Author Archives: Jim Lee

Building the Perfect “Beast” in Sequim

Yesterday I had a really great time upgrading a beautiful stereo system in Sequim. It had been almost 2 years since our last upgrade for this customer. David, like many of us, loves his music and is definitely Nuts About Hi-Fi. Even as a young teenager he subscribed to high end audio magazines and over his adult years purchased the best gear he could find. He has owned some true classics, from early Sansui, McIntosh, Dynaudio just to name a few. He tells me he was never really satisfied with his sound until now.

As a retirement gift to himself he decided to start from scratch and put together a system he could enjoy for the rest of his life. We helped him buy and install our Focal Sopra 3, Anthem 2 channel amp and preamp, JL audio F113 subwoofer and some lovely Nordost speaker cables and interconnects. Originally his room was a bit on the acoustically reflective side so we helped him design and install our Vicoustic panels to calm things down. He has been using Roon and Tidal software to find and stream his music and for the last couple years has been loving his system.

He stopped into our showroom a few weeks ago and I showed him our amazing Mola Mola Tambaqui and also gave him a Nordost Sort Kone demonstration. He immediately heard the benefits and decided he had to have them. So yesterday we gradually took the time to listen to each upgrade one component at a time using the same track at the same volume as a reference. We started with Sort Kones on the preamp and then moved to the amp. The Sort Kones revealed details that were totally lost without them. Finally we added the Tambaqui and suddenly the sound stage opened up and David told me that he was getting a little emotionally overwhelmed. Even his dog Hoagie was impressed but I think he misunderstood me when I mentioned the possibility of adding another “woofer”.

Thanks David we appreciate you.

Amazing Low Profile Focal Utopia Speakers with Marantz Flag-Ship Home Theater Components

Yesterday Michael and Eli installed this beautiful home theater system for one of our favorite customers in Snohomish County. This was actually a retrofit installation upgrading a system that was originally installed, using contractor grade speakers, when the home was built.

The original system design presented an immediate challenge as unfortunately the center speaker had been located several feet above where it should have been. To solve this problem we eliminated the center speaker all together and installed an amazing pair of Focal Utopia 1000 series in-wall speakers. The originally installed center speaker will be removed and patched as our customer has been planing to repaint the room. When this is done, the new speaker grills will also be removed and painted to match.

There are several unique aspects to Focal’s Utopia in-wall speakers. They come complete with acoustically tuned enclosures, magnetic removable, paintable grills and use their finest speaker components, which of course incorporates their exclusive beryllium inverted dome tweeter. These babies sing! We often use them even for precise audiophile level 2 channel stereo installations when floor standing speakers are not an option.

We replaced the original in wall subwoofer with the 1000 IWSUB Utopia and in-ceiling surround speakers with the matching Focal 1000 series speakers. The speakers had been wired to a closet area in another part of the home and the components were to placed on wire racks, which are subject to extreme unwanted vibrations. We modified these racks using high density fiber board and several Nordost Sort Kones to dissipate any vibrations both external and internal from the components themselves.

Over the past few years, Marantz has been hard at work elevating their already excellent home theater components to a whole new level with their top-of-the-line A/V processor and multi-channel amplifier. These units are hand-built and tested at their factory in Japan and have quickly become a go-to choice for high-end home theater enthusiasts looking for something that stands out from the typical mass-produced options.

The amplifier is designed to power up to 10 channels, or 10 individual speaker connections. However, you can combine two channels into one, which effectively doubles the power output for those connections. Since we only needed this amplifier to drive five speakers, including the subwoofer, we took advantage of this feature and “bridged” all 10 channels down to five. This doubled the power and gave us excellent headroom, delivering effortless control over the stunning Focal speakers with exceptionally low distortion. To further enhance performance, we used five Nordost balanced XLR cables, which helped lower the overall noise floor even more.

Now because the components live in a separate area of the home, Eli programed an RF Universal Remote Control to easily access every function of the system including calibration of all video and audio functions.

I spoke with my customer over the phone and he tells me he could not be happier and wanted me to give big Kudos to our team.

Thanks so much!

Utopia in Woodinville

Yesterday I had the pleasure of helping a good client place a new pair of Focal’s Diablo Utopia speakers in his recently finished entertainment room. Over the last year or so, he and his wife remodeled a room in their beautiful home where they could relax and enjoy movies and music.

Brad is not at all new to high end audio. Actually as a young man he worked for a local high end audio dealer. I’ve always considered him as a very astute audiophile. For most of his adult life he has collected some of the best audio/video components available: Aesthetix, Focal, Nordost, Krell, just to name a few. His vinyl collection is also nothing short of impressive.

This entertainment room is on the smaller side and required a main speaker that could create the illusion of a large open sound stage without overloading or confusing the presentations of music concerts. In my experience, this is not an easy task and there are less than a handful of speakers in the audio world that can pull this off.

Focal Diablo Utopia to the rescue!

Brad and I spent over two hours meticulously adjusting and finally pin pointing the exact location within 1/32nd of an inch where they were to live. It was well worth the effort. Brad smiled and said. “It is like the speakers have totally disappeared.”

Thank you again Brad for choosing Nuts About Hi-Fi and thanks also to the incredible engineering team at Focal for making musical Utopia possible in any room.

Edit to Add: I just received a text this morning from Brad. He told me that when his wife came home last night, he was playing music for her to show her the changes we had made. The sound stage was so enveloping she thought he was using the surround system instead of just the Diablos in stereo.

A Holiday Miracle: Focal Scala Utopia Speakers Delivered

We recently delivered a beautiful pair of Focal’s Scala Utopia speakers to a new customer in the Seattle area.

He just set them up and is in the process of letting them break in. He tells me they are already performing well beyond his high expectations. Thank you Brian for sending me this photo and allowing me to share it. Can’t wait to hear this in person.

Happy Holidays!

Next Level Home Entertainment

Yesterday I had the pleasure of helping dial in a truly beautiful-sounding A/V system for two of our favorite clients. We recently upgraded their speaker system to include Focal Sopra No.3s along with Focal’s matching Sopra center speaker and a beautiful pair of Focal Dome surround speakers.

Both Dean and Pat have great taste and really love both movies and music. This system needed to seamlessly transition between several formats of cinematic surround sound and believable, live-concert-level stereo performance when listening to music.

In addition, we helped them create two other zones of music for their patio and backyard using Focal outdoor speakers and subwoofers. We incorporated the updated Marantz Cinema 40, which was designed perfectly for complicated tasks such as these.

They have a very large open space with high ceilings, which normally can be acoustically challenging, especially for bass, so we brought in a true champion: JL Audio’s Fathom 113.

And now the truly challenging part…
Making all of these systems and formats easy to use.

Eli and Michael came to the rescue, programming the Universal remote system. After perfectly placing and spiking the main speakers, dialing in the exact parameters for the listening positions, and placing Nordost Sort Kones underneath the Marantz Cinema 40, the system really came to life.

I looked over at Dean during final testing. With a big smile he said, “This is better than going to the movies or a live concert.”

Mission accomplished!

Thank you, Dean and Pat. We appreciate you letting us take care of you. Can’t wait for the next upgrade adventure. I am sure you won’t be surprised, but I actually have a few more ideas.