Is the word "Budgetphile" a real thing? Cause I've long been in that group of people that appreciate quality audio while not ever having (or willing) the money to spend on super high end gear.
As I always say, my AV setup is split into two rooms: HDTV upstairs, with newer consoles. SDTV in the basement cave, with retro consoles.
For the HDTV setup, I have an
Onkyo TX-NR414. My front left and right speakers are some old
Fisher floor standings that I got from a relative years ago. My center and surround left and right channel speakers are from an old Pioneer 5.1 package. They're wood and not plastic, so that's good. They'll sound just OK. They really lack a warmth to them, but they're never really shrill sounding. But maybe that's better since they cut through the mix more? I've thought about upgrading the center channel speaker to something better, but I never wanna spend the money on it. I don't think I'll ever upgrade the surround channel speakers though.
My sub is a powered JVC that was originally from another surround sound package. I got it in a pawn shop for like $8. It was an upgrade from a passive sub that I was more than happy to disconnect from my setup. It doesn't have an auto on feature, so I have to unplug it to turn it off. I just keep it off. I get plenty bass out of the floor standings. The sub only adds that low end movie theater "boom" that I don't need with normal TV watching and low volume music listening. I keep the sub set to off on my AVR, that way no frequencies get cut for the floor standings, which can handle some low end. Occasionally, I'll turn the sub on if I wanna listen to a movie real loud. But that's a rare occasion. I've thought about upgrading to a sub with an auto on feature so I can use it all the time, but I've become accustomed to not using it. Also, most of my TV watching is late night, so I'd end up leaving the sub off on my AVR all the time anyway.
I use my DVD player as a CD player with this setup. I also have a turntable that's hooked up to the AVR via a shitty preamp. What I'd really like to have is a separate receiver for just listening to music. One that has a dedicated phono input, and I'd get a dedicated CD player. But I can't find a good way to share my floor standing between two receivers, and I don't have the room for more speakers (nor would I wanna spend the money on them!). So this is just the way it has to be.
The SDTV setup has pretty much nothing to speak about as far as audio goes. I've just been using the TV speakers. I've had this idea for a while though, but I've yet to do it. The room is also the "band room" with all my gear down there. Guitar and bass amps, drums, PA system, etc. I have these two modest
12" loud speakers (the woofer is 12", they're quite large). I've thought about putting one on each side of the TV, then running audio through the mixer. It would sound awesome, but I'd have to move some stuff around to make it work. And any time I wanna jam with friends (which is rare these days) I'd have to move them back to their proper positions.
In my car, I have a mid 00's Sony Xplod CD deck. I'm not big on Xplog stuff, but I'm really fond of this deck. As far as decks go, this is the best sounding one I've heard (no I haven't heard any
really really expensive decks). In my current car, for a while I just had the shitty stock speakers. But when the rear speakers failed, I decided to upgrade all four. I went with Pioneers. I have 6x9's in the back, and they can really pump, even with just the deck. I've long thought about installing an amp, but I really want to avoid having a sub. Right now, the setup sounds OK. I can get it loud enough without distorting.
I have a couple of mp3 CDs I keep in the car. I have two that have ~150 tracks on them each. It's real convenient. I have a few more by artist. Like one Incubus CD that contains all their albums, another for Rage. But I've been trying to listen to better quality. Lately when I burn a copy of a CD (I like to bring burns in the car and keep the originals in good condition) I'll make a 1:1 copy of it. What I use to do is rip it to my computer, usually in mp3 (although I always set it to 320 Kbps). Now I'm using ImgBurn to make an exact copy of the disc. Not only is this better quality, but it retains the way songs flow into each other. An album could have some tracks then end with a few seconds of silence before the next track, and then some that flow right into the next song. I hate burned CDs that fuck that up.
samsonlonghair wrote:This thread is in desperate need of pics.
Yes, I agree! When I have more time I'll have to snap some pics and get into my pro audio gear more.