My setup finally together:)

Well, after several months of patience I finally have something together in my uni dorm. This is the product of countless hours screwing about on the internet instead of studying. Oh well..
Anyway, this is what I've come up with:
Attachment 3419
Here we have the old stands:D one made of the two drawers you can see missing from the chest, the other is the speakers' box.

Attachment 3424
Here we have the proper stands, which arrived today:cornut: , after 1 month wait..

Attachment 3421
Me in the 'sweet spot'

Attachment 3422
The electronics..

Attachment 3423
Transport or 'source' is my laptop, which is on my desk.
I'll contiinue in another post to put a couple more pix & comments on the BW's. Hold on
Hope you like
AA

Quote:

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Originally Posted by audio amateur

Well, after several months of patience I finally have something together in my uni dorm. This is the product of countless hours screwing about on the internet instead of studying. Oh well..
Anyway, this is what I've come up with:
...
Transport or 'source' is my laptop, which is on my desk.
I'll contiinue in another post to put a couple more pix & comments on the BW's. Hold on
Hope you like
AA

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Congrats. Looks like an elegant solution to me. :thumbsup:

(Draw the drapes when you're doing serious listening, (or various other things maybe).)

Congratulations! That's a substantial improvement in the stands and the entire setup really looks good now (how does it sound? We need a review :) ).... I've been curious about Trends micro components for awhile...

Thanks for the kind criticism, I do pull the drapes for serious listening. Here are a couple more pics in order to get a proper idea of room layout:
Attachment 3425
From behind

Attachment 3426
Where the electronics hide

A couple questions for you all:

-My wires are banana terminated, would it help to apply electrical tape in order to minimize oxidation?
-The amp can be configured as power amp, should I do this as I can adjust volume with computer? (perhaps it depends on I/O impedance)
-Any recommendations about room acoustics, speaker placement here? I haven't played around yet as I just got the stands. The speakers as you can see are not the same distance from the side walls. There is also nothing behind right speaker (a big gaping hole where the sink is).

I've had speakers & electronics for almost a month now, but I haven't done any listening with the stands yet (besides having done so at the dealers' place), so I won't comment just yet. But I can say that it's a huge improvement over anything i've ever owned:)
Sorry for the grainy pictures

Everything looks good. If you made good contact when crimping on the bananas I would not worry too much about oxidation. Others might. Looks like an enjoyable set-up to relax from your studies. Good job.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by audio amateur

Well, after several months of patience I finally have something together in my uni dorm. This is the product of countless hours screwing about on the internet instead of studying.

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Setup is very clean and elegant in its simplicity. Decades of experience has led me to the conclusion that simple usually sounds better than complex. Nice job!

rw

congrats
looking really clean :thumbsup:

Keep them spinning,
Bert.

Very nice. I agree with E-Stat that simplicity is the key and this is a great example of a solid mini-system for that on-the-go student lifestyle. Good job.

I too would like to hear a little bit about the Trends micro components.

Good job AA. Love the B&W's!

Please empty out the trash can. :smilewinkgrin:

Well done A/A. Glad you've got something sorted out.

Mind you, I think you'll end up turning your bed around otherwise you'll break your neck listening too long in that position:9:

Now you have somewhere entertaining to bring back the girls after a night in the union bar!

Health to enjoy

Slippers On

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rich-n-Texas

Good job AA. Love the B&W's!

Please empty out the trash can. :smilewinkgrin:

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"Please empty out the trash can"
I never saw Rich as sort of a Mother figure. Did anyone else?

You know how teenagers are Jack. :rolleyes:

Nice :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Jack in Wilmington

"Please empty out the trash can"
I never saw Rich as sort of a Mother figure. Did anyone else?

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Naw, but he does remind me of a crazy, wayward aunt...

Nicely done!

I've a couple of questions.

1) Is any/all of the furniture movable? In particular, can you move the dresser and the armoire (clothes closet)?

