Hi Dave,
Again what a great system. I have always wanted to hear the Apogee speakers. I was out of high end audio during their reign as top dog. My friends still rave about them. It is to bad that Magnepan put them out of business and then has never used their technology to build a new speaker. It seems obvious to me that Magnepan should be building an all ribbon system . . . I owned MG IIIs for years and never had a problem, I bought a pair of 3.6rs and had nothing but problems. No matter what I did, the ribbon tweeter would blow, Magnepan couldn't even solve the problem.
Does your cat like to listen too? Mine does.
If you haven't started appylying dry wall yet, look into building a room with resilient channel. I based my system on ASC's (ASC.com) Iso-Wall and the sound is incredible.
It seems that it would be icing on the cake with the construction you've done so far.
Do you really think your floor makes that much difference?
I hadn't heard about doing this when I built my room, but I guess I could remove the components and carpet and put down the a floor simalar to yours. Live and learn.
Steve

sgr February 24, 2004 12:31

Aaron

I bought the X1 on line from Dell. It was on sale for under $900 and had two year warrenty, Infocus had a special going were they added three more years to the warrenty for a total of five years. Bulb life had also been upgraded on this projector to 4,000 hours (bulbs are $300) so you want a model with long bulb life and cheap bulb costs..the X1 has both of these.

I also needed a projector that could throw a 100" picture at longer distance..no less than 17' and the X1 can do that.
There are a couple of adaptor cables that do not come with the X1, the component-S Video adaptor is $25 from Infocus and progressive signal (should you also use it) requires a component-DB-15 (?) type of cable. These can be found on E-bay at good prices, I bought mine there.

I took a chance on the color wheel issue and picture as I had never seen the X1 in play and only knew what I had read at the AVS-forum, I had viewed some screen shots that some of the members posted at that forum and was impressed.

Here's the kicker, I take this thing out of the box and place it on an end-table..point it at a wall and feed it a DVD...BLOWN AWAY on a wall with no screen. The picture was so big and so clear I could not beleave something this cheap could do this. The screen shots from this little toy I had been looking at were for real, even on a flat white wall.

If this sounds like I am happy with mine, I am. At your price range there are several good buys out there. Your needs are limited like mine so any of the Bang for Buck projectors may work very well for you. Bulb life/bulb cost/throw distance/warrenty may be your most important issues. I don't think any of the lower priced projectors work well in bright rooms, you will need to move up in price for that, the X1 does well in dim light though so does not need total dark to look good.

Dave

sogood51 January 27, 2004 18:51

No. We just want 1 or 2 movies a week, if that. No hi-def. I'm looking to stay under $1.5k, but could go up to $2k if if it was warranted.

We did see the Infocus 4800 (same as X1 I believe) at SAM's club. We didn't notice any rainbows (dlp color wheel artifacts), but it was far from an ideal setup. There was way too much ambient light. But watching NTSC TV on it wasn't all too terrible, even in those conditions (which I was curious about).

The two best buys near me (west side of cleveland) did not have any X1s (or any pjs at all) setup for demo. Nor did they have any on hand according to two sales reps.

Also saw a runco pj demo (>$10k ?) at progressive audio in columbus on an all rotel/thiel system. That was nice, but I can't see spending that much on video for us. Progressive didn't have anything under $2k to demo for us.

aroc January 27, 2004 17:14

Aaron

The Infocus X1 is a great little projector and has fantastic picture quality. It fits my needs very well which are somewhat limited compared to what others may need (a couple of DVD's a week is all). We watch almost all television in another room (except most sports). The screen I have tacked up is not my real screen (I made this one for $35 as a simple test screen). The Infocus X1 is one of those Bang for Buck type of components that I also found out about at AVS-forum..it is everything they say it is for the person with limited needs or budget so would not be for everyone. I forget what they call the problem some people see which are caused by the color-wheel, no one in my home can see them so we all love this projector for widescreen dvd's. If your needs are more than mine then you may want something at around the $3,000-$5,000 range that will throw a true Hi-Def picture for other source besides dvd.

Slipknot

The room was my garage, it was set-back from the house and only attached to the rear corner of the house by a small breez-way. I tore the breez-way off and had built a new dining room addition on to the side of the house..I had a new garage built in front of that. The house is now somewhat L-shape from the front. At this point my son and I took over the re-build of the new music room and at this point are done except for the sheet-rock/carpet/bookcases/acoustical treatments and other odds and ends. We built a very solid room with double walls. I did raise and insulate the floor 1.5 inches above the cement floor, I used treated 2X10's laid on their sides with .75 inch tung and groove on top, this gave me a warm, solid floor with no bounce. The bedrooms are all at the other end of the house so you would really have to crank it up to levels over anything I would ever think of doing to bother anyone. I run three large Vmps subs for movies and the bass info. is held to the room by the floor and double wall construction for the most part. I also had the elect. service moved to the side of the new garage, I had a 100 amp box installed in the new garage with dedicated lines for the music room, the rest of the house is on another service panel inside the house.

