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Home Theater Done Right: Millercarbon's System

Dual use, should probably be the title. Oh well. Finally posted my system. Someone’s always asking about how to do a dual use system. Well, here’s how its done.
Cinephile or audiophile, movies and music are the two things I have loved for as long as I can remember. I want my music to sound as good as possible, and I want my movies to look and sound as good as possible. Everything is a compromise and yet when it comes to these two the compromises are remarkably few. If any. At least that is what my system shows. Because it is a first-rate audiophile sound system, AND a top level home theater.
Whether music or movies an immersive experience is the goal. To lose yourself in the experience. To be carried away.
Studies show viewers consistently rate video quality higher when sound quality is high. Unfortunately the Home Theater industry has chosen to pursue quantity over quality. Which cannot ever work. No amount of surround speakers will ever make up for poor quality. Everyone knows this perfectly well. Being able to convince anyone otherwise is a testament to marketing.
But that’s not my main point here. Rather it is that everything matters. Seemingly minor little things like cryogenic treatment, HFT, ECT, Total Contact, fuses, cable elevators, etc when added together actually make so much difference it is almost impossible to build a truly good system without them.

Removing those tweaks from my system would lower it down to merely average.

Anyway, the system is posted. Enjoy the pics. I am not that good a photographer but Steve Clarke was busy. Tried to get the tubes go glow- how’d I do?

The system evolves. Here for reference are some pics from 16 years ago. https://www.theanalogdept.com/c_miller.htm
Comments welcome. Enjoy!


128x128millercarbon
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 
Wow! Lots of generalizations in that post. Why, if I didn’t know better I’d think you were channeling the dude from Stereo Review who famously opined all amplifiers that measure the same sound pretty much the same. Also, I’m pretty sure everyone and his brother have been aware of the electrical system issues and vibration issues ever since. Perhaps they didn’t realize how pernicious and extensive they are, I’ll grant you that.
I never wanted or dreamed to say something so stupid that all amplifiers sound the same; but if they are on the same rung they are, nowithstanding their real differences in sound, in a relative equivalence compared to the upgrading powerful effect of a rightful implementation of the 3 embeddings...This was my point...

And if you read me correctly,(but you sometimes loves too much makes a punch ), I never said that nobody knows about these 3 embeddings, I said NOBODY POINTED TO THEM SIMULTANEOUSLY in the same article like the KEY to audiophile experience, instead of the acknowledged quality of some superior electronic components...


But thanks at the end to coming back to my point:

Perhaps they didn’t realize how pernicious and extensive they are, I’ll grant you that.
Thanks for your generosity...:)

In exchange I will include you in the rare small group of people who knows and had known already that... :)


I apologize for using the expression"nobody", I must have said "few"... You are right on that...But very few...


For the other embeddings than these 3, I know there exist others , but I want to begins somewhere, in an evident locus for all...

My best to you, like always...
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,540 posts
 
Geoffkait, I think you have been reading Shakespeare again:)
Mahgister, On thinking about it I made one mistake. While dealing with the acoustics of a room is pretty straight forward there are some rooms that are never going to sound great. Most of us do not have the opportunity to build a room specifically designed for audio. We are stuck with whatever came with the house we bought and with whatever our spouse will tolerate. So, in this regard coming up with a top notch audio room is difficult and for some of us impossible. You can tame things but you can't cure them.   
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 
mijostyn

It is difficult to have a bad room like mine...

2 windows, small room of 14 feet by 14 feet by ten with one speakers in a corner, all electronics at near one feet of the speakers ( few inches for one)....

My point is precisely that non-conventional methods to modify the acoustic are very useful, not only gluing on the walls so called acoustic material...My room is not perfect now, but sound great for all ears to listen...

But without my 20 Helmholtz resonators, without my 50 "singing" reflectors and resonators, without my 8 heavily modified Schumann Generators, and without my homemade acoustic materials, not so much, I forget my stones grid and my modified speakers :)


Then if my room can sound good, any room can sound good....That is my experience....But being good does not equate with the " state of the art " room or theater conceived by the best acoustic engineers  in the world, is it necessary to say so?


And cleaning the electrical grid of a room and house is not straightforward, if you are not electrician and if you had no money to implement that.... But it is possible I made it...


The more easy to treat at low costs are the mechanical resonance-vibrations problem...

The test is that in this treated room I can listen to the lived atmosphere of a recording in an immersive way in 2 listening positions, with natural instrumental timbre... Not bad for a 500 hundred dollars system in a bad room... with 500 hundred dollars tweaks :)

My best to you ….
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
12,964 posts
 
I will add the famous citation that resume all:

" The ears command, you obey" Groucho Marx
uberwaltz's avatar
uberwaltz
13,381 posts
 
Mahgister
You think YOU have a bad room?
You need to try and tame mine...lol.

About 16x12 with a heavily sloped ceiling about 12 ft high at the speaker end down to about 9ft at listener end.

All glass walls, seriously its a converted Florida sunroom, double large French glass doors back into main house.
Tiled floor but it is on solid concrete bed.
Wooden blinds on every window, three large squishy sofas with cushions and throws, large near full size floor rug. Helps tremendously with taming all the stray reflections.
Equipment is all off to the right had side corner due to the double French doors opening in. Speakers are out about 3ft from back and side walls.

However that speaker positioning really works well with the Maggies, add a couple of subs front left and rear right and tbh the SQ has no right to be as good as it is considering the appalling room starting point.

Be interesting to see what Miller could do with this room and I am not being facetious.
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