December 19, 2007

Landscaping Complete

The last load of dirt and rocks from our backyard's makeover was hauled away this afternoon. Our backyard has been neglected since I moved in three years ago, mostly because I have no real interest in using the backyard. However, I should have hired someone to maintain it right away, rather than letting it get out of control. I have tried each summer to clean things up, but that only succeeded in making it possible to see where you were going.

Originally we were planning to hire someone to do the work. The same company that I hired to fix up the front lawn and install the sprinkler system there. But the total cost was about 1/3 more than the maximum I was hoping it would be, and we have other home improvements that should also be done. My mom said she and my dad would like to visit us for a few days to do it themselves, because they thought it could be done for a lot less and be finished in maybe 3-4 days. Once they got here, though, they found out it was going to be a lot bigger job.

In total, I think it cost us a little more than the maximum I was referring to above, but still a decent amount of money less than if we'd hired a company to do all the work. The problem really is there was a lot of stuff that needed to be dug up, hauled away, and fixed up. A large portion of the backyard was covered in dirt-grass-filled rocks, overgrown, and not level. We got some people to do a bunch of the leveling and hauling both away and to the backyard, as well as the sprinkler system based on a plan my mom put together. We did the rest ourselves, which was basically most of the sod, all the landscaping fabric and bark, and also some digging up of rocks and putting down new rocks.

My mom originally had the idea of keeping some of the old rocks and just cleaning them up to save money. But it really wasn't worth it at all. We should have just dumped all the old rocks and it would have saved us a lot of time. Luna was spending days and days trying to clean the old rocks up, until I decided it just wasn't worth it and ordered a cubic yard of new rocks. We shoveled up the old rocks and replaced them with new rocks in one day. In total, we had to spend three weekends working on the backyard ourselves. It was very exhausting work, and left me feeling very tired and physically fatigued when I had to go back to work on Monday.

Everything is done now though, and we did save money. I just need to make sure someone comes on a regular basis to maintain it. The sprinkler system isn't actually complete either; I need to attach the control unit and another valve to run a drip-line to the banana tree. But that will wait until later, since the rainy season is starting now.

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December 3, 2007

4" Subwoofer Legs

A short while ago I mentioned how watching THGttG popped my subwoofer grilles and a desire to do something about it. So over the weekend I increased the leg length of the subwoofer base to 4" (I would have gone with 5" except Home Depot doesn't sell screws longer than 6") and created new end plates and legs for the top of the subwoofer as well. There are no longer any grilles in use.

Increasing the leg length to 4" is based on allowing enough cylindrical surface area for the air displaced by the driver to freely move back and forth. It might have been ideal to go with 5" legs but that would have required 7" screws. As it is, the 6" screws only came with hex heads and required me to cut a little depression into the plates for the head to run flush with the plate surface. The top plate provides protection for the driver in a sturdier and more reliable manner than the grilles and allows the driver to reach its xmax without any interference. The grilles were impeding the surrounds. I do think it looked better with grilles though.

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November 25, 2007

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

High-energy excitement. That's how I would explain the contemporary film adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Unlike the earlier BBC attempt, which may go down in history as one of the most disappointing adaptations of all time, this version comes with good actors, a good screenplay, and the budget and production quality this book deserves. Complete with rodent overlords.

The movie captures very well the characters created by Douglas Adams. I thought the actor choices were apt, especially for Marvin who truly comes across as a depressed robot. Alan Rickman is just the perfect voice for that role. The only thing I found a little disappointing was the way Zephod's twin heads was done. It's certainly a lot better than a fake rubber head perched on the actor's shoulder, but it didn't play that much of a role in the film; you could have simply ignored that aspect of his character for the most part.

I did feel a little weird that the story and plot elements of the film didn't match up with how I remembered the book, and Wikipedia points out that I wasn't just imagining things. I think the movie is very good, but I wonder if I would have liked it better if it held closer to the original story. It's hard to say, because on its own this version of the movie is very strong.

The visuals and costumes were very good. I particularly liked the construction of Earth. That visual sequence was vast and contained some of the best exhibitions of natural beauty found on Earth. And the way it was put together looked believable, even if at the time I was thinking to myself how it wouldn't hold up to scientific analysis. :p

THGttG is considered an excellent subwoofer test, and I have to agree. The sound production is great. Very immersive and unique with great sound effects that are fun but fit right in. And completely full spectrum without holding anything back. The grilles on the top of my subwoofers got pushed off by the driver excursion which tells me this is the first movie that has actually driving my subs close to their limit. I plan to address that problem soon.

