2. misc-audio
  3. 161049-141440

1st Post Intro & Ramblings

Hi all, I have been a member for about 10 years and never posted anything although I do read a lot. Figured at some point I would, 10+ years later......

 Profession, Audio Visual Tech 22 years. I mostly work in house corporate, conventions and trade shows. Spent some time building clubs, worked a few concerts and home audio has been more of a hobby for a very long time and I have designed and built a few very high end setups years ago. I always hated working professionally on home audio, the customers and sales people are either to cheap or knee deep in marketing and cannot take advice from professionals. My experience has led me to be more aware of the budget, a vast majority cannot spend $10-20k on a stereo and yet some of us spend that on a just 1 component. 
I think that will suffice as an introduction, next I will post some of what I have learned along the way. Keep in mind, most of my recommendations come with a budget mindset instead of $$$ all out performance $$$.
kreapin
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,511 posts
 
Excellent intro. I'm with ya all the way on the value pro-position.
kreapin OP
42 posts
 
I cannot count how many homes I have been in through the years. I have sat on many sofas, eyes closed just listening. It surprises me how many systems are not dialed in correctly when it comes to speaker placement. Just a quick note, your ears do the same job as your eyes but in a different way. Sitting in the sweet spot with your eyes closed allows your brain to focus on the information. It will build a picture of the space using just what it is hearing. Some of you know this I am sure.The next step is the tried and true golden triangle. This is where you start, measuring tape in hand. From that starting point, you can start tweaking the position for the best 3D image. 
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
The most satisfying and really enjoyable systems I ever heard were the ones I built for friends and family where the total budget was $1200 to $2500. These were complete systems- power cords, interconnects, speaker cables, Cones under everything- just budgeted to their price point. One of them was set up in my listening room to burn in for a few weeks, and was so much fun to listen to that all during that time the main system wasn't even used. Had friends and co-workers over, all absolutely amazed at what $1200 could do. When you know what you're doing. 

This site could totally use some more budget-minded posters. Welcome.
kreapin OP
42 posts
 
Now I’m gonna depart from traditional thinking and I’m sure many will scoff and throw stones but..... budget.

A vast majority of homes do not have a dedicated listening room so our stereo and theater share the same space. Now I’ll try my best to explain my thought process from here. All the magic happens in the stereo image, the center is mixed in mono and surround is effects. Spend your time and money in the stereo, once you have dialed it in you can now turn your attention to the rest except you shouldn’t have to spend so wildly. To hell with timbre matching speakers. Buy a Krell, Levinson etc. for your mains and depending on the speakers I would run a receiver or use a quality amp of lesser value. You basically want to keep pace with power but I feel spending hard earned $$ on a amp for effects and a mono channel defeat the purpose of a quality built amp, there is no image in mono. Find a quality speaker that reproduces vocals well enough and then tuning will get it close enough. I can elaborate further if needed.
More to discover