steve crisp's blog

to all audiophiles - just rubbing it in.

 abuse

Almost two years in the making, my stereo system is finally done with all the components in place, tested, and completely optimized. So I thought I'd rub it in. hehehe

• Tascam TU-690 AM/FM receiver
• Stanton S-550 dual CD player with variable speed
• Behringer VMX 100, 10-position mixer
• Samson S-curve 215, dual 15-band equalizer
• Behringer MDX 2200 Composer Pro limiter/compressor dynamic processor
• QSC Audio RMX1450 power amplifier
• Furman M-8D power conditioner

 And on top of the rack:

• Motor controller for the attic-mounted FM antenna
• XM Radio receiver
• Palomar AM loop antenna
• Numark Pro turntable

All hooked up to the Mac running OS 10.4.11 sitting on the desk with a one gig processor and one gig of RAM. It's got two terabytes of storage internal and two terabytes external with built-in and external CD/DVD burners. There are seven police scanners, two of which are digital trunks that can process VIPER. Also an AKG D65S microphone. Not shown is a DirecTV receiver. Every audio line is wrapped with a magnetic ferrule to eliminate RF hum. And the scanners, computer, and external components are powered through a Monster Power conditioner.

Everything is hooked to a Tripplite Smart Net UPS and the whole system is on a dedicated 20 amp circuit that is RF isolated from the rest of the house with a special breaker in the panel. The whole system also has its own isolated 8-foot copper ground rod in the crawl space of the house. Don't ask how we got an 8-foot rod in a four foot crawl space. Let's just say that there is a small hole in the floor that Val does not know about.

Cabling is mostly HOSA that you can get at Ash Music and speaker wire is large-guage Monster cable cut to matching line lengths with the wiring in the walls and wall/ceiling jacks for speaker connections. Most components are FXLR to RCA plugs into the mixer with a handful of quarter inchers from time to time depending on the component. I'm running a Delta AudioPhile 2496 sound card in the Mac.

All components can be played through the Mac and recorded, audio and video. I can also record any of eight phone lines directly to the computer.

I'm outputting to Sony four-way speakers in the office. The system is also tied to jacks in the front and back of the house where I can plug in speakers. I had Steve Lovelace at Creative Acoustics custom build me a pair that can output 136 DB of pure sound at four feet when the QSC is wide open. I can also route the preamp signal to the surround sound system in the living room.

Now, a couple of plugs.

If you are looking for a set of speakers, and I really mean speakers, see Steve Lovelace at Creative Acoustics in Raleigh. He has been building enclosures, components, and crossovers going on 30 years now. The guy is an absolute genius. He can put together any speaker set-up for any purpose you have from home to arena sound. I've been using his stuff since the mid-1970s and I have never once heard a bad speaker coming out of his shop.

Then there is that Palomar AM Loop antenna. One of the problems that AM radio has always experienced is that annoying hiss and static. That loop antenna completely eliminates it. It not only is directional, but also allows you to null out signals from competing stations with the coil rocker. And it has a built-in, variable discrimination tuner so that you can fine tune the incoming signal as a pre-processor to the rackmount tuner itself. I am getting FM quality signal from AM stations. I can also use the null feature to pick up stations that I never thought I could get here -- daytime and nighttime. Check it out at http://www.palomar-engineers.com/Loop_Antenna/loop_antenna.html