2) Are you going to show us your head unit (laptop)? What's on it as far as software you're using to spin your tunes? Does it have a port that allows line level output?

My original dorm system was almost as simple 38 years ago: two speakers, a receiver, and a turntable. Of course there were NO computers back then, either desktop or laptop, so you've got a much smaller footprint.

My original JBL L100 dorm speakers are still working flawlessly today in a secondary system.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bobsticks

Naw, but he does remind me of a crazy, wayward aunt...

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Could it be Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son?

By the way, sweet dorm type setup AA!

Nice set-up AA.

I can only say that having that speaker on the stand somewaht in the middle of the room would probably have not survived one of my college roommates regular "sipping and tripping" weekends.

Our set-up consisted of my all Technics gear hooked up to my Project 80's and a pair of triangular "corner" speakers we hung from molding hooks. One night while we were sleeping the molding broke and the speaker over my bed on the second or third bounce hit me and opened up a nice gash in my head.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by thekid

.......Our set-up consisted of my all Technics gear.......

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My first setup was all Technics too..... It's a shame Panasonic dropped the Technics line (Only the DJ equipment is still called Technics)....

awesome setup. I just bought Kef iQ3 and sad to say I have not done enough homework on other speakers. I guess I will find out soonest as I complete my setup. I am really new in audio but since I have my first job - kinda a gift for myself. My very own first speakers. Yes....

Attachment 3427

Attachment 3428
Thanks again for all the comments, i tried my best with what I had.

John, thanks for the tip. The problem with moving the right speaker to the right is that my desk will be in the way of the direct sound wave, which I don't think is a good thing. also, there's a chair in front of the desk, which makes it even less possible. That's why I have everything moved to the left. The bass does not seem uneven, despite the empty space.
It seems you've re-edited your post, I've just noticed.

Sticks, Bert & rw (rw, why can't you ever give a proper name? lol) I like things elegant and clean so I guess I did my job, although it wasn't very hard.

Rich, I'll do so when the time seems fit:D

Steve, thanks for your hints & tips. Yes, I may well change the bed position but I'm only here for a couple more months:)
I am working on the girls, I'm working..

Jack, I think Rich is just a clean freak:) who knows where he got that influence from.

Filecat, yes i can move the dresser & amoire (athough armoire will be a big pain), but there aren't a huge amount of placement options. Computer is a Dell Inspiron 8600, nothing to brag about. I'm using WMP 11 at the moment, and it does a decent job. I'm using a usb DAC which means I'm not using the laptops sound board but rather a digital output signal from the a USB port, and having it converted by the external DAC.

Thekid, i believe I'm in a safer situation as far as sleeping. I'll make sure the right speaker doesn't incur any damage. It hasn't been really wild in here so far;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sir Terrence the Terrible

Could it be Aunt Esther from Sanford and Son?

By the way, sweet dorm type setup AA!

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Or maybe Aunt Clara from Bewitched.

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Thekid, i believe I'm in a safer situation as far as sleeping. I'll make sure the right speaker doesn't incur any damage. It hasn't been really wild in here so far

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Yeah but that's half the point of having kick a^^ system in your dorm room......rock it out!!!
Congrats again!!!

I too am using my pc as a head unit.. my denon universal player died a few days ago.. I would not recommend running straight to the power amp, I got lots of noise when attempting this.. the pre in my system acts kind of as a buffer for the crap sound card..

also as you are playing on a pc you can do some interesting things with DSP, check this out:
http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/media/ozone.html
it's a tube amp emulator.. some of the settings are a little goofy, but for extended background listening w/o fatige I can listen to this all day long. some details do get pushed to the back, but just being able to listen for extended periods makes it worth while for me. I use the "subtle analog modeling" setting. If nothing else it can serve as a cool distraction and a free way to try out a new sound.

also if you want to avoid oxidation you can tin the connections with some solder.

wow great setup...would have loved to have had something like that back in my dorm days