I looked across my front room the other day, and stared at my arrangement of black boxes with blue, red and green LEDs and thought to myself about what each box does and why I have it. I have two amplifiers, a CD player, a network audio player, and a DAC, all shelved in a custom built rack and organised to precise OCD standards. The power cables are connected to a surge protecting extension shielding my black boxes from any “dirty” electricity that may harm them.
On both sides of the room and placed with almost laser point accuracy are the floor standing speakers connected with very thick speaker cables.
Take a look around the back of the custom racking and it is a mass of routed RCA cables, power leads, and network cables, all with a purpose and all quite expensive.
Everything in this arrangement has a task and is in place to make my setup sing beautifully.
I enjoy everything about this stuff but it does make me wonder, why do I need all these boxes and cables? Quality is the obvious reason, but surely there is a smaller option?
Friends visit my home and think I’m barmy; “just get a small all in one box and be done with it” or “what a complete waste of money” they say. That’s fine and it’s their choice to say that; free speech and all that.
I have been back in the Hi-Fi world for the past couple of years now and I think I am the one who has got it right; our ears are insulted by so many devices with small tinny sound. The functionality of these new tiny devices are sublime but the sound quality is always left out. This could be due to the fact that the markets that these devices are aimed at will be playing music that sounds good of poor quality speakers.
I’m a true believer that pop music is designed to sound good on the cheapest in ear headphones, docks and boom boxes. In fact if you produce pop music then you should make your music in 24-bit audio, bounce it down to 16-bit audio, make it into a 128kb mp3 and play it on the cheapest, poorest quality player you can find. If it sounds legible on that, then it will sound good on pretty much everything else.
There is a claim that when you start getting into the top end Hi-Fi realms then some people just cannot identify a difference in quality after a certain point. I am nowhere near that threshold, but I can say for sure that my setup is definitely better on many levels comparing it to the garbage you can pick you from Curry’s and the likes, and in reality the price difference is not exponentially different, but enough to put a lot of people off.
Having lots of black boxes means lots of power consumption, or so you would think. On testing my equipment it seems that I use hardly any power, comparatively speaking. I was expecting the consumption of two bi-amped 70 watts amplifiers along with all the other kit mentioned above to be in the region of 200 to 300 watts, but this simply isn’t the case. The power meter testing came out at about 75 watts, I was so shocked that I had to do the test again, to check I misread the information presented to me the first time. There is a part of me that still thinks I got it wrong! The average flat screen TV consumes 100 – 200 watts. My kettle eats a whopping 3000 watts, be it only for a minute.
Cables, the bane of one’s life. These are annoying and messy unless strict management is placed from the very start.
I am fortunate to have recently installed new electrics throughout my house. When this was ongoing I undertook the task of installing network ports, HDMI and speaker binding posts into walls it was required. The cables drop under the floor boards out of sight. The reason I did this was because in the front room I have a log burner and I can’t run cables from each end of the room. This solution, eliminates the need for trailing cables.
It’s worth noting that cable runs for the speakers are all measured to exactly the same length, this is OCD gone mad. I have 5 metres on the left and on the right although the left hand side does not need that length, only about one metre is actually required, but I once read you should always use exactly the same length of speaker cable for each side.
Incidentally I used Cambridge Audio Symphony 400 under the floorboards, not too costly but also not the cheapest especially with a bi-wire setup. All this is done in the name of audio nirvana. I moan about cables but I also put considerable time and effort to reap the rewards of having a cabled setup.
All the above points to a direction of it is sensible to have everything small and wireless. A lot of what I have been saying may seem wasted time and money to some people. So why can’t I convert to the more compact life. I used to travel extensive with my work, and I perfected travelling light. I could travel to the USA for a week with just one hand luggage bag. This made life a lot easier in airports and there was a good reason for me to do this.
To put it simply I wish the rate of everything getting smaller would slow down a little, because when it gets smaller a compromise becomes apparent. It’s great that my smartphone isn’t the size and weight of a brick, but it not great that if that was my music or video player. People are using these items in their homes as make shift stereos and display devices for streaming services!
Today’s market is all about cramming as many features into something. I have an iPad, which is brilliant for mobile browsing on while I am out and about. I could also read books on but I don’t, I use a Kindle for that (it’s easier on my eyes) or an actual book. I also don’t use the iPad to watch stuff in my home.
I could use my smartphone to enter always my appointments into, but I don’t I use a diary, because I don’t want to forget how to write. As good as touch screen is fingers just don’t seem smaller enough to type on my phone without spending a percentage of that time correcting predictive text or just typo’s.
Finally I could just buy a £200 all in one CD/MP3/Bluetooth/Airplay/DAB/Internet Radio/FM/Spotify/8-Track/Tape/Vinyl/Cassette/Wi-Fi/Streaming stereo with built in speakers. But I don’t. The reason for this, quite a few of them I don’t need and if I did have a need for all of them then I want to enjoy those formats for what they are, and the all in one feature packed units will play every one of those formats badly, making me wish I never bought it in the first place.
