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NorthGeorgiaWX

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  1. NorthGeorgiaWX

    Hardware - Speakers

    By NorthGeorgiaWX,


    Media Room
    Ahhhh.... the nitty gritty. Yes, we have to make the room look nice AND sound nice, but to get the "sound nice" part, you need to start off with some hardware. It's like a car. It's one thing to make it look nice, but to make it fast, you have to throw hardware at it. 🙂 Just like the weather, there are a lot of pieces that go together to make a good system, and along with the hardware, one of the most important pieces is the room itself. That is a whole other post as it gets complicated, so I'll save that for later. 
    I'm sure that some of you know, there is unlimited money that can be thrown into home theater rooms. Millions of dollars is not uncommon. Take a look at these speakers, there are considered to be the most expensive (and maybe the best sounding) speakers in the world.  So home theater is really it's no different than anything else. You can spend a ton of money on a car that goes really fast and looks really good, or you can spend less and get something that may not run quite as good,  but you are either willing or forced to take the trade off. Usually it's forced thing. 🙂
    The plan until the designers change it is a 5.2.4 system but I have no idea what the system designers will come up with. I can't do 7.2.4 as I can't use side speakers due to the configuration of the room. In case anyone is wondering what those numbers mean, the "5" is for the three front channel speakers and two rear channel speakers, the "2" is for two subwoofers, and the "4" is for four ceiling speakers. The processor I will be using can mange 16 channels of sound, and I'll talk about that in a totally separate topic, but I could add an additional 5 channels of sound if I had a location, and right now the ceiling might be the only location. This Trinnov Altitude 16 processor is the key to making this sound awesome and nothing like what you can imagine. 🙂 
    Every time I start to think about what equipment I want to use in my room, it changes. Not everything mind you, and really it's just one piece, and arguably the most important piece of all the hardware... the speakers. No matter what other equipment you use, as good or bad as it may be, the speakers are responsible for reproducing the sound coming from the amplifier as accurately as possible without adding any of their own sound or coloration to the music. Speakers have gotten much better over the years and it's not hard to find good sounding speakers in most any budget category. But when you start stepping up in price you begin to enter another realm in sound that starts to make you go "wow". Ask anyone that has listened to music where the music has brought an emotional response to them. As a matter of fact, go to YouTube and look up "Hallelujah Pentatonix Reaction" and tell me how many are brought to tears. That is what quality music can do to your soul, and I have felt it myself with my current system (but not hear at this house). Version 2.0 is coming, and I'm going to do my best to bring tears to your eyes if you come to listen. 🙂 You should and will feel in awe, and not because of massive volume, but because of the realism, presence, and dynamics. I've felt it, heard it, and want it in my room. You no longer are just listening to music, it surrounds you and places you there with the performers. I really think it's something you have to hear to understand, and when you do it's a earth moving moment. 
    I think one thing that makes choosing speakers so difficult is that there is no way you could ever possibly listen to every speaker system to compare. Sure, for low end speakers you go in a showroom and they have 20 pairs of speakers setup and they can flip back and forth no problem. That's not the case with higher end speakers. In many cases, you might not ever hear the speaker you are going to buy because the closest place is 500 miles away. Some companies like Ohm Acoustics don't have resellers anymore, they sell direct. At least they give you 120 days to try the product, but most manufactures don't. So you have to rely on reviews, electronics shows, and word of mouth from those that have been in the business for 40 years. I don't really have much of a problem with that, although it would be nice to hear the speakers before buying. I will caution that when you go to listen to speakers, just know the room is changing the way they sound, so when you get them in your home your results may be different. I cannot emphasize enough how important the room is to the sound and why the room will be a separate topic.
    I've loved my Ohm Walsh 5000 speakers, and I have seriously considered using the newest Ohm speaker, the F5015, for my two front L/R speakers. I don't think that for the money, you'll find a better speaker. To replace mine with the Ohm F5015 it would cost about $5500 each which is a GREAT price for what you get in my opinion, but this time around, I don't think I want floor standing speakers. I've started with a budget but that seems to be a moving target as the design process starts. The person doing the design, Shawn Byrne, suggested I don't lock anything in until the design gets going. He will work with the room calibrator to make sure the speakers I want will be a good fit for the room and room volume. What I want might be overkill and if so, I want to know that since it would help to save money.
    Without getting into all the different speaker types, I'll talk about a type that I want to use in my room. You can break speakers into two different categories, although there are some that don't fit neatly into either one, point source and line source and it describes how the sounds radiates from the speaker. I'll do some copying and pasting so you don't have to go look it up... 🙂 I want to use a line source speaker. 
     
