I don't know what those hair-like things are, but they don't look appetizing in the video.

[supprimé]

My Listening Space — McIntosh, B&W, Vinyl, Beatles, Guitars & a Lifetime Around Music

I thought I’d share my music room. This room has evolved over many years and combines three things I’ve spent a good part of my life enjoying: high-fidelity audio, record collecting and guitars.

The audio system is really the heart of the room.

🔊 The Audio System

My main speakers are Bowers & Wilkins Nautilus 802s, driven by a pair of McIntosh MC601 monoblock amplifiers.

The MC601s are rated at 600 watts per channel, with a separate monoblock dedicated to each main speaker. There is obviously a tremendous amount of power available, but what I appreciate more is the control and effortlessness they provide. The 802s respond well to a serious amplifier, and the McIntosh/B&W combination has become the foundation of the room.

A Yamaha RX-A2060 handles the multichannel/control side of the system. For dedicated two-channel listening I normally use Pure Direct, because vinyl and traditional stereo music are still the priority for me.

For analog, I'm using a Technics SL-1200MK3D fitted with an Ortofon 2M Black LVB 250. The LVB 250 has been one of the more worthwhile upgrades I've made to the analog side. It's extremely revealing, particularly when comparing different pressings of records I know very well.

A Rotel RC-1070 is also part of the analog/preamp chain.

I have a dedicated CD player as well because I have absolutely no intention of abandoning CDs. There is a substantial CD collection in the room, including Beatles material that isn't necessarily duplicated by the vinyl editions.

For digital playback I use Apple TV 4K, including Apple Music and Dolby Atmos material. So while two-channel analog is a major focus, the room isn't vinyl-only. I enjoy being able to move between vinyl, CD, lossless digital and Atmos depending on the recording.

There are additional B&W speakers in the room/system as well, and I'm currently looking for the right B&W HTM1D Diamond center channel.

🎯 Measuring the Room

I'm also starting to get more serious about the acoustics rather than simply changing equipment and assuming that automatically makes things better.

I've added a miniDSP UMIK-1 calibrated microphone, REW (Room EQ Wizard) and a RockSeed laser distance meter.

The next stage is measuring the actual in-room response from the listening position, identifying room modes and bass problems, checking speaker placement and distances, and seeing what improvements can be made through positioning and acoustic treatment before resorting to electronic correction.

I've used Yamaha's automated room measurement, but I want to actually see what the room is doing. REW and the UMIK-1 should give me considerably more information to work with.

At this point I'm more interested in getting the room and equipment I already own properly dialed in than endlessly swapping components.

💿 The Record & Beatles Collection

The equipment exists largely because of the music.

My current Discogs catalog contains 977 releases, with a particularly heavy emphasis on the Beatles.

As of August 11, I have 453 cataloged Beatles-related releases, including the Beatles plus John Lennon, Paul McCartney/Wings, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

That Beatles portion currently breaks down to approximately:

324 vinyl releases
117 CD releases
11 box-set entries
1 Blu-ray/DVD/video release

Those are catalog entries rather than individual physical discs, so the actual number of records and CDs is considerably higher.

The Beatles collection includes the BC-13 Blue Box, 1982 Mono Red and Black Boxes, complete 1982 MFSL Beatles vinyl releases, Japanese Odeon EAS-66010-23 collection, 2012 Stereo Vinyl Box, 2014 Mono Vinyl Box, 2009 Mono CD Box, and the 1988 UK EMI/Parlophone “Bread Bin” CD collection, along with a large number of individual U.S., UK, Japanese and other pressings.

One of the reasons I enjoy having a revealing two-channel system is being able to compare these different versions. Hearing the same Beatles recording from a UK pressing, Japanese pressing, MFSL mastering, original mono mix and modern remaster can be surprisingly different.

I also have four Beatles albums signed by all four Beatles — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr:

Introducing… The Beatles
Please Please Me
The Beatles (White Album)
Hey Jude

The signed White Album and Hey Jude are displayed together in the music room. Those obviously get treated a little differently from the records I pull out for everyday listening!

🎸 The Guitars

The guitars are another major part of the room.

The collection includes an original 1964 Epiphone Casino, a 1996 Fender Custom Shop '64 Stratocaster from the John Page era, a 1981 Gibson Les Paul that I bought new, another Gibson Les Paul Classic Triple Pickup, a 2000 Gibson John Lennon J-160E Limited Edition (#452 of 550), Martin D-45, Martin D-76, 1997 Rickenbacker 4001V63 Mapleglo, a George Harrison Rosewood Telecaster, a '54-style Telecaster, an Epiphone John Lennon Casino reissue, and several others.

The Beatles connection obviously carries over into the guitar collection as well. That's part of what makes having the instruments, records and playback system together in one room enjoyable for me.

💿 I Also Invented CDwalltile

There's another connection between this room and my interest in physical music: I invented CDwalltile.

The idea behind CDwalltile was fairly simple. I wanted a way to take CD cover artwork out of the shelves and make it part of the room.

CDwalltile was designed as a modular way of displaying CD cover artwork on a wall, essentially allowing a collection of CDs to become music-related wall art. Individual titles can be arranged together into a larger display and changed or rearranged as the collection evolves.

I've always thought album artwork was an important part of experiencing physical music. With an LP you have that wonderful 12-inch canvas. CDs dramatically reduced it, and once hundreds of CDs are lined up on shelves, much of that artwork essentially disappears.

CDwalltile was my attempt to bring that visual part of collecting music back into the listening room.

In some ways it ties the whole room together. The stereo reproduces the recordings, the vinyl and CDs preserve the physical releases and artwork, the guitars represent the instruments used to create the music, and CDwalltile gives me another way to make the collection itself part of the room.

Why I Built It

I've heard systems that cost considerably more, but I've reached the point where I'm less interested in changing equipment simply for the sake of changing equipment.

What interests me now is extracting everything I can from what I already have — speaker positioning, room measurement, acoustics, cartridge setup and getting the two-channel chain properly dialed in.

I've spent decades collecting the music and instruments in this room, and at one point even invented a product because I wanted physical music and its artwork to remain visible rather than disappearing onto a shelf.

Most importantly, though, this isn't intended to be a museum.

The records get played. The CDs get played. The guitars get played.

That's really what the room was built for.

so I got this as a hand me down from my uncle for my birthday and its supposed to be really good but i’ve used 4 different speakers and done all the cleaning everyone says to do and even changed out which record and it still crackles like crazy I have no idea what to do anymore.