Yes, speaker placement is an absolute shocker when you get it right. Amazing! Thanks Mark, and again Steve.

Mark, thanks for sharing your system and your audiophile journey. Steve, another great interview.

COOL video! The way Mark has his system setup is very well thought out. Bouncing a basketball and Parts expres cables... big thumbs up!

Another great review! Sounds like you’re having fun. Love it. Thanks.

Very nice tour! Always interesting to see what others are doing with their equipment, rooms, systems, etc.

I think his plants even enjoy the sound, the way they look :)

Hi, Mark You put a lot of time and effort putting your system together. Just shows your passion to get the best sound reproduction possible. Very well done !!! Joe Bulger

I love these system tour videos. Keep them up!

Can we just acknowledge that at 10:00 he has Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp A Butterfly” on vinyl? I tell people all the time, that album is a great listen. It was recorded all on analog and mastered digitally. Best to listen on vinyl as well. Props to that guy, he gets it 💯

Another great interview/system tour! I couldn’t stop thinking about how he, with all that equipment, took a ten year break and was happy listening to his 128kbps MP3’s on ear buds. Crazy!

I need an audiophile gourd. :) Great vid.

Steve, I have a suggestion. It would be really helpful if we knew your interviewees primary musical tastes, favorite bands, that would give us insight into whether we might have a connection in terms of audio needs.

Part 1 and Part 2. Fun videos. Love to see what people use for music. The idea in video one of hos friends passing around a track for the day was pretty cool

Mark, Thank you for sharing. Its very nice!

Mark`s journey in realisation with speaker placement sounds a lot like what happened to me. The realisation when you get them right is amazing.

Great tour. A really great system you got there Mark :-))

Good stuff. Love the capability to "tweak" things on the fly.

Thanks, Mark. After watching this video, I pulled out my Sorbothane pucks from a previous audiophile life and put 8 of them under my Bright Star Audio sand box today. It works great!

Great Video! Interesting system that Mark has there!

The best feeling for an audiophile is what Mark describes from when he moved his speakers: Such a fundamental improvement in your system that you just want to rediscover your entire collection. No matter what the change is and if you go from a dirt cheap to a slightly less dirt cheap system or a filthy expensive system to a even filthier expensive system.

Yep, my Thiels were 7' into the room, listening about 9' away - firing the long way. Soundstage could literally be 360 on some recordings. But having _never_ dealt with a TV it makes things easier. I'm far more _old school,_ that software almost seems like work though. Turntable done right, I always cringe when I see the TT next to speakers or on a table with. *Great video!*

Great video! I'm not sure if I really appreciated the 1/3 into the room speaker placement theory until seeing it presented in this video. I'm catching bits and pieces here and there. I saw somewhere about how to think of your speakers as the microphones pointed toward the stage that is being recorded and how you should hear it played back as if that stage is behind your speakers, etc. In my space I'm very limited with how far I can get my speakers from the wall - about 2-3 feet max. My 'soundstage' I guess you would call it - tends to angle up toward the furthest point from my listening position - toward where the wall and ceiling meet. Not at ear level and behind the speakers as much as it should be probably, but luckily my couch lets my head naturally angle toward it. I just installed 4 in-ceiling speakers from RSL to complement my 5.1 system powered by a new Denon 4500 receiver. Not the high end equipment that some of you guys deal with, but WOW am I ever impressed with it. I've been mesmerized with what DTS Neural X can do upmixing 2 channel music and movies only mixed for 5.1/7.1 too for that matter. It blows my mind how it can seemingly so intelligently route the signal to the available speakers (10 total including the sub now). It doesn't work with every source, but some of those high resolution streaming albums sound phenomenal! It does fumble it occasionally, but more often than not it puts my listening position right in the middle of what I imagine the soundstage might be more like if I had a bigger and more ideal room to work with. Frankly, some of these 2 channel recordings sound more as if they were made to be listened to this way than with 2 speakers emulating a surround system. Almost like Atmos on a soundbar tries to emulate something that it isn't. Even if it's not as the artists, recording engineers, etc. intended for it to be played back it blows the earbuds that most people are using these days out of the water for sure.

Excellent,some very nice toys that have stood the test of time.

Thank you for talking me out of restarting a vinyl based system in my quest to rebuild my long out of commission audio system. Good chance that Schiit is in my future.

Thank you Mark for allowing Steve to make this happen - very interesting. 😎 2 things....1. Is that well tempered arm the version that sits in the fluid? I think I had that arm (well 1 of the arms), I had on my Sota Saphire late 80s - early 90s. Unfortunately, it wasn't a good match with that TT (at all). 2. I really liked your expression (with description) of 'audio visual cues'. Absolutely makes sense and explains a great deal for a myriad of things in the audio world. Cheers fellas. 🎶🎶🎶 Edit....yup.....sorry was writing as I was listening. That's the arm!!!