I'm sure real fans of Douglas Adams works are going to find a number of nits to pick about the movie, but I really enjoyed it and would watch it again.

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October 31, 2007

Earthquake!

An earthquake just shook our house, making it rock back and forth with loud audible groaning. At first I thought Luna was playing something in the theater really loud, because our subwoofers are technically capable of doing that, but it was too loud and lasted too long and I realized it was an earthquake. For a brief moment I thought something weird had happened just to our house, like something outside had damaged it, because I've never been in as strong an earthquake before. This is only the second one I've felt, and the first was much more mild. But there's no way an external force could have made the house move that way, unless it was trying to rock it back and forth.

The cats got a little freaked out, although afterwards Kiba was still calmly sitting downstairs. He's really the bravest of them all. Luna was very scared for a short time though. She was shaking on the floor and wanted to get out of the house until I calmed her down and she could look out the window and see everything was okay and nothing was damaged. There was a lot of rocking, but only a few of the models in the display cabinet fell over near the end and they were mostly the ones that aren't very stable anyway. Nothing else fell or got dislocated, including the speakers which are wall mounted and on stands.

I immediately went to the United States Geological Survey Earthquake web site and entered in my experience of the quake on their Did You Feel It? survey. This lets them gather information about who felt what when an earthquake happens, and also tells you a rough estimate of what the magnitude was. When we first went to the site, the magnitude of the quake had not yet been determined, but by the time I finished the survey (along with about 350 other people) the magnitude was recorded as 5.6. The quake was asigned ID NC40204628.

Tintin lives closer to the epicenter, and she IMed me because her phone wasn't working anymore. She got pretty scared and hid under the table, and then tried calling her landlady and parents to let them know what happened but couldn't get outgoing calls to work. She said a few things got knocked over and maybe damaged, where she's staying. My phone worked fine though, and I could call her so incoming calls were no problem for her.

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October 27, 2007

24kW of Power

Finally. After getting this whole process started back in February of this year, Pacific Gas & Electric has run a new cable to the side of our house, capable of feeding a new 200A panel which is more than enough power to run everything at the same time.

It's been a frustrating process. Not because of the people of PG&E, but because of the process. For the most part, the people I had to talk with were very helpful and friendly. They often did everything they could to help me out. In particular, when a crew didn't show up to disconnect the power on Thursday morning, John Herbner at our local service center did went out of his way to make sure we could get the work done and power back before the weekend. And Diane S. at the San Jose service center helped me out earlier on as well. However, both of them are managers and it was upon me to get ahold of them to move things forward. I suspect things would have been fine even if I didn't talk to them, but it would have taken longer and there would have been additional delays. The crew that came out were always friendly and helpful as well.

But it always just took a long time for things to move from one step to the next. Typical time between stages of the process were on the order of weeks, rather than days. I had to constantly call and leave messages, and then try to find other people to leave messages with, in order to get information about what I needed to do and move things forward. In fact, on that Thursday when I got ahold of John, it was only because I tracked down the physical address of the local service center and then ambushed an employee entering the building that I could tell someone that no one had come to disconnect the power. No one at the San Jose service center which I was previously communicating with could help me.

Anyway, I'm glad it's over with, and hopefully someday solar cells and electronics will be efficient enough so we can all live directly off the sun.

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August 11, 2007

StudioTech SP-36 Speaker Stands

I won a 20% off coupon several weeks ago and used it recently to purchase a pair of StudioTech SP-36 speaker stands. I replaced the 30" tall Plateau speaker stands I was using for the two surround speakers with these stands, which are 36" in height. With the Plateau stands, I had a cinder block underneath to raise the speaker over the top of the couch. Overall build quality of the StudioTech stands is superior, and the base plate and top plate both seem denser. The pillar itself also seems to be stronger. Although hollow to allow sand or shot filling, the ends are capped off which acts a little like an additional brace. The foam pads that are included with the SP series stands are also a little thicker.

I do have two complaints about the SP stands though. The first is the wire clips. They actually have a very nice clipping mechanism that lets you push the wire into it, causing the clip to close and grip the cable. However, the only method of attaching those clips onto the stand is by its sticky backing. This backing really isn't very strong, so my 14/4 speaker cable keeps pulling it off. My second complaint is the single screw used to attach the plates to the pillar. With only a single screw in the center, you cannot easily align the top plate and the bottom plate with each other. This makes it a lot harder to align the speaker with the bottom plate and floor. On the other hand, this does allow you to toe-in the speaker without toe-in of the stand, which might look better.