    One other thing about these speakers is they use a special type of driver called Planar Magnetic drivers. 
     
    Front Channel Speakers
    You might have noticed a reference to a speaker called a Sage Series L75 in that quoted section... and that may be one of my target speakers along with the Wisdom Sage Cinema Line 2, but it will really come down to what the designers of the room determine to be the best speaker for the room. Keep in mind I'm only talking about the L/R speakers at the moment. Wisdom Audio is the company that makes the L75 and Sage 2 as well as other line source and point source speakers. The L75 series can be free standing, surface mounted, or in-wall mounted.
    This is the floor standing L75 with and without a cover. The two top sections are the planar magnetic drivers.

     
    This is the flush mount hidden version of the Sage 2. The hidden versions are framed into the walls which is likely the route I will take, but again, I have lean on the designers of the system.

     
    Rear Channel Speakers
    The rear channel will also by line source speakers from Wisdom, most likely these L8i models. These share the same pair of 24" planar magnetic drivers as the front L75's and Sage 2 speakers. These would be mounted in the wall.

     
    Center Channel Speaker
    This will also be a Wisdom speaker but just haven't identified which one yet. 
    Ceiling Speakers
    I had these picked out, but I'll wait on these as well. I'm sure a lot of this will change and I might have to throw it all out of the window.
    As mentioned earlier, due to the design of the room I will not be able to use side channel speakers so nothing to pick for these. If I had 4 walls I'd use the Wisdom's for those as well. I think that's enough for now. I'm tired. 🙂
  2. NorthGeorgiaWX

    More Power....

    By NorthGeorgiaWX,


    Media Room
    I relate to Tim Allen in more ways than one. 🙂 But I certainly agree that everything could use more power. 🙂 I'm doing things to our cars right now that give them more power, and it takes lots of power to drive a media room, so this will be my new "engine" that I'll be using for my power. 
    I've always owned high power amplifiers from early on. The speakers that I've owned have been inherently inefficient do to their design and required a lot of power to drive them, and their low impedance made that even more difficult, so having a stable high power amp was very important. I also like having "headroom" or a reserve of amplifier power. There is nothing worse you can do to a speaker than to drive an amplifier into clipping. Speakers are generally forgiving of amps that can drive clean power into them for musically brief time periods, but when an amp starts to clip the music, the severe distortion that it generates can destroy a speaker in a heartbeat.
    I'm going to be using two amplifiers, one for the front three channels, and one for the other 6-8 channels. The main amp is going to be the ATI flagship model AT-6003 designed by Morris Kessler. I'll do a little copy and paste so you can read more about the amps.

    This image shows a 7 channel AT-6007, mine will be a three channel AT-6003, otherwise no different. 


