a position of having way too many speakers in the house, and too much money tied up in kit I wasn't going to be keeping long term.
I ended up selling the Genelec HT208s (thinking the project would only be months off), and installing a set of Anthony Gallo Micros which I bought off the forums for a snip a couple of years ago. Always knew they'd come in handy, but they look pretty...well crap:
Initially I was thinking that all the effort for the custom grilles was a wasted effort, but then I had a cunning plan. Put the grilles on, hide the gallos and I won't even notice I have 3 tiny speakers for mains! Alas while my eyes could be deceived, my ears couldn't. God I hated these!
Actually, to put it into context, the Gallos are absolutely fantastic for their size and intended application, but the shortcomings are obvious and this began to really grate on me. Luckily, Russell came to my rescue and has loaned me a set of XTZ 99.26/.25 which I have to say are superb speakers. If I wanted a set of conventional standmounts and my budget was around the £1500 level for fronts, I would buy these in an instant. And in fact, even if my budget was alot more money, I'd still probably buy these!
No doubt my impressions were helped by selling the Yamaha 3067 AVR, to be replaced with my good friend - the Ada Suite 7.1 HD. Simply awesome processor and proof that real beauty lies within
After getting a power amp back into the mix, I couldn't resist lugging the Artcoustics into the living room last night and firing them up for a bit of a listening session.
That centre speaker is enormous
Really happy with these as - believe it or not - they really will blend in with the final room design and they sound alot better than I was expecting. The wife was understandably horrified mind
If I'm going to be restricted to the living room setup this year, I think perhaps an AB Systems power amp could be on the cards, hopefully I'll get to try one in this setup in the next few weeks
And hopefully my next proper update will be one that starts with "Hooray...work actually begins!"