The stands do need to be filled to increase their weight, mostly for safety's sake. Otherwise it is easier to tip over the speaker and stand. I looked for some lead or steel shot, but about the only place to purchase it in large quantities is off eBay. Instead, I ended up getting eight bottles of Crosman Copperhead BBs. Each bottle is about 4.5 pounds, and exactly the diameter of the speaker stand pillar. I think you could fill the pillars up with eight bottles each, but in my case I put four bottles in each pillar. The BBs were are more cost-effective than actual shot, but I haven't calculated if they're actually lead or not.

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August 3, 2007

6Mbps DSL Line Testing

Raw Bandwidth just announced availability of 3-6Mbps down, 512-768Kbps up residential DSL service. With increased use by Luna, my desire for a more visually rich personal web site, and expectations regarding video download in the near future, I decided it was worth the additional monthly cost. However, my existing Alcatel 1000 was not getting good enough sync, and the Westell modem Mike sent me was also having sync issues. So with Mike on the phone checking sync, I tried a bunch of stuff to try and get a better signal.

The first thing we tried was hooking the Westell directly into the line at the outside box. That connection had good sync readings. But plugging directly into the line upstairs did not. At that point I went around trying different telephone jacks and it turns out the upstairs jack (which is a pair of jacks) is somehow wired to the kitchen jack but I'm not sure how. The kitchen jack has a huge mess of wires behind it, none of which is clearly connecting to the upstairs jacks. The left-hand jack in the new extension of the house is on a different pair and had really good sync.

But since the downstairs jack would be inconvenient, being no where near our computers, on Mike's advice I disconnected the wire between the two jacks upstairs. So now that pair runs through the kitchen to one jack upstairs, instead of two jacks upstairs. This change made the signal good, and when I attached a 3-way adapter with a pair of filters for the computer modem and telephone, the signal got even better (for some strange reason). So that's the configuration we are using now.

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July 5, 2007

Fixed Refrigerator Line Leak

Instead of hiring a plumber, my mom suggested I try and cap off the leak ourselves. I managed to find a 1/8" copper cap at Orchard Supply Hardware (Home Depot doesn't care them) and used a pipe cutter to cut the refrigerator line below the point of the leak. My first attempt at soldering the cap onto the pipe didn't take. What did work, however, was wrapping the end of the cut pipe with teflon tape after rubbing it down with some pipe cleaning cloth, and then sticking the cap on with some Copper Bond. After setting for about 20 minutes, we turned the water back on and the seal was good.

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July 4, 2007

Leaking Refrigerator Line

Luna and I checked behind the refrigerator today, to see if there was any food back there which needed to be cleaned. What I found instead is that the water line to the refrigerator, which I did not connect, has been leaking for some time now and there is water damage to the wood floor there. I managed to shove the part that is leaking down through the hole in the floorboards so it is leaking into the crawl space, but I will have to call some plumbers tomorrow to see about permanently removing that water line.

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June 5, 2007

Breakers Replaced

We have power again! After speaking with the supervisor, Diane, at the PG&E service planning office things moved forward pretty well. I'd previously had problems being shuttled back and forth between various people, and having a hard time getting people to call me back. Around 8:45am, one of the field technicians came out and took the meter off the panel, cutting power to the panel. Our electrician came out and replaced the bad breakers, and then in the afternoon a different technician came out to reattach the meter. Everything is working again, so we can cook, do laundry, use the garage, and turn on the lights at night.

This is just a temporary solution. The breakers are going to get worn down again because the current draw is too high. Using two or more major appliances, like the stove and the dryer, at the same time pushes current draw very close to 100A. Plus, we have other things on like lights, and the aquarium, and computers. So for now we are only using one major appliance at a time. We'll do laundry at night. That should help prevent drawing more than 100A, and keep the breakers going a little longer.

PG&E tells me within a few weeks they can get the contract and other paperwork to us, so we can go ahead with upgrading the panel to 200A. I'm still a little concerned about how much it's going to cost. All they will really have to do is pull the new cable through the conduit and energize it. Cost of materials would be the cable, and then some labor costs for actually pulling the cable and attaching it. But I suspect the majority of other costs will be related to all of the paperwork and bureaucracy that was involved in just getting them to do that.

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May 6, 2007

NewAir AC-12000E Portable Air Conditioner

We won't be able to afford installation of a new more efficient central heater and air conditioning system this year, and with summer coming up the second cooling upgrade is a NewAir AC-12000E portable air conditioner (ordered from the link provided). The specifications on this unit are extremely good, under the assumption they are accurate since I could not find the manufacturer's web site. EER is 14.46 with 12,000 BTUs for 830W/7.9A. We are going to keep this in the computer room, since that's the hottest room in the house and also the one where overheating will cause material damage.