    The 6000 series amplifiers, available with 2 to 7 channels, are the company’s flagship power amplifiers for over a decade. Furthermore, their “signature series” designation with a facsimile of Kessler’s signature on the main panel acknowledges the special nature of these designs.
    Beyond Kessler’s personal identification, these amplifiers are new in more significant ways.
    As in Kessler’s previous top-of-the-line designs, these amplifiers are fully balanced, differential amps, but unlike his earlier balanced designs which were essentially balanced bridged amplifiers, the 6000 series uses only a single input stage with dual-differential output stages. The reason: the advantages of balanced designs are retained and noise is reduced by 50%. The design uses current feedback instead of the more common voltage feedback. The reason: current feedback amplifiers are faster with virtually unlimited slew rate and are better able to reproduce today’s best music and film sound. Kessler used Thermaltrak output devices for the 6000 series. Unlike traditional designs where external diodes or transistors attached to the heat sinks track the amplifiers operating conditions and use the details to adjust bias, Thermaltrak devices have the temperature sensing device in the same package as the output transistor. The results: bias is optimized in real-time. The 6000 series use dual DC servos to track and maintain DC offset. The result: DC in the amplifier’s output is reduced to insignificant levels. These amplifiers use a revised PCB layout. They are still modular with the complete amplifier including the power supply parts on a single card, but now the AC components are on one edge of the board and away from the signal input. The result: improved signal-to-noise performance. All of the amplifiers in the series use dual toroidal transformers, dual power switches and dual line cords. The results: the AT6002 is now a complete dual-mono design and the amplifiers with many channels, as in the 7-channel AT6007, can be hooked-up to two independent 20 amp circuits for greater sustained output power than is possible from a single AC circuit. All the amplifiers in the 6000 series are rated at 300 Watts RMS from 20 Hz to 20 kHz with no more that 0.03% THD at 8 ohms with all channels driven and 450 Watts RMS at 4 ohms under the same conditions. Signal-to-noise ratio is typically 128 dB referenced to full output so each amplifier in the series is capable of playing back the full dynamic range available on today’s lossless recordings. AC Power Connector - The AC input connector provides power to the unit with the supplied power cords. The 120VAC version of the 6000 series amplifiers is supplied with two 15 Amp power cords with standard NEMA-5-15P plugs on one end. The 230VAC versions are supplied with Schuko IEC 60320 with C19 plug. Some 230VAC versions are supplied with a different plug.  Here are some reviews of the amp:

    Link to review
     

    Link to review
     

    Link to review
     

    Link to video
     
    The rea and surround amplifier will be an ATI 5000 series amps. The exact amp will depend on the final number of channels it will need to drive as they have models from 2 to 8 channels of power. 
    -------------------------------
    The AT500NC Series amplifiers use Hypex N-Core Class D output modules with ATI designed input buffers and linear power supplies and are available with two power configurations. The AT52XNC amps are rated at 200W RMS per channel at 8 ohms with 300W RMS at 4 ohms and are available with 2 to 8 channels. The AT54XNC amplifiers use two N-Core modules per channel in a differential bridged output configuration delivering 500W RMS per channel at 8 ohms and 900W RMS at 4 ohms. The AT54XNC amplifiers are available with 2, 3 or 4 channels.
    These AT5XXNC series amplifiers break new ground in other ways. They are the first ATI amplifiers to use micro-processor control for turn-on delay and feature automatic AC power recognition and configuration. The amplifiers not only recognize whether they are hooked up to 117V or 230V nominal power, they automatically self-configure. The amplifiers also incorporate a new and novel “sleep” circuit. When the amplifier receives no input signal for a period of 10 minutes, power is removed from the output modules and a front-panel LED begins to flash. As soon as an input signal is detected on any channel, normal playback operation resumes instantaneously.
    Per Morris Kessler, ATI’s president and chief engineer, “We are excited to offer amplifiers with ATI’s legendary high performance and reliability in designs that reduce amplifier weight by up to 50%.”
    With rated distortion below 0.05% and signal-to-noise ratio of 123 dB (minimum, referenced to rated output), each amplifier in the series is capable of playing back the full dynamic range available on today’s lossless recordings.


  3. NorthGeorgiaWX

    Update - 03/09/21

    By NorthGeorgiaWX,


    Car
    I took my car to Teddy Knisely last Friday for have the low pressure fuel pump, high pressure fuel pump, flex fuel sensor, and AER wideband sensor installed. The LPFP is installed and working as well as the wideband sensor, and he is installing the flex fuel sensor and HPFP tonight, so hopefully I'll have it back tomorrow. I'm still waiting my tune file from Trifecta that I requested last week, so can't put any E85 in the tank until I get that. 
    This is the new low pressure pump and old pump. 

     
    The gauge for the wideband sensor is going behind the little door where the cigarette lighter is, so it's completely hidden if there is no reason to be looking at it. That is not mine but it shows how it goes in the area. 

