"Finishing" The System

I know, I know, there's really no such thing as finishing the system for somebody like me (and most likely you as well). But this is probably as close as I'm going to get to that particular mythical goal as I'm ever going to be. So, I'm here to talk about the process this fine Sunday morning.

As any of you who read on a fairly regular basis are aware, I've been plugging along slowly toward my eventual stereophonic Nirvana of getting all the parts of my originally planned system working. When I say "originally planned", I mean that they were parts of our plans for the house back when it was built. Enough so that I pulled wiring from where the system sits to the ceiling where the rear speakers are supposed to be located AND to the back porch where the outside speakers are supposed to be, 6 years ago, when the house was built!

As part of that plan I also accumulated several important items:

• A pair of "in-ceiling" speakers (plus a later third one) to serve the rear 3 channels of my surround system- HiFi Works HFW6R, 6.5" 2-Way speakers.
• Several Paradigm VC150, that would allow local control of volume for any zones I added in the future.

Of course, this being the "Frugal Propellerhead", I'd be remiss if I didn't explain what I did in purchasing these items. The VC150s, I bought from the home theater store that I had worked at for the "saleman accommodation" half price which came to something like $28 each at that time. The speakers came from an off-chance visit to the Lowes store in Midland where they were on clearance for less than $50. I bought the 3rd in-ceiling speaker off of eBay as "new old stock" for something ridiculous like less than $15 since nobody wanted a single. I think I remember paying more to ship it than the price of the item.

Sadly due to my laziness and the fact that I'd never installed anything "in-ceiling" before, all this stuff has sat for the last 6 years awaiting action. As you guys know, I've been kind of on a kick to do work my system, so this item once again reared it's ugly head. So, I found a pair of in-expensive indoor/outdoor speakers on eBay (Dual LU53p) for $49 after shipping

So, what needs to be done to get all this going? Well....first of all, it'll require crawling around in the attic without falling through the ceiling, finding the wires that are now under the blown-in insulation, then finding the correct spot to cut the holes for the 3 speakers. Then cutting those holes correctly, hooking up the speakers and getting out of there without falling through the ceiling. Then installing the speaker wire connector panels in the triple-gang box behind my massive entertainment center (with the correct wires). Installing the new speakers outside on the porch, connect the VC150 in the box for that with the correct wiring (there are 4 pairs in there, 2 in, 2 out) then the other end at the connection panel behind the entertainment center as well!

I think you can see why I've put all this off for so long! But now the time has come and I have even gotten a committment from a former electrician friend to help with the install....so stay tuned. Unfortunately he's not available for a couple of weeks AND we still have kids birthdays (including a building project of a loft for my son) to deal with.

Sunday Morning Blog

Weekend mornings without other responsibilities are perfect! Kids in the other room watching a movie, sick wife sleeping, hour or so of warm-up relaxation music on the iPod, pot of coffee brewed from just-ground beans.....Steely Dan: Goucho spinning on the turntable.....what could be better! So, here's how the audio/home theater system was put together: The Frugal Propellerhead way.

As I related in previous posts, I had sold off my old system before we moved away from Lubbock, partially to keep from having to move it, and partially to generate some cash for the move. Let me start by giving a general description of that system.
It was built around Yamaha's flagship DSP-A1, which (unusual for me) I bought new. It had everything I needed and sounded great. Attached to it was the Yamaha PF-800 turntable with a Grado Gold cartridge (which I still use) mounted.

Of course, there was the usual other inputs, such as cassette deck, compact disc, DVD, as well as some unusual ones such as minidisc deck, and SVHS video cassette deck (which replaced Super Beta). But the main component was a pair of a/d/s/ L1290 full-range speakers which were bought in bad cosmetic condition, but I managed to refinish with black Aniline dye.

This was the big three and the components that I sold before the big move, along with some others, but I kept most of the source pieces. The reason? Big-time, "flag-ship" pieces tend to sell well, for a good price, even when they are older as long as they are in nice shape. Run-of-the-mill source pieces however won't return much if anything and therefore not worthwhile to sell and re-buy. Don't believe me? Get online and see how much cd players and plain-Jane cassette decks sell for, even nice ones. At the time, even minidisc desks were down, price-wise (but has rebounded significantly since the supply has dried up).

So for 3-4 years my system limped along with a cobbled together assortment of pieces.....that is until a couple of years ago when the time was right to piece my system back together.