Since the unit does draw 8A, and the computers already draw close to 15A on their circuit, it's sharing a circuit with the other bedroom outlets where the upstairs A/V equipment is plugged in. We will have to swap in and out with the upstairs microwave, since the microwave uses 10A.

The plastic window bar is a little strange. I'm not entirely sure I've installed it correctly, but the instructions aren't completely clear on how it is supposed to be used, with respect to the inner-sliding plastic. There is some foam provided to try and keep the window seal intact, but I couldn't get it to be 100% tight vertically, and the inner-sliding plastic is slightly narrower than the outer-sliding piece, so the seal is not air-tight. It should be good enough though.

I did read some people talk about having to insulate the exhaust hose on different brand and model portable air conditioners. I'm not going to bother doing that unless we have to. So we'll try it without insulation for now, and see how hot it gets. The hose is only about five or six feet long though, which means you do need to be able to place the unit very close to the window. As you can see in the picture, we did have to remove one of the computer monitors to make room for the exhaust hose, but we don't use that monitor much anyway.

For the price, this unit is probably the best value I've been able to find, looking at various others online. We're only going to use it on hot days to keep the computer room temperature at around 77°C-80°C, when the outside temperature is warmer than that. So it shouldn't be in use a whole lot. It can only be used for the one room though, since it doesn't have enough BTUs to cool the entire house. And certainly cannot be used in the downstairs theater since that's open and cannot be closed off. So there may still be days we cannot operate the theater due to excessive heat. But at least we won't suffer any computer equipment damage due to overheating this summer.

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April 4, 2007

Electrical Problems

It's been a while now, but I haven't written about it, since we actually started having electrical problems at home. Several months ago, there started to be some glitches in the electrical system. The DVD player would reset, and then later on the receiver upstairs would lose power and then turn back on a couple seconds later. It started getting worse a couple of months ago though, with certain circuits in the house losing power for a fraction of a second. And then a few weeks ago, one or two circuits would kick out for a few seconds. Finally, things just went bad and we've lost a number of circuits completely.

We are working with an electrician now, and the conclusion is that the 100A panel needs to be upgraded to 200A. Things like the washer, dryer, fridge, and stove can already put a decent load on the system. And adding idle draw and then active draw from the home theater, computers, and upstairs A/V setup all adds up to some continuous strain on the system. The electrician showed me some ash and occasional arcing and sparking at the main breaker when we performed a load test.

So right now we don't have use of some appliances and lights. Not being able to use the stove is the biggest problem, since it means we can't cook anything. I have also started going to the laundromat to take care of our clothes.

Unfortunately, Pacific Gas & Electric estimates 16 weeks before a line upgrade to the house could be finished, providing enough power for a 200A panel. It'll also be expensive. Plus, the electrician needs to upgrade the panel which is also going to cost a lot of money. But we don't really have a choice about that, so we'll have to get it done.

In the meantime, the electrician says we can replace the worn out breakers in the existing panel to get a little more life out of it, until the upgrade can actually happen.

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February 25, 2007

Rocket UFW-12

I was lucky enough to win one of the gracious prizes given out this past holiday season by Secrets, a Rocket UFW-12 subwoofer. This is a 12" sealed design in an enclosure with internal volume somewhere around 4.5ft³. It's powered by a 1000W RMS plate amplifier that includes one band of parametric EQ, and is veneered in South American Rosewood with piano black top and bottom caps. It also weighs 137 pounds. I replaced the Velodyne SPL-1200 Series II subwoofer I was using upstairs with the UFW-12. This is sort of a horizontal upgrade, rather than a vertical one.

The reason I consider this more of a horizontal upgrade is because while I think the UFW-12 provides better performance than the SPL-1200 Series II, it also includes a 23Hz, 10th order subsonic filter. I believe the SPL-1200 Series II incorporates a slightly lower filter, possibly set around 20Hz. The difference in frequency response can be seen in the Secrets UFW-12 measurements and a brief statement in the Audioholics SPL-1200 Series II conclusion. So you get better performance above 25Hz and one band of PEQ with the UFW-12, but the SPL-1200 Series II goes a little lower.

Irrespective of the above, the UFW-12 performs excellently from 25Hz and up. It seems to reproduce sounds with more authority than the SPL-1200 Series II, although perhaps they are fairly equal in terms of distortion and maximum SPL. Certain low frequency sounds simply sounded better and clearer with the UFW-12. But the difference in low frequency extension can be audible. I found my in-room response matched very closely the measurements at Secrets, although with some peaks and dips due to the room.