     
    Two of my new tires have already arrived at Balance Performance Motors, and the last two (along with new TPM sensors) should show up tomorrow (Wednesday). After that, we'll get both cars there to do the wheel/tire swap/installation as well as installing the Swift springs on the wife's car. I have her wheels sitting in the garage (image below). We're swapping my Michelin PS4S tires on her wheels and the new Falken tires go on my wheels. 

     
    I don't know how much, if any of the wheel/tire stuff will be done before the weekend. I should have my car back tomorrow (Wednesday) and hopefully have the tune file by Friday. But I doubt the new tires will be on the car by then. I was hoping it would all be done, because I get to go to Atlanta Motorsports Park on Sunday for a AMP Bring-A-Buddy Day event. We have a gentleman here in Big Cane that is a member there, and he secured 10 buddy passes for a whole day at the track.

     
    In order to drive at AMP, you have to have a SA rated helmet. The helmet that I've had since about 2012 was about to expire and it wasn't fire rated anyway, so, I went to Discoveryparts.com at AMP today and bought a new helmet. It fits great and doesn't have a bunch of sweat in it. 🙂 So I'm ready to go! It ought to be a blast! First time at the track and the first time in my car!

  4. NorthGeorgiaWX

    Update - 04/08/21

    By NorthGeorgiaWX,


    Car
    We got the wife's car back two days ago with the new wheels/tires/springs on it. I drove the car today for the first time and it rode great. The alignment is not what I would have specified, so I'll get it back to the alignment shop in a few weeks. We drop off the car again on Friday to Russ Cowart at 
    HOME | cowartcustoms
    WWW.COWARTCUSTOMS.COM to have the front painted and to installed the front grills. They will buff out the rest of the car, and at some point will probably get a ceramic treatment on it. Before we do that we'll have the roof wrapped in gloss black as well as the mirrors. At that point everything is done except to install the XDI translator and wideband sensor and then I'll have Justin start working his tuning magic. 





     
     
    I took some pictures comparing he Swift springs (left) to my Eibach springs. You can see that the Eibach's are a little lower. The rear wheels stick out a little further on the sedan, so it's a good thing that those springs aren't as low.

     
    When they were trying to adjust the rear suspension, they discovered that one of the camber bolt washers were just spinning on the bolt. These were on the car when we bought it and these were not OEM parts, so not sure why they were changed out with incorrect parts. 

    20210407_120926.mp4  
    My car is on it's 6th E85 tune file and the car is currently running on E68, and it appears to be running like gangbusters. The gas pumps only have E71 right now, but I'm hoping that as the warm weather takes hold they'll start bumping that up closer to E85. I took the last log file (for Tune #5 - E85) and looked at the 55-95 mph time from a pull I made two days ago. Since I don't have Dragy yet, I used the times and speeds from the log to see how quick it's running now, so none of this is scientific, I'm just getting a ballpark. These times are on PS4S 305's (brand new ones at that), so no really sticky tires to help out.

    For the 55-95 mph pull, and the best I can figure, this is what it did:
    55-75 mph - 2.223 seconds
    75-95 mph - 1.992 seconds
    It looks like the tires are spinning in the 55-75 mph range, but once they hook up it pulls strong. 
    This is Dragy.
    Dragy Motorsports
    DRAGYMOTORSPORTS.COM Monitor your 0-60mph, 60-130mph, 100-200kmh, 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile performance, and more! Dragy uses high speed GPS satellites to accurately measure your vehicles performance within 1/100th of a second.  
    Here's a link to more pictures:
    New Shoes for the Wife's car - Google Photos
    PHOTOS.APP.GOO.GL 35 new photos added to shared album  
    Pic taken today

     
  5. NorthGeorgiaWX
    We took the wife's car to Russ Cowart for the front end painting. I stopped by on Friday to get some pictures of the car and take a look at what he's done so far. By looking at these pictures, you'd think the car had been in a wreck. 🙂 
    For reference, here's before.

     
    And this is now.