Let's be clear here; I'd have been more than happy to do it with "higher-end" pieces, such as Rotel separates, but again, father-of-two-school-teacher-husband-of-no-nonsense-wife pretty much dictated otherwise! So what to do when trying to put together the heart of a nice sounding system? So here are the parameters, other than "cheap as possible":

• Needed to be able to do bother home theater as well as audio.
• Needed to have a "Phono Stage" since I still had my records and fully intended to make vinyl the center-piece of this system.
• Enough expansion flexibility to handle external zones in the future.
• Enough "oomph" to drive good full-range speakers.
• Enough inputs to handle all my various source components, both on-hand as well as planned.

So; if I can't afford, "affordable" separates like Rotel, where to turn? I was definitely not going to do the typical consumer level (read Best Buy) type components powered by chip-amps like Sony or Pioneer. Of course, several of the above criteria pretty much leads to some specific conclusions:

• My budget dictated that I'd have to go with a receiver, vs. separates.
• I needed a "high-end" or at least a higher-end component. The inclusion of a "Phono-stage" virtually guaranteed this.
  
• The desire to own a nicer piece built to a higher standard pretty much left me with Sony ES, Pioneer Elite, or Integra (by Onkyo). I'll tell you a secret: I never cared for the sound of Denon pieces anyway.

Of course, since I had sold Integra and it was something I routinely recommended in those days to buyers on a budget, I began looking for the model fo receiver that I felt to be the best deal, back then; the DTR6.3. Let's look at why that is:

• The easily observable basics is that it has a "Phono stage", plus plenty enough other inputs even for me.
• It had plenty enough power at 100wpc (real ones vs. the phantom ones you get from the amp-on-chip ones) x 6 channels that would not only do home theater, but enough head-room to handle full-range speakers run at high volume.
• Most importantly, it's well-built, enough so that Onkyo Corp. felt secure in backing it at a warrantee period twice as long as there regular line of components.
  

Is it the most powerful and detailed piece ever......no, but it does have a very important characteristic. Its errors are errors of omission, vs. adding artifacts to the music that aren't there. Plus I was able to pick it up on eBay (missing the remote and manual) for well below $200!

The other main piece in my system is the turntable. Its a Dual 510 belt-drive model from the late 70's. Again, I'd so rather of had a Rega Planar 2 (maybe 3), or the Rotel clone, but...... What the Dual (almost any Dual) gives you is "bang-for-the-buck". Although, they are generally associated with their "idler"-"rim-drive", record changers (which are very good, I own one), Dual made some excellent belt-drive turntables as well. They even had some well-thought-of "direct-drive" models too. The trick is to do enough research to find the models that perform very well, but are not well known (and thus more sought after). For me, I wanted belt-drive (I'm not going to get into the belt vs. direct debate here), one of their later arm suspension systems (of which they had several), on a decent plinth (base) that wasn't one of the cheap plastic ones. If it had markings and light for speed adjustment/tuning, that would be a bonus. However, the single most important part is that its in good working condition. To cut to the chase; I bought mine for less than $50 after shipping and then spent a few more dollars for a new belt. One of the reasons for the low price was that there were major cracks on the dust cover, but that wasn't relevant to me, and it didn't have cartridge which also wasn't relevant since I still had my Grado Gold from the PF-800.

The rest was easy. I checked Newegg when I was looking at a Blu-ray player and found the $250 Sony to be a $128 special! Picked up an Integra CDC3.4, 6 Disc CD Changer (missing remote), AND Integra DVD player locally from Craig's List for less than $50 total. Remember what I said about source components being cheap? Of course the remote codes for those components are built into both my CHAD remote and the Integra receiver remote that I found later on eBay (found the remote for the CDC3.4 as well).

Oh yeah, I got my KEF IQ7s on eBay as well. I ended up getting them for cheap (less than $300) since the guy specified "local Pickup only" and they were in Arlington (Texas, not Virginia). Good for me! Later found a matching IQ center channel on eBay for $90 or so in B.C.

So, life is pretty good. No, I don't have the Uber-System built on Rotel separates driving B&W speakers that I always dreamed about, but what I have works pretty darned well. AND, I'm "all-in" at well less than $1000 (not including the TV and sub of course). I'm able to sit here blogging about it on a Sunday morning, listening to Steely Dan: Aja with pretty much a clear conscience.