The included PEQ may help tame a peak if you have a large one, but you need closer to five or seven bands to produce a really flat response in most rooms. Having to select the center frequency, Q, and amplitude via analog dials means you do have to go through some trial and error to get your desired filter set up. I used the PEQ to fix one of the 5dB boost, but overall the response was very good even without EQ and it would have been good even without that filter.

Overall, I find the UFW-12 to be a good subwoofer for its current duty, which is as part of our secondary system used for video games. I would not, however, be satisfied with it or even a pair of them in our home theater setup. This is mostly for cutting out so quickly around 25Hz, because above there I think the performance is excellent as long as you have enough of them to meet your SPL requirements without distortion or compression. I think for most music the UFW-12 would be an excellent choice, but you need something that goes lower if you enjoy large drums, pipe organs, or electronic music with deep bass lines.

Cosmetically, the UFW-12 is beautiful. It's also large and could be used as a low end table if you wished. The only drawback is it makes the Castle Avon speakers look too small.

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February 23, 2007

Onix Reference 3

A couple of years ago, Kris Deering wrote a glowing review of Onix Reference 3 speakers. Since then, I've seriously considered them as my ideal upgrade step, in part because at Internet-direct pricing they provide a lot more value than anything else. I've just completed that upgrade with excellent results. Our theater now runs Onix Reference 3 for mains, Onix Reference 100 for the center, and Onix Reference 1 for the surrounds.

In comparision to the Onix Reference 1 (read my impressions), the Onix Reference 3 has better very high frequency reproduction, better off-axis response, and feels less dry to me without losing any of its accuracy. The Ref 3's happened to arrive in the middle of a smoke alarm sequence and the alarm sounded more realistic on the Ref 3 than the Ref 1. I feel the Ref 3 audio reproduction is slightly better, probably due to the smaller operating range of the two woofers. That may be why the sound was less dry.

I have also set the Ref 3 crossover at 50Hz, although 40Hz was a close contender and in other rooms I'm sure you could look at a 30Hz crossover. In comparison, the Ref 100 crossover point is 70Hz which is also close to where you can set the Ref 1 crossover. I try to avoid using ports because of the issues with group delay and in my room ports don't contribute much at these high frequencies. I've only experienced rear-ported speakers in this room.

I did some non-blind subjective comparisons of tweeter response with and without the grilles using one of the early scenes in Moulin Rouge where they're first rehearshing Spectacular, Spectacular. There are some strange high frequency sounds there and at this scene I found the very high frequency reproduction to be slightly attenuated with the grilles on. My non-blind grilles on/off tests on anything below may have revealed a slight difference but I can't be sure. I am fairly sure on the very high frequencies as without the grilles my ears felt a little harsh. I have since removed all grilles from all of the speakers.

The Ref 3 and Ref 100 reproduce the vocal range extremely well. It is much easier to distinguish and also identify in the first place when there are multiple voices singing together. This can be heard on any music tracks that involve a backup singer who was put in to add body or character to the primary singer, and also in Moulin Rouge where many of the pieces are sung in chorus. Cabinet resonance is very good although not completely inert at normal volumes.

I was a little worried that the Ref 100 would not match as well with the Ref 3, but the timbre is pretty much perfect so far as I can tell so far. The Ref 100 may be a tiny bit off from the Ref 3 and closer to the Ref 1, but I have only heard that phenomenon a few times and it may have been due to Dolby Pro Logic decoding. Using Dolby Pro Logic IIx decoding removed that symptom. I was also a little concerned about the MTM design of the Ref 100 over a WMTW design, but it doesn't seem to be an issue after all. It was definitely an issue with the Monitor Audio Silver SLCR center chanel; the SLCR sounded closer to the Monitor Audio Silver S8 when positioned vertically instead of horizontally.

Overall, the Ref 3 provides very accurate audio reproduction across its entire operating range including over the very high and low frequency bands, great off-axis response, and a seamless soundstage. My recommendation is to remove the grilles but you'd be hard pressed to consider it a real issue when the grilles are on.

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February 16, 2007

Logitech Harmony 550

I got a Logitech Harmony 550 remote for my birthday, to control my second setup which consists of a GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Dish Network. It was the addition of Dish Network that brought the number of remote controls from two up to four. And made things annoying. The remote is very good and very convenient though, and a great birthday gift. Thanks Alla, Dantam, and Ellen. :)

I had some trouble with software installation on Mac OS X when using a user account that has its home directories NFS mounted. This user is also not in the group that allows administration, so the software was actually installed as a different user. Basically, the software would just quit or sit there doing nothing without crashing or any messages at all, after it started up. So I ended up having to install and run the software as the non-NFS mounted user that also has administrator privileges.