     

     

     
    It's a three stage paint process, so it's more difficult to get right than a single color paint, and the big reason I took it to Russ. After the paint is completed, we're going to take some additional steps to protect the finish this time. The car will get a complete GTechniq Crystal Serum Ultra ceramic treatment including the wheels and calipers (the same treatment I have on my car). The front bumper cover, hood, and fenders will get a clear bra wrap along with the rear bumper cover (to protect behind the rear wheels), the glass will get a protective film, and the roof and mirror covers will be wrapped in gloss black. Her car is really going to look like new. I made this comment on a ATS-V Facebook group.
     
    The two grills in the front are being replaced with gloss black grills with a new emblem like the one that he added to the rear of the car. After adding this one to the back, we decided the the silver "ATS" and the "V" emblem looked out of place now.

     
    So I've ordered these. There are three of the V's on the car, one on the right rear, and one on each side of the front doors. So, while I was ordering, I've ordered new black grills and emblems for my car as well. They are the only pieces on my car that aren't black so I'm going to fix that. 

     
    I also received my new rear trailing arms for my car, and hopefully I can get those on next week. These bars (six total) help to accurately locate the rear axles/wheels under hard acceleration and cornering. The red car already has these installed.

     
    Here's a comparison of the stock arms and the new ones. With 600+ whp the stock arms and bushings will flex which can cause unpredictable motions in the rear suspension. When I accelerate hard in my car I can feel the rear end moving around, partly because the tires are loosing traction and the electronic diff is compensating by locking and unlocking the two wheels, but also because the rear is squirming because these bars and bushings are flexing. It will be interesting to see what difference these bars make on the track or autocross course. I'm scheduled to run a BMW/Porsche autocross on May 16th, so I'll find out how well they work pretty soon. 

     
    Speaking of my car, we're on the 13th tune file at the moment, and Justin has bumped up the boost so we can make sure the fuel pumps can keep up. I need to get a log file to see where we stand, and hopefully I can do that tomorrow. I talked to Jason Plante at Balanced Performance Motors about getting on the dyno next week and told him I'd call Monday to see what we could work out. He's also the person that will be installing the rear trailing arms (about a two hour job), so maybe I can get both done next week, we'll see. I'm really anxious to see what kind of power it's making now. Most of the cars that have similar modifications are making 600-630 whp, but I'm going to find out for sure. The limitation will be how well the high pressure fuel pump can keep up. Justin will be tweaking the tune while we're on the dyno so that we can get everything out of it that we can. 
    If I want to get more power out of engine in the future, there really isn't much left to do. A fuel cam and cold air induction is pretty much it except for new turbo's which I won't do on this car. The fuel cam is really just an exhaust camshaft with a lobe on the rear that drives the high pressure fuel pump. To get more fuel, there are fuel cams of varying lobe designs that can increase the pump output by 20%-45%. With the addition of the fuel cam and cold air intake, we can get the car to about 650 whp, and I'd be real good with that. 🙂 The wife's car is the big horsepower car and that's fine with me.  I can still drive it. 🙂 
  6. NorthGeorgiaWX
    The Big Canoe Car Club had a little gathering that we went to yesterday, and I managed to capture a few pictures. 
    Big Canoe Car Club - 05/01/21 - Google Photos
    PHOTOS.APP.GOO.GL 61 new photos added to shared album  
  7. NorthGeorgiaWX

    2021 Solo National Championship - 09/05/21

    By NorthGeorgiaWX,


    Solo Nationals Weather
    Good morning!
    There will be a chance for a little severe weather this morning and with that chance comes some hail with it. Make sure the cars and other items are put away if possible. A severe watch is not anticipated. The rest of the week will be rain free and chances for rain don't return until next weekend. 

     
    Current (5:20 am CDT) radar

     
     
     
  8. NorthGeorgiaWX
    It's done! The final finishing touches were completed yesterday and other than adding/moving things on the walls, there is nothing left to do.
    The vanity and sink installation was basically the last item to complete. Glenn came over yesterday and got everything hooked up and working.  You can see the spigot on the left side of the vanity and that's my hot water connection for washing the cars. 

     
    The other item that he did, we install the hose reel for the air compressor. This went in the small closet that is behind the vanity and was mounted to the floor. 

