Listening Session at Jim's House
John Hughes | Published on 10/29/2024
On Saturday October 12th Jim Hunton invited members for a couple of listening sessions at his home in San Jose. I attended the first session. Jim’s has built most of the system himself. And this was a rare opportunity to hear Jim’s version of the legendary Linkwitz Reference dipole speakers with his custom speaker and room correction software.
Jim’s system is exclusively a digital streaming system. With a high quality ethernet front end of Uptone Audio’s Ether REGEN fiber bridge, and an Intel NUC running Roon Rock server, which hosts Qobuz and Tidal streams.
Jim used Audiovero Accurate software and a measurement microphone to measure the room response and create a speaker EQ and room correction. The results of this create a convolver algorithm which is added to Roon. The correction can be turned on and off through Roon.
Roon sends the bits to a Meitner M3 which acts as a streamer, DAC, and preamp. The analog signal is sent to the Linkwitz crossovers and Hypex N Core amplifiers to power the speakers.
Each participant sent a playlist to Jim before the event and we each had turns playing our selections while listening in the sweet spot. What was exciting to me was to be able to listen to my critical tracks of music and switch the Room correction on and off. The difference was clear. Jim’s algorithm reduced room nodes in the bass, and reflections in the upper midrange to produce a very balanced sound perspective.
Everyone really enjoyed themselves, and I’d like to thank Jim for opening his home for us!
If you would like to open your home and share your audio system with other Audiophile Foundation members, we can create events as small as four people or as large as you can fit in your home! Email Jim Bird to schedule an event at JimB@audiophilefoundation.org.