But once that was done, it was very easy. They've got a huge database of devices, including the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Sony STR-DE597 receiver, Panasonic PT50LC13 television, Impact Acoustics 3-Play, and Dish 381 set-top box. So I didn't have to make the remote learn anything manually. I even gained remote on/off access to the PlayStation 2, which doesn't come with a remote by default.

Now things are very nice with four macros: PlayStation 2, GameCube, Watch TV, Listen to CD. It works extremely well and I just hit one of the macros to start up the components and set their inputs/settings automatically, and everything's running.

Even though I didn't do any heavy customization, the software does allow for it. You can assign different functions to different buttons in any of the modes. And if you choose not to use macros, you can still access devices directly by pressing the Devices button on the remote.

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January 27, 2007

Ants Destroyed

I've been using Grant's Kills Ants baits for a while now, and when I first bought them they worked decent. Not atomic halocaust quality, but not bad. However, the old baits I still have from two or three years ago aren't as effective anymore. So Luna and I went to the hardware store and ended up picking some Terro liquid ant baits on the suggestion of a store employee. These do in fact end up destroying the ant population like an atomic bomb. I put out five baits, and they were filled with ants for a couple of days. Once the ants disappeared, I threw away the baits and I'm fairly certain the nests have been wiped out.

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January 24, 2007

Sealed Sonotube Subwoofer Graphs

I've been using a program called Room EQ Wizard to perform subwoofer equalization, level matching, and crossover/phase measurements. It's a very useful multi-platform program that's also available for free although donations are welcomed. Since building my sealed sonotube subwoofers required measurements below 10Hz, I managed to get a beta copy of REW 4.0 that would measure that low. I haven't posted the following graphs until now because the program was still in beta, but now that it's officially released I can post my measurements.

These measurements were done with a Behringer ECM8000 microphone, and REW was loaded with a microphone calibration file made available at the Home Theater Shack. The ECM8000 isn't super high grade so the calibration file of someone else's mic is probably good enough. I extrapolated below 10Hz since the calibration file was only down to 10Hz, based on a converstaion with the person who performed the microphone calibration, and also my subjective listening.

I used a M-Audio MobilePre USB preamp to supply phantom power to the mic and serve as an outboard input and output audio interface to a laptop. The MobilePre doesn't perform super well in the very low frequencies, with a measured drop off by REW, but at least it can be perfectly measured and compensated for by REW.

Here is the measured room response for the subwoofers in conjunction with the mains, crossed over at 70Hz after equalization and boost was applied. There are about 16 filters being applied to boost below 20Hz and flatten the response with the lowest center frequency at 20Hz.

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Onix Reference 1

I was very lucky to find a pair of Onix Reference 1 monitor speakers in piano black from someone who was upgrading at an incredibly good price. These are two-way rear ported speakers with a 5.25" woofer and Vifa XT concentric ring radiator tweeter and a fourth-order crossover at 4kHz. Luna and I listened to these side-by-side with the Monitor Audio Silver S8 speakers. Personally I prefer the Reference 1 over the S8, although some people would not.

In my opinion, the Reference 1 features a more even overall frequency response, which allows for more of the original material to be heard. This means detail is not lost across the entire spectrum. I also think the tweeter behaves better in comparison to the S8, although that may also be because the frequency response appears flatter on the Reference 1. On the other hand, the Reference 1 sounds somewhat dry or empty compared to the S8. This actually translates to more accurate audio reproduction, but may not be what everyone is looking for.

The S8 has a mid-range boost, which I think ends up masking some of the higher frequencies, and also more cabinet vibration which may contribute to the more full and warm sound which is one of their attractive characteristics. It is a little similar to what I heard when I placed the Monitor Audio Silver SLCR center channel in direct contact with its stand; the stand vibrated in response to the speaker enclosure and the sound was less clear.

The S8 also goes a dozen or so hertz lower than the Reference 1, and I think handles the frequencies below 100Hz with a little more ease. That's not too surprising considering the difference in driver complement, but both the Reference 1 and S8 should be paired with a subwoofer.

I do think the S8 has better off-axis response than the Reference 1. Moving in either the vertical or horizontal direction off-axis had a very audible effect with the Reference 1, while it was not as much of an issue with the S8.

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January 21, 2007

Dish Network

Luna's been a little homesick lately, and she really wanted to have some Chinese television programming to watch. So we looked around at some satellite dish services and found a package and channel she wanted from Dish Network. We ordered only the Chinese package, and the installer showed up today to get everything set up. He was quiet but did a good job and wore booties over his shoes while inside the house. It took a while to get the dish pointed correctly, with me inside reporting on the signal test results.

