# Project of the day.. Music in the office. :)

Posted by Matt (93SE) on September 15, 2002 at 21:09:57:

Finally got tired of seeing the huge pile of extra equipment piled up in the back room, so I designed and built a small amplifier to power an extra set of
bookshelf speakers.. had WAAY too much 60hz noise in it, probably due to the cheap power supply I used. then the output from the sound card overloaded
the inputs on it at a mere 15% volume.. so I said "screw that!" and pulled the amp out of the speakers. I then decided that since I had an extra DVD player,
Preamp, and power amp, that I would just rearrange a few things in the office and have a REAL system in there.

After a day of building wall-mount speaker stands, soldering cables, and etc etc, I finally have it up and running.
To say I'm impressed at what a good mp3 sounds like is na understatement. it's not quite a nice as the original version direct from CD- through the computer
or the external CD player, but it's still a pretty decent facsimilie.

When I run things through winamp even, I'm impressed. the EQ actually works very well. I noticed some huge holes in the frequency response of these
speakers, and spent 20 minutes tweaking the EQ to fix them. I figured it was just the fact I haven't even used these speakers in over two years and that they
were the first set I've built, so obviously my crossover design skills needed improvement.........
Then I had to kick myself.. I had the speakers on the floor, pointed at my feet while the paint on the speaker stands was drying. I put one on either side of
the desk where they'll be when I mount them on the walls, and the speakers again sounded like CRAP! I bypassed the EQ, and everything smoothed out.. Turn
off the speakers and hook up my "reference" headphones, and the image and equalization were nearly identical.. Very impressive considering the mess of
equipment I'm running.

Specs on the system:
soundcard: SB Live!
Preamp: Carver C-1
Power Amp: Crest P-3501

Speakers:
mids: Focal Axess 6.5"
Highs: Vifa 1" silk dome tweeters of some sort- their lower end stuff.
Crossover: 12dB/octave at 3.5kHz, handmade by me. ;-)

Oh well.. there was today's fun. time to get back to homework.

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: : Finally got tired of seeing the huge pile of extra equipment piled up in the back room, so I designed and built a small amplifier to power an extra set of : bookshelf speakers.. had WAAY too much 60hz noise in it, probably due to the cheap power supply I used. then the output from the sound card overloaded : the inputs on it at a mere 15% volume.. so I said "screw that!" and pulled the amp out of the speakers. I then decided that since I had an extra DVD player, : Preamp, and power amp, that I would just rearrange a few things in the office and have a REAL system in there. : After a day of building wall-mount speaker stands, soldering cables, and etc etc, I finally have it up and running. : To say I'm impressed at what a good mp3 sounds like is na understatement. it's not quite a nice as the original version direct from CD- through the computer : or the external CD player, but it's still a pretty decent facsimilie. : When I run things through winamp even, I'm impressed. the EQ actually works very well. I noticed some huge holes in the frequency response of these : speakers, and spent 20 minutes tweaking the EQ to fix them. I figured it was just the fact I haven't even used these speakers in over two years and that they : were the first set I've built, so obviously my crossover design skills needed improvement......... : Then I had to kick myself.. I had the speakers on the floor, pointed at my feet while the paint on the speaker stands was drying. I put one on either side of : the desk where they'll be when I mount them on the walls, and the speakers again sounded like CRAP! I bypassed the EQ, and everything smoothed out.. Turn : off the speakers and hook up my "reference" headphones, and the image and equalization were nearly identical.. Very impressive considering the mess of : equipment I'm running. : Specs on the system: : soundcard: SB Live! : Preamp: Carver C-1 : Power Amp: Crest P-3501 : Speakers: : mids: Focal Axess 6.5" : Highs: Vifa 1" silk dome tweeters of some sort- their lower end stuff. : Crossover: 12dB/octave at 3.5kHz, handmade by me. ;-) : Oh well.. there was today's fun. time to get back to homework.