Attention and Apologies: Entries #16 and 17 are being reposted today, due to a survey mix up. PLEASE REVOTE for these two entries even if you already cast a vote when they were originally posted. Thank You!
Name: Asli & Myles
Location: New York,NY
A/V or Home Office: A/V
Favorite Source: Mehmet Binal, Asli's father, and Jim Thiel
What inspired you?
In setting up our A/V equipment we focused on sound quality, and minimizing clutter. Searching for a CD from our large collection was becoming difficult so we used the Olive Musica music server to encode and store all our CDs to a lossless codec (flac). We also use the Olive to stream internet radio stations via its Ethernet connection.
Everything goes through an ARCAM receiver, including the Mac, which we access via Bluetooth mouse and keyboard, audio is output via Thiel CS 2.4 speakers. Lastly, a Logitech Harmony universal remote allows us to use all our equipment via one remote.
Great Tip:
Allow equipment to breathe, that's why the receiver is on top of the sideboard, and also why we removed the back off the sideboard.
Andy & Andrew's Vintage Modern
Before & After: MacBook Dye Project
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Deep Mountain Maple...
How To Cook a Steak: 15 Recipes for a Weeknight Valentine's Meal
How To Cook a Steak in the Oven
Comments (6)
Nice speakers, though they might be better pulled slightly forward from the wall. Also, the chairs appear to be between the speakers and the couch, which looks fine from a decorating standpoint but may interfere with the time-and phase-coherent wavefront.
I highly suggest mounting covered fiberglass panels on the wall behind the couch to absorb the first reflection. GIK Acoustics and RealTraps are great sources, though you could try DIY with excellent results.
After so many TV's on the wall, it's refreshing to see one on the credenza. I didn't even recognize those as speakers at first. Nicely done.
The setup is nice. Music server is a plus. Nothing that intriguing, though. Put your DVD's on a server as well and control the lights via Insteon with the Harmony remote and it would be a lot cooler.
where did you find the sideboard(s)? thanks!
Hi Thanks for the comments:
younghoo_yoon: you are absolutely right about speaker placement, my father had measured from the couch to the speakers, but they were out so far - and bec. the apt. is only 12 feet wide, it was too much of an obstruction...and we're working on getting some artwork on canvas which should help w/absorb some of the reflection - but I'll check out RealTraps and GIK
Noah: we actually have our movies on the MacMini, and we stream movies from Netflix - so I should have mentioned that...as far as lights, well, probably would be cool, but it's such a small space
Meredith: the sideboards, where else - IKEA (it's discontinued) - 2 next to each other.
Wow, 12' limits you significantly. Some acousticians suggest having the speakers firing down the length of the room, rather than the width, although this is not likely to represent a realistic option for you. May I suggest the following?
1. Pull the speakers out a few inches from the wall, and push the armchairs towards each other a little. This may help reduce obstructions, although it's hard to tell from the picture for sure.
2. Pull the couch forward a few inches.
3. Consider a product like the MondoTrap from RealTraps for either behind the sofa or the sideboard. Buy perhaps six panels, and mount three vertically side-by-side behind the sofa and another three behind the sideboard. This may help reduce standing wave formation at multiples of around 47 Hz (and 94, etc) between the speakers and the listening position (especially because both are near room boundaries). Alternatively, get three Mondotraps for behind the sideboard, and make your own fiberglass panels behind the cough. The latter should be at least several inches thick. The high- and mid-frequency absorption will likely help tighten up the image significantly, as the effect would be to effectively make the rear wall seems as though it were much further away that it is. You would still be able to mount artwork about the panels at standing eye-level, and the repeating element of several panels may help make it less visually obstrusive. The MondoTraps behind the sideboard will help with low-frequency absorption, as it should help address standing wave formation between the front and real wall (relative to the listening position). Anecdotally, as I recall, Ethan Winer (owner of RealTraps) has found it more helpful to address low frequency absorption at the front wall than the rear wall, although it would be worth consulting him on this point. You might even consider the Diffusors mounted on the rear walls to the sides of the listening position. These could be covered with speaker cloth. Canvas will likely be too reflective at higher frequencies, and you definitely need absorption, which covers a broader range of frequencies as it gets thicker.
In any case, with these suggestions, you'll end up with a near-nearfield setup, which may actually be nearly ideal for your constraints. You'll address standing waves at the listening position, and you'll address problems with first-reflections. You'll enjoy the benefits of the direct response, which may be particularly important with a time- and phase-coherent speaker like the Thiels.
Best of luck, and happy listening,
Young-Ho