Love these type vids👍🏻

A very interesting video. Mark made an enlightening point about rear walls affecting the perceived depth of image. Difficult to test in my small British lounge, however !

All very cool stuff. I love to see the 2 channel and the AV system in the same room. My theater is set up to do 2 channel and atmos.

Great system!!! He had me on the gourd!!!

Wow.. Very inspired for speaker replacement. Thank you..

Excellent, I hope Mark is still groovin.

Wow, I have the same Ikea TV bench. That's why my €2000 system sounds so good! Joke aside, Mark's rig looks awesome.

One of my favorite episodes. Love hearing experienced audiophiles talk through the reality of system evolution. Especially great because it's not crazy expensive gear.

These home gear tours are great. Real-world application for us nerds.

Thanks for the video Mark, cool system. In what way did the tube preamp improve your system? I can understand it giving a nicer presentation, but not more resolution.

more videos please,😮 Infinity preamp, nice. how many watts do you have in the power amp?

To take my knowledge to the next level I would enjoy if you would take the time and put links, if available, for all brands and software mentioned in your videos. tks

I use Pure Music as well. It’s a memory player which works great. For Mark’s music, he should try a NAS to store his digital music running different levels of RAID to protect against disk failure.

Would be cool if you sat in this listening chair for perspective, thanks for these!

What program or software do you use on your computer . You were showing it at the end of Marks system am interested in it is it just on the Mac Mini or can I use it on my IPad please let me know. Thank You for a very interesting video Steve and Mark

Phil Jones worked for Vitavox back in the day afaik.. Those are rare monitors with Corian..

Does anybody know which specific parts express speaker wires he’s talking about? I checked parts express and there’s a few ones listed. Thanks.

love that his system is different to most audiophiles - i would never for myself tweak the crossover.

Very impressive turntable dampening. Before watching this, I tested putting my stylus on a grove and man its noisy with the volume turned up. AC hum and vibrations are easily picked up. Bouncing a basket ball would wreck my speakers.

Have you tried Master Set and rational Speaker Placement Process? Your results with your speaker placement sounds like you have.

Loved it. Both videos. "What does that sound like"?

Regarding the turntable: "Are you sorry you don't have it anymore?" Steve answers "No."

I'll eat my slippers if those 5" small speakers are flat down to 32Hz...

I can't find a speaker that symphonic/ big band music well. Why?

Parts Express cable . I need to check them out 🔈🔉🔊

I see so many speakers placed close to a wall or in corners and realise there's so many people who haven't any idea just how good a sound stage can be. It's nothing to do with left and right, it's more about voices & instruments appearing out of thin air in a life like scale.

I love music and own a fairly decent mid range system of separates. I often wonder how much of audiophile tech is overkill! Can you really hear the difference between a couple of grand system compared to one which costs the earth...

"It' looks broken! My god, what's goin' on there!?"

Mark is cool, get him on again soon!

2:22-2:40 OOOOOOoooo SHOTS FIRED!! lol!!

I too am cheap. I always look at ROI to audio quality and I am limited by it. Thankfully. Questions: - What little USB CD burner is under that Mac Mini? - What software is he using on the Mac Mini for the digital audio? - What method does he use to get the PCM data from the Mini to the DAC, USB? I'd like to do a similar set up. Either with a Mini or RP with a hat (probably Mini as I know Mac much better and… easier) and probably a Schiit DAC. Probably controlling the Mini with an iPad. But this has so many moving parts… hardware but especially software unknowns (which one, etc.) ugh… :-( Thanks

What is the name of that gray cylinder plugged into the wall to filter the AC line?

Yah I wish i could place my setup in the length of my room. It poses issues for me tho, my speakers are to big 6 feet and wide about 3 feet each. I got a door against that back wall will cover it up. I Am not the minimalist type

Just wondering. Mark is not using a formal hardware preamp but is controlling the music system via his laptop. What software is he using for this? I have 2 McIntosh mc501 monoblocs and a pair of Revel Ultima Salon 2s. Just wondering if I can bypass purchasing a multi-thousand dollar preamp and just run my mostly FLAC collection of music through the computer. Or am I missing something here (very, very likely in my case)?

mark should be a youtuber...great job.

It's alway interesting and I always learn something when Steve walks us through somebody else's system. Does anyone know the name of the "blue circle" device?