On both sides of the room and placed with almost laser point accuracy are the floor standing speakers connected with very thick speaker cables.
Take a look around the back of the custom racking and it is a mass of routed RCA cables, power leads, and network cables, all with a purpose and all quite expensive.
Everything in this arrangement has a task and is in place to make my setup sing beautifully.
I enjoy everything about this stuff but it does make me wonder, why do I need all these boxes and cables? Quality is the obvious reason, but surely there is a smaller option?
Friends visit my home and think I’m barmy; “just get a small all in one box and be done with it” or “what a complete waste of money” they say. That’s fine and it’s their choice to say that; free speech and all that.
I have been back in the Hi-Fi world for the past couple of years now and I think I am the one who has got it right; our ears are insulted by so many devices with small tinny sound. The functionality of these new tiny devices are sublime but the sound quality is always left out. This could be due to the fact that the markets that these devices are aimed at will be playing music that sounds good of poor quality speakers.
I’m a true believer that pop music is designed to sound good on the cheapest in ear headphones, docks and boom boxes. In fact if you produce pop music then you should make your music in 24-bit audio, bounce it down to 16-bit audio, make it into a 128kb mp3 and play it on the cheapest, poorest quality player you can find. If it sounds legible on that, then it will sound good on pretty much everything else.
There is a claim that when you start getting into the top end Hi-Fi realms then some people just cannot identify a difference in quality after a certain point. I am nowhere near that threshold, but I can say for sure that my setup is definitely better on many levels comparing it to the garbage you can pick you from Curry’s and the likes, and in reality the price difference is not exponentially different, but enough to put a lot of people off.
Having lots of black boxes means lots of power consumption, or so you would think. On testing my equipment it seems that I use hardly any power, comparatively speaking. I was expecting the consumption of two bi-amped 70 watts amplifiers along with all the other kit mentioned above to be in the region of 200 to 300 watts, but this simply isn’t the case. The power meter testing came out at about 75 watts, I was so shocked that I had to do the test again, to check I misread the information presented to me the first time. There is a part of me that still thinks I got it wrong! The average flat screen TV consumes 100 – 200 watts. My kettle eats a whopping 3000 watts, be it only for a minute.
Cables, the bane of one’s life. These are annoying and messy unless strict management is placed from the very start.
I am fortunate to have recently installed new electrics throughout my house. When this was ongoing I undertook the task of installing network ports, HDMI and speaker binding posts into walls it was required. The cables drop under the floor boards out of sight. The reason I did this was because in the front room I have a log burner and I can’t run cables from each end of the room. This solution, eliminates the need for trailing cables.
It’s worth noting that cable runs for the speakers are all measured to exactly the same length, this is OCD gone mad. I have 5 metres on the left and on the right although the left hand side does not need that length, only about one metre is actually required, but I once read you should always use exactly the same length of speaker cable for each side.
Incidentally I used Cambridge Audio Symphony 400 under the floorboards, not too costly but also not the cheapest especially with a bi-wire setup. All this is done in the name of audio nirvana. I moan about cables but I also put considerable time and effort to reap the rewards of having a cabled setup.
All the above points to a direction of it is sensible to have everything small and wireless. A lot of what I have been saying may seem wasted time and money to some people. So why can’t I convert to the more compact life. I used to travel extensive with my work, and I perfected travelling light. I could travel to the USA for a week with just one hand luggage bag. This made life a lot easier in airports and there was a good reason for me to do this.
To put it simply I wish the rate of everything getting smaller would slow down a little, because when it gets smaller a compromise becomes apparent. It’s great that my smartphone isn’t the size and weight of a brick, but it not great that if that was my music or video player. People are using these items in their homes as make shift stereos and display devices for streaming services!
Today’s market is all about cramming as many features into something. I have an iPad, which is brilliant for mobile browsing on while I am out and about. I could also read books on but I don’t, I use a Kindle for that (it’s easier on my eyes) or an actual book. I also don’t use the iPad to watch stuff in my home.
I could use my smartphone to enter always my appointments into, but I don’t I use a diary, because I don’t want to forget how to write. As good as touch screen is fingers just don’t seem smaller enough to type on my phone without spending a percentage of that time correcting predictive text or just typo’s.
Finally I could just buy a £200 all in one CD/MP3/Bluetooth/Airplay/DAB/Internet Radio/FM/Spotify/8-Track/Tape/Vinyl/Cassette/Wi-Fi/Streaming stereo with built in speakers. But I don’t. The reason for this, quite a few of them I don’t need and if I did have a need for all of them then I want to enjoy those formats for what they are, and the all in one feature packed units will play every one of those formats badly, making me wish I never bought it in the first place.
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