Installation required drilling a hole through the exterior wall and running a coax cable. So, the satellite dish is really only available from one location right now: the bedroom. Moving the TV would require running coax through the floor or walls or something, and I'm not going to do that anytime soon.

Another issue is the set-top box itself. It's a Dish 381 unit, and it's hot even when turned off. No components can be placed on top of it, even with some breathing room. I had the Playstation 2 on top of it for a short time and that caused it to shut down while I was playing a game, even though the Dish 381 was off.

The Chinese picture and audio quality isn't that great. You can see compression artifiacts, and most of the time the picture looks worse than local channels. But it's real Chinese television so Luna is happy.

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January 1, 2007

War of the Worlds

I put War of the Worlds on my queue mainly because it's a movie that has caused many a subwoofer to bottom out. And I wanted to put my new subwoofers to the test. If I'd done everything right, I'd be able to listen to this movie at reference levels and my subwoofers should not bottom out and instead capture the earth-shaking intent of the sound mix. I was very pleased to discover that my subwoofers were up to the task.

There are many sequences in the film where the characters are experiencing what are essentially mini-earthquakes. I played the movie at perhaps -5dB from reference, not entirely sure, but those times the subwoofers really did recreate the earthquake experience in my primary listening position. It felt like an actual earthquake, although not as high on the richter scale as if I was actually in the movie (which would be bad, if my house collapsed), still something that would have been recorded and felt by seismologists.

Anyway, with regards to the movie, it was a decent action movie but there isn't much of a plot or anything really going on except for mass hysteria and a general fleeing from the aliens by the public. The acting is okay, but it's not like any of them have to do much except be really scared and run away a lot. Nothing else happens, since all of humanity's efforts are in vain, and the audience is not involved with any plans to fight back.

But it's an excellent movie for exercising your subwoofers, as long as they can handle it instead of breaking.

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December 30, 2006

Dark City Movie Night

I had a bunch of new people show up to tonight's movie night, since Wendy and Brian have too many friends and so always have more people to bring. Although all of their friends do happen to be Asian. Anyway, Alla also showed up, and so did Thomas. New people Anh, Kristina, Roger, and Naomi showed up as well. Alla didn't stay for the movie though. This was the first movie night I've held with the new subwoofers, and I played back the Irene scene from Black Hawk Down as a demo. I'm not sure they felt as much as they could, because everyone was sitting in the second row during the demo.

We ended up watching Dark City, in large part because Kristina thinks Keifer Sutherland is really attractive from his role in 24. He plays a completely different kind of character in Dark City though, so I don't know if that worked out for her. Naomi actually only showed up shortly before the movie started, and left right after.

Most people left after the movie, but Wendy, Brian, and Thomas stayed longer. We decided to watch another movie, and Wendy picked The Avengers. She found it amusing in the beginning, but both she and Brian fell asleep pretty early into the movie, since it was so late. I was pretty tired too, but I stayed up to watch the whole thing.

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December 19, 2006

Sealed Sonotube Subwoofers

In my quest for the ultimate subwoofer (restriction being no infinite baffle) flat to 5Hz, I purchased four 15" TC-2000 single voice coil drivers. After going through WinISD Pro and forums and gathering information and advice from many sources over a few months, these are the drivers I ended up with and the enclosure design would be to use sonotubes. I decided to use a sealed enclosure rather than a ported one because the port volume would be too great and a passive radiator would have too much group delay and somewhat extreme mass requirements for reaching 5Hz. I've put up photos of the construction process.

The sonotubes are approximately 4' in length, and 20" in diameter. Each endcap is three layers of 3/4" MDF, with two layers inside and one layer outside. Having three layers for the endcaps posted a problem because you cannot purchase binding posts long enough to go through that far. So what I did is run brass bolts in from the inside to meet with short binding posts run in from the outside. The end caps, dowels, and protective grille over the top driver brings the total height of each subwoofer to approximately 4.5'.

Most people cover their sonotubes with a black fabric "sock". I wanted something that would look a little nicer, so I covered mine with cherry veneer. Unfortunately, due to bumps in the outside of the tubes, there are some ridges in the veneer. And Alla and I had some issues with the glue, so there are some glue marks on the outside near one of the endcaps. We also had glue on our hands for a few days afterwards. So overall the finished look is not commercial quality when seen up close, but from a distance they look very nice.