     
    You can see the hose sticking out of the wall. It's self retracting and can lock into place, so I can drag it all over the garage to air up tires and then give it a tug and it retracts back into the wall.

     
     
    I'll make one final post where I can thank all of the people that helped to make it all possible. In the meantime, here's a link to all of the pictures from start to finish.
    Garage Makeover - Google Photos
    PHOTOS.APP.GOO.GL 195 new items added to shared album
  9. NorthGeorgiaWX
    If changes are made, the latest changes will appears here. 
    Last Update: 01/23/23
    2016 Obsession Red Sedan

    Xtreme-DI high pressure fuel pump Xtreme-DI fuel cam ZZP valve springs Deatschwerks DW400 low pressure fuel pump JMS Voltage Increaser for low pressure fuel pump Renick Performance charge pipes with Synapse bypass valves Renick Performance cold air intake GM throttle body for LFX motor Renick Performance vacuum tank  Renick Performance downpipes Vibrant 4” resonator with custom 4” single mid pipe Turbobay turbo's with custom designed inlets ZZP rear trailing arms  Carlyle rear toe bars Renick Performance RP 556 wheels, 19x9.5 and 19x11 Renick Performance Swift springs Michelin PS4S tires, 275/30-19 and 305/30-19 ZZP Flex fuel sensor  Renick Performance carbon fiber mirror covers AEM Wideband Sensor Stainless brake lines Porterfield R4S pads and Motul 600 brake fluid Renick Performance blacked out grills and emblems Roof wrap GTechniq's Crystal Serum Ultra ceramic treatment Tuned by Justin Schmidt  
    2017 Phantom Gray Coupe

    Aric Miller HPFP DSX Flex Fuel Sensor AEM Wideband Sensor Xtreme-DI low pressure fuel pump Renick Performance downpipes Renick Performance cold air intake ZZP rear trailing arms  Renick Performance RP 556 and RP 416 wheels, 19x9.5 and 19x11 Michelin PS4S and Yokohama AD08 tires, 275/30-19 and 305/30-19  Renick Performance sway bars SPL adjustable end links Stainless brake lines Porterfield R4S pads and Motul 600 brake fluid Renick Performance blacked out grills and emblems Eibach springs GTechniq's Crystal Serum Ultra ceramic treatment Tuned by Justin Schmidt
  10. NorthGeorgiaWX
    Good afternoon!
    Instead of using a weather picture as the featured phot on the post, I'd thought I'd dig back through my pictures from past Nationals and highlight a few that I thought were cool. Try to guess the year, and you'll have to tell me who's car it is. 🙂
    I'm still focused on the ProSolo for the next day or two, but also watching the 4th-8th for anything major. If you are driving in the ProSolo and dreading the heat in Lincoln, then things may be looking up, at least for part of the event.
    Here's a look at the high temperatures from the national Blend of Models, and it covers the period from Wednesday, August 30th to Sunday September 3rd. This is as far out as the model goes at the moment, so we'll see where it takes us as we move closer to the event.  Here is the NWS description for this particular model.
    It's basically what the name implies, it's a blend of models, and that doesn't make it right, wrong, or a forecast. But it is similar to an ensemble since it blends many different scenarios into one. With all of that being said, these are the maps. Notice that there are no triple digit temperatures on the maps. The highs would be low 90's to start and dropping back down to the freezing mid to upper 80's by the 3rd. Ok, not really freezing. 🙂 Timing may also vary.





     
    The ensembles are still showing 5-7 degrees above normal for that time period, so we're not out of the fire just yet. 
    Here's a look at the temp anomalies from the Euro, Canadian, and GFS ensembles. The GFS is the outlier and considerably warmer than these two. These are 5 day average anomalies centered on the dates of Aug 30 through the end of the day on September 3.



     
    Right now it looks like a slight chance of a shower each day through the 3rd, but the probability and confidence level is low on that.  No matter how you slice it, Lincoln is either in, or close to the rain "hole". These are 7 day totals from the ensembles, ending the night of the 3rd.


     
    More tomorrow!

Various Links

These are links to various pages on my Daculaweather.com site

NWS Links

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