Harddrives in regular use have an approximate lifespan of 5 years before you can "expect" some sort of failure, so his 2 fails in 10 years are very much following that specification hehe. personally I have dual backups of music, photos and certain other files, the rest (as well as previous files) is only backed up on a single drive that is backed up once, and is now treated as read only to minimize wear, and is stored in a fireproof minisafe with silica packs in it, keep your data safe people! :) I have a lot of stuff that`s hard to get, private recordings, and my own projects, and those can`t be reobtained, replaced or recreated, so I`m actually considering a "master backup" RAID solution, using SSD`s, the investment is minor compared to the potential loss after all. Nice to see someone using a very well blended and symbiotic mix of traditional and digital tech in his system, but it might be "dangerous" for tweakers :D

Steve I have been watching your channel for a while now. I love to collect and play vinal I bought a vintage technics SL 1800 with a Pickering xv 15 stylus, Yamaha RX-V793 amp, Cerwin Vega RE25 speakers and definitive powerfield sub and it sounds great together, same system for 20 years. Been looking to put together a more expensive system but with so much information and different opinions I'm so confused now I do not know where to turn but I do want to put something together to enhance my listening experience since I'm getting a little older and can afford better equipment. Love your videos and I think you got me thinking about my future upgrade. Thanks.

Discussed about warped records, or what I called Kinks, no relation to the band. A low mass tone arms will ride over the kinks better than let's say the S-shaped tonearms. The S-tonearm is supposed to track better, but are greater in mass. I am still not convinced, and a counter balance is necessary to offset the S bend in the tonearm, complicating the mechanics of the platter. I am into the simpler the better. This is why I am a fan of the higher level ugly Dual turntables from the early 80s. Their ULM tonearms were very well designed. My pref is a CS 608, the direct drive 3 speed turntable, or the semi-auto CS 708-q direct drive table. The 741-q had too many electronics.

I like his style 👍🏻😃

you guys are crazy

Nice system!

I wish I had a room big enough not to have my speakers up against the wall :-(

Watching this video and saw this Platinum Audio with "Granite" speaker enclosure makes me realize that i am not crazy after all!!. . . i made a speaker box out of granite slab for the woofer to eliminate or minimize resonance . . all my friend that saw it laughed. . but when they hear it. . a different story. . . it can shake the room and everything in it. . not the granite speaker box, paired it with mid and tweeter on separate enclosure. . maybe not the perfect one. . . but for me. . . it is!!

He shows what the concept of the law of diminishing returns means in audio. Simply stated this law is “used to refer to a point at which the level of profits or benefits gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested”. Enjoy what you have because it’s going to cost $$$ to get marginal improvement in your sound.

I would love to have the opportunity to experiment with the 14 gauge wire in Mark’s system, but when I took a look at the Parts Express website I didn’t see any 14 gauge cable sold under their name. I saw two different lines from Audtek and one from RCA. Is it possible to get a bit more detail on what he’s using and how it’s terminated?

Ohhhhhhhhhhh, the time I spend moving, switching a pair of speakers for another mfg. But, does make a hell of a difference.

Nice👍👍👍👍

What is this nosie filter he plugs in mains?

I like the Yucca plants

Whoa. He went from 100 to zero back to 100, audiophile-wise. I wonder how he has come to understand that sense he had before when he realized that the more he listened to the details his equipment gave him, the less he listened to the music?

Mark, how do you know if you have standing waves in the room??

I have no idea what I just watched. I've never heard of any of these things.

He seemed happier when all he liked was an iPod.

What’s that blue circle device?

My takeaway from this video is that there comes a point where you get past the names on the gear and just focus on the pleasure it gives you.

Great video! The guy that was in the hall that walked away----did you interview him in the past? I believe he has a lot of Conrad-Johnson equipment?? That was a fun interview as well.

Fun episode. I didn’t understand how the analog chain works. Does the AQVox phono preamp have a ADC? How is that done?

wonder what the drivers are

What is the Parts Express 14 gauge speaker cable he is referring too?

I missed the main part , active crossover , what’s the setup is the platinum passive or active

Cool as a cucumber in a fridge in the Antarctic.

Missed the subs in the audio system.

Oh and how about the gourd story🤣🤣🤣

David is IN THE HOUSE !!!!

Where is his sub placement? And one or two subs?

what piece of gear have you fellow subscribers had the longest? 25 years, kudos Mark.

What is the minidsp used for? 8:18

we do what we have to do is to get good music🎼 👍

My wife keeps moving the Polk towers on our multimedia set. But I pull them out 3’ and the difference is immediate.

Ha!! I have that AQVOX phono stage! (and yes, it's very good)

Luckily he didnt bounce the basketball all over hes system;)

You're not going to be able to convince me that room is not an acoustical nightmare.

I love that he listens to modern music, and better yet, some pop and hip hop (I saw Billie Eilish as well as Kendrick Lamar, I’m fans of both)

I liked him better yesterday.🤔😀