Disclaimer: I?m Joe Average, this post is not full of ?exotic and erotic? gear so often seen on this forum... [emoji16]
So working at home has worked well for me, but the music situation hasn?t.
At the office I would normally use my headphones, but working from home means I spend a LOT of time with a head set on. I now have no desire to spend anytime with headphones on.
So I kind of plodded along with an ancient Sound Blaster speaker set I had connected to the PC I use for my music and movie library. They purely existed just to have some sound if it was ever required.
Now my study has been a largely ignored space for some years. All it was, was the landing point for my fiber and LAN and the location for the PC noted above. Any work I needed to do after hours, I normally did at the dinning room table. Wine, Wifi, food and music abound in that area
It has become clear in recent weeks that working from home will likely be the ?new norm? for both myself and large number of my colleagues.
Ok - so clearly I need to make some changes. A coat of paint, new carpet and blinds etc blah blah. That will come.
But I realized I needed to get some half decent sound going, but the only practically sized speakers I have are small Mordant Shorts that frankly I?ve never been crazy about.
So I thought, sod it, I?ll break out the old Paradigms that I do have a soft spot for.
Ok, so I might?ve over shot the mark on size....
[emoji15]
Ok - so how to drive them?
I had a choice between an old and huge Marantz SR5400 AVR or an original NAD 3020.
The NAD was a no brainer, but I wondered if it just wouldn?t have the vooma.
Source? The old PC hosting my iTunes library which consists of my CD collection in ALAC format, and I installed the Tidal desktop app.
Between them? Easy peazy, broke out the old Cambridge Audio DACMagic and used the USB input.
The NAD hadn?t had power for long time, so I was more than a little weary. For the first three minutes I thought I had made a mistake. It was the thinnest reediest sounding system I?d ever heard.
Three minutes later it sounded a lot better, I went away for 15 mins leaving it to play and it sounded great when I got back.
The three monitors that you see are my work environment, I just RDP to the source PC to control the music.
I?m extremely pleased with the result. I?ve never done any near-field listening before and actually rather like it. You can still generate a sound stage, but you also get the level of detail you would normally only hear with headphones due to one?s proximity with the drivers.
To my utmost surprise, the bass is punchy and not boomy,(I was concerned about the corners). At low volumes, the loudness button on the NAD is very effective. I turn it off if I drive the volume up. I?ve also toed them in a bit more since the photo.
I?m extremely pleased with the result, as an added benefit I?ve found a personal space to listen to music again. As a family man this can be very challenging.
And finally - I did it all for free as I owned all the gear!
I hope this inspires someone else to use an impractically sized speaker for their work from home desk!
So working at home has worked well for me, but the music situation hasn?t.
At the office I would normally use my headphones, but working from home means I spend a LOT of time with a head set on. I now have no desire to spend anytime with headphones on.
So I kind of plodded along with an ancient Sound Blaster speaker set I had connected to the PC I use for my music and movie library. They purely existed just to have some sound if it was ever required.
Now my study has been a largely ignored space for some years. All it was, was the landing point for my fiber and LAN and the location for the PC noted above. Any work I needed to do after hours, I normally did at the dinning room table. Wine, Wifi, food and music abound in that area
It has become clear in recent weeks that working from home will likely be the ?new norm? for both myself and large number of my colleagues.
Ok - so clearly I need to make some changes. A coat of paint, new carpet and blinds etc blah blah. That will come.
But I realized I needed to get some half decent sound going, but the only practically sized speakers I have are small Mordant Shorts that frankly I?ve never been crazy about.
So I thought, sod it, I?ll break out the old Paradigms that I do have a soft spot for.
Ok, so I might?ve over shot the mark on size....
[emoji15]
Ok - so how to drive them?
I had a choice between an old and huge Marantz SR5400 AVR or an original NAD 3020.
The NAD was a no brainer, but I wondered if it just wouldn?t have the vooma.
Source? The old PC hosting my iTunes library which consists of my CD collection in ALAC format, and I installed the Tidal desktop app.
Between them? Easy peazy, broke out the old Cambridge Audio DACMagic and used the USB input.
The NAD hadn?t had power for long time, so I was more than a little weary. For the first three minutes I thought I had made a mistake. It was the thinnest reediest sounding system I?d ever heard.
Three minutes later it sounded a lot better, I went away for 15 mins leaving it to play and it sounded great when I got back.
The three monitors that you see are my work environment, I just RDP to the source PC to control the music.
I?m extremely pleased with the result. I?ve never done any near-field listening before and actually rather like it. You can still generate a sound stage, but you also get the level of detail you would normally only hear with headphones due to one?s proximity with the drivers.
To my utmost surprise, the bass is punchy and not boomy,(I was concerned about the corners). At low volumes, the loudness button on the NAD is very effective. I turn it off if I drive the volume up. I?ve also toed them in a bit more since the photo.
I?m extremely pleased with the result, as an added benefit I?ve found a personal space to listen to music again. As a family man this can be very challenging.
And finally - I did it all for free as I owned all the gear!
I hope this inspires someone else to use an impractically sized speaker for their work from home desk!
