Sounds good to me!

...and now for something completely different Part 1

If you read this blog on a regular basis you're well aware that it has (and does) generally focus (pun intended) on many things photography. What you may not realize is that photography, while seemingly something I've always been interested in, is a fairly "recent" interest for me (5 ish years counts as recent when one's in their early forties, right?). Prior to getting involved in photography I was pretty serious about audiophile stuff and, more specifically, car audio. From the ages of 15 to probably 35 I was very involved with making whatever I was driving at the time sound really great. I suspect that hobby was inherited from my dad who was (and still is) a home audiophile. In fact, as I write this post there's a pretty high likelihood he's listening to something on vinyl. Some of my earliest memories are of listening to music at home, learning to operate a record player, and generally having music in my life. That's also probably why there's almost always music on in the house.

Now that I'm a bit older which means my desire to contort my body in to a position needed to install gear in to a car (I'm looking at you under-dash mounting/wire routing) in combination with the fact that car manufacturers are actively making it harder to install new sound equipment in cars I've given car audio a back seat (pun intended, again). Furthermore, the weather in Oregon this time of year tends to be pretty rainy so I've recently gotten more involved in home audio since I'm working from home and have the space for it. That started off fairly simply when I took some surplus gear I had lying (laying? I always get those confused) around the house and put it in the office. It sounded pretty good but as generally happens with me the "what if I...." bug struck. Over the past year or so there have been a few iterations of sound and I think I'm pretty close to the end result. I'll do my best to document and explain it here.

It made sense to me that since I've got close to 80,000 songs stored on my computer that it would be the foundation for my audio system so the first "real" upgrade I made was a higher resolution sound card and in this case that was an Asus Xonar SE. With a 116 db signal to noise ratio and the ability to decode 192khz files it was a good fit. That feeds (via optical/SPDIF cable) to a Soundavo HP-DAC1 that functions as a digital to analog converter/preamplifier and was chosen because it has three separate inputs-USB, SPDIF, and Line In. The Line In comes from the Audio Technica LP-120USB turntable that Tracy got me for Christmas last year. I've really enjoyed listening to music the "analog" way and I'll be expanding my vinyl collection in the months to come.

Where the most changes have happened are to the power and speaker components. I started things off with an old Sherwood integrated amplifier I'd picked up nearly a decade ago on Craigslist, a pair of 10" 2-way Technics floorstanders (sitting on my desk-which was overkill even for me) that again were sourced from Craigslist for $10-eons ago, and finally an el-cheapo 12" powered subwoofer that I got from (surprise) Craigslist. Interestingly, I sold the subwoofer for the same price I purchased it for (on Craigslist-duh) nearly 10 years later. That later morphed in to an old Sony surround sound receiver that I had after discovering after MUCH trial and error that the source of the electrical noise coming from the home theater system downstairs was actually the Sony receiver and NOT the electrical system (despite the fact it was silent at the old house).

I was simultaneously happy and embarrassed when replacing it with a Denon AVR-S650H completely cured the noise. With the Sony connected I installed the Klipsch R-41M bookshelf speakers I liberated from my (work) office due to permanent work from home conditions. They sounded pretty good, albeit lacking in authority and output due to their 4" midrange drivers and small-ish horns. In the late spring I decided to purchase a second Denon receiver for my office and the speakers were also upgraded to (thanks to a Best Buy open box special) a pair of the Klipsch R-51M bookshelf speakers. The Audyssey room calibration software led to a a substantial improvement and more than one friend commented on how nice they sounded. That system remained all summer and with so many blockbuster movies coming out and being viewed at home I really wanted to upgrade the subwoofer in our living room so when Adorama had a sale on the Klipsch R-112SW I jumped on it. The subwoofer it replaced was the Klipsch R-12SW and while there's only a single digit difference between their model numbers there's a substantial increase in power, low frequency extension, and output with the newer one all of which make it better suited for home theater. The older Klipsch woofer now resides in my office and I LOVE IT!!!