This is a great project that you may want to take on if you have it in mind already..it did take me about 5 years to work up the nerve I will admit..but I was full of ideas by then. I'm going to get out of Michigan (Florida) for about a month soon and will start my sheet-rock soon after I return.

The Apogee and Magneplaners are fantastic design that move air in a very special way that I could never grow tired of listening to. ya gotta love-um for what they can do.

Dave

sogood51 January 26, 2004 19:23

Dave-
Nice job! Thanks for sharing your system. Looks like a lot of music and film enjoyment will come from a well-matched setup.

Is your room new construction, or a rebuild of an existing room? I have been kicking around the possibility of converting our garage into a dedicated 2 channel audio space in order to get our living room back, but to also have my system isolated from the rest of the house. I find that evenings can sometimes involve competing with the TV in the family room. My 6 year old likes to play "up the volume" I see from your pics that a lot of work went into insulation on the walls and ceiling. Am I correct that you put down a new floor as well?

I also really like your speaker choices. I went to school in Boston in the late 70's and early 80's, so I watched Apogee grow. I always lusted after them, remember some of my earliest readings of the high-end audio press reviewer's reference systems having the large (Diva?)in them.

slipknot1 January 26, 2004 16:39

How do you like the Infocus X-1 front pj? I recently got the 'ok' to start looking at pjs and was curious about the x1 after reading about it on the avsforums. I'd like anyfeedback that you could give. Thanks

Aaron

aroc January 26, 2004 15:41

Hi Mike

The bass panel on the Apogees also covers much of the mid-range body or bloom if thats what I can call it. If I were to move to the larger Apogee 3-way models and a tri-amp setup with different X-over the story may be different.

The speakers sound very good with only the Ksa-250 to drive them full-range. If I had not tried this passive bi-amp setup (the wife was out of town and I had to much time on my hands)my speakers would still have only the Ksa-250 on them.

To be honest, I was not expecting an upgrade in sound and thought a down grade may result because of the different gain between these two amps. The Apogees have switches on the back..high/normal/low that adjust output of the MRT's. The Kav-500 also has gain switches on it, the Ksa-250 is feed balanced connection and the Kav-500 is fed single ended connection, as luck would have it..this was enough adjustment that everything just fell into place.

Biggest improvements were: Soundstage moved more forward, gained bloom and is much more real picture. A slight shrillness on some female voice (Alison Krauss for one) is gone. The harmonica in Cowboy Junkies trinity sessions (a recording I love)has always sounded bright on every speaker I have listened to it on..the Apogees were no exception but were better than most I thought..I don't skip that song now as it sounds perfict to my ear. The Bass on the Duetta's has always been full and goes down into the upper twenties in my room, while these improvements were more slight to my ear (I was more than happy already) they are there..I roll the bass into subs at 35HZ in my current setup with a Paradigm X-over but I do let the Apogees run full-range.

I had a friend (he died) that had the Carver Amazing speakers and I always thought that they could be a great speaker if driven and setup properly..his were not. I would think that those speakers could benefit and be well worth dragging out for a listen..they are even more power hungry than my Apogees from what I remember and can get a little on the shrill side with some music as all planer/stats can.

I would think that a big SS amp that could stop all the bass drivers on a dime with a somewhat sweet (maybe even tubed) amp for the top end and a room on the larger side of things could sound very good. An active X-over is another thing to think about, maybe even more so than me because of their hi-bred design.

Dave

sogood51 January 09, 2004 14:32

Just curious, what was your reasoning for using the KSA on the low end, and the KAV for the mid's and high's? I would have thought that the Class A operation of the KSA would really be sweet in the midrange. Also, how do the Apogee's sound run full range by the KSA, compared to your current passive bi-amp?

On a side note, I still have an old pair of Carver Amazing Loudspeakers that I replaced with ML Electrostats a couple years ago. I can't seem to bring myself to sell them, with the idea that I might someday put them into use again. I didn't have my Krell amp when I was running the Carvers, and I keep thinking about dragging them out and at least checking out how they sound under the control of a more robust amplifier.

Mike

mburns92 January 08, 2004 22:50

Thanks Sgr, the Duetta Sig's and the Ksa match up very well.

Dave

sogood51 December 03, 2003 03:21

I'm sure your system sounds great with the Apogees and the KSA 250. I love that amp. A friend of mine owns one and this amp apologizes to no one! I believe it easily competes with anything on the new market right now, even Krell's new stuff. What a system!

sgr December 02, 2003 22:28