If Money Were No Object... A Fantasy Question

Conversion of a project by Keith Yates:

This audiophile project, a three-year effort completed in 1997, consists of four purpose-built rooms: A control room housing source components and software; a technical room housing amplifiers and electrical power equipment; an isolated chamber for the light-valve projector; and the auditorium itself. Floating concrete floors, double concrete walls, custom acoustical devices and other aggressive measures ensure unprecedentedly low noise levels—approaching NC-0—and extremely high sonic realism.

Seating in the 35 ft. long, 23 ft. wide auditorium is on three levels. The sprung (floating) stage and first seating tier utilize an innovative construction developed for the project by Keith Yates Design Group that affords nearly complete absorption of early reflections; the subjective result is significantly improved tonal and spatial precision.

AV System would be:

3 Wilson Audio Alexandria X2 Front Left/Center/Right
3 Pairs of Wilson Audio Watt puppy 7 for Surrounds
2 Wilson Audio XS Subwoofers
5 Boulder 1000W Monoblocks for Fronts and Subs
3 Boulder 300W Stereo Amps for Surrounds
Meridian 861 Surround Preamp
Meridian 800 DVD Player
Nordost Valhalla Cable All round
JVC QX1A Projector
Teranex Scaler
16 Foot by 9 Foot screen

This would cost about $2,000,000

NOTE THAT THIS IS A CONVERSION OF THE ORIGINAL PROJECT THE ACTUAL EQUIPMENT LIST INVOLVED MARK LEVINSON AMPS AND WILSON AUDIO GRAND SLAMMS. ALSO NO XS'S WHERE USED. THE ORIGINAL PROJECT CAN BE FOUND ON WWW.KEITHYATES.COM AND WWW.ESCUSA.COM.

With $1,000,000 I'd dream up and purchase the best components $100k could buy and spend another $50k on software. Obviously this would mean the "budget" SOTA gear for me. Then I would build a modest home around a state of the art dedicated audio only room. If there is anything left for a BMW M3 or the bank account that's the cherry on top.

I once read about someone's impression of the best system ever put together.It was put together by a guy in Queens,LIC,NY years ago.

With changing techs along with room dimensions and everything else involved I think it would be a never ending challenge.Then there is the differemt formats and HT considerations to consider. Wish I had the checkbook George Lucas Has and the land to build it on.

Good luck Mr.Yates I bet your system will be amongst the best ever assembled.

Giant OTL's and large electrostats in a dedicated room connect via AC cleaned power, phase corrected, and with it's own switching terminal. That and carbon fiber, ceramic driver speakers to switch between. Oh yeah - and half a dozen different tonearms to try out on the turntable. Again the ability to swap between carbon and ceramic and titanium arms on the fly, along with enough cartridges to make life interesting. I wonder what a room with ebony room shaping sounds like, to go with that Koetsu? Or maybe I should get several removable walls to match the cartridge or play against it - made of Jade, Plastic, Rosewood... A daylight only room, no interference from light sources allowed, and it would have to be in Antarctica during the summer so I could have 18 hours to play records and I would still have no sound seepage. Did I mention the floor should be direct poured and suspended? I have heard this story that Pink Floyd bought a boat and has it on the Thames so they could build on a suspended stage to play - used every tweak - tube dampers, connection dampers, suspension racks, silver wire, and power from lightning bolts thrown from Mount Olympus - serious phase alignment, totally clean, etc. Someone said they had seen pictures and it looked amazing. Engineers have commented on it's sound or lack there of...