The project as a whole took a few weekends to complete. A lot of time was spent waiting on the endcap paint to dry, and sand, and recoat. I purchased a high quality mask to protect myself while cutting the MDF, as MDF creates a very fine sawdust when it is cut, and contains carcinogens. It's really best to cut MDF outside in the open air, rather than in the garage. I wish I'd found and purchased a larger circle jig though, because my makeshift one was not perfectly accurate.

I am driving the finished subwoofers with a Behringer EP2500 subwoofer and giving it low-pass boost and equalization to mimic a Linkwitz-Transform using a Behringer DCX2496. You can accomplish the same thing with a cheaper unit, but the DCX2496 provides some additional flexibility. The cables were cut from a spool of Impact Acoustics 14/4 (four runs of 14awg in the sleeve) I won in a contest a while back. I'm doubling up the runs so the signal path is 14/2 each. Each channel of the EP2500 is driving two drivers in parallel, for a ~2Ω load.

Using a Behringer ECM8000 microphone with an M-Audio MobilePre, I calibrated and equalized the subwoofer response flat down to somewhere below 5Hz, possibly even 2Hz, because of room gain benefits. The subwoofer can be driven to reference levels without clipping.

With the flat response, you have to bump up Black Hawk Down pretty high to feel the 5-7Hz 0dB signal from the Irene scene. I've included a copy of the waterfall chart posted by MingL here:

At reference levels, it's a tiny bit noticeable. It's possible to increase the low-pass filter to boost those frequencies several more dB, in which case it really feels like there is a rotor passing over you. I'm not really sure what the dB level is supposed to be; 0dB implies 115dB to me, which I don't necessarily think I can reach at 5Hz, but at ~105dB it's already vibrating the entire house. The whole movie plays way loud at reference levels though, since it's all gunshots and explosions.

Regardless, at this point I feel like I've accomplished building the ultimate traditional subwoofer, and can reproduce all the infrasonics I might need. Now I just need to get much better speakers that have flatter overall response and can reproduce high frequencies well. :)

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December 2, 2006

12V Trigger AC Outlet

So I purchased a Behringer EP2500 and also a Behringer DCX2496. The EP2500 is rated at 9.7A, and the DCX2496 pulls approximately 12W. I'm assuming the 12W off a 120V line equals 0.1A. Grand total is 9.8A. However, the problem is both of these units do not have a trigger. You turn them on and then leave them on. I don't really want to do that since most of the time the home theater is off. There are some Xantech products that can help deal with this, but they're expensive. The cheap DIY solution is a relay switch.

One of my coworkers, Po Chiu, has a strong EE background. So I asked him if he knows that sort of box I need to build this 12V trigger so that when my processor turns on the AC outlet turns on as well. He explained the different types of switches to me. From there I found an article called How To Power Your MAME Cabinet. There are very simple instructions on that site for building your own relay switch.

So I went to OSH and Radio Shack and picked up about $20 in parts. With a wire stripper and soldering iron I was able to throw everything together in about 20 minutes. End result is a 12V trigger from my processor that will turn on a pair of regular AC outlets to power on the EP2500 and DCX2496.

My parts list is:
Radio Shack DPDT Plug-In Relay (Part #275-218)
Leviton 2-Pole, 3-Wire Grounding Duplex Receptacle (BR15-W)
Some sort of blue outlet box
Prime 3' Garbage Disposal Cord (Item #PS210603)
Some 16awg copper wire

The 16awg wire is only rated at 13A, and the DPDT relay is only rated 10A, but that's good enough to meet the 9.8A required by the EP2500 and DCX2496. Assuming those are the maximum current draw numbers, and not just nominal numbers.

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November 24, 2006

Thanksgiving with Alla

Thanksgiving 2006 is over, and I spent the majority of the day working and continuing to spray paint my DIY subwoofer endcaps. I've found that the best results come from painting, letting it dry, then sanding, and then painting again to cover the exposed or roughened parts. Then repeat. You can use successively finer grit sandpaper and in this way end up with a very smooth (visually and physically) finished product. Then just cover with sealer. For dinner, I went to Alla's house in Fremont. I spent most of my time helping her with her business school applications, when we weren't eating. The food was really good. I had some mashed potatoes, two kinds of stuffing, turkey, potato salad, some purplish beats salad thing, and bread.

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November 11, 2006

Sonotube

I picked up some 20" diameter Sonotube round concrete forms, in 4' lengths, from Westside Concrete Materials today. They are one of the few concrete supply companies in the area that is open on Saturday, although they're only open for a few hours. I'd originally tried arranging for purchase and delivery with Muller Construction Supply, but after two days where they twice promised to return my call but did not, I decided to look for a different supplier. The two guys I talked to at Westside were very friendly and helpful, and I was able to fit both sections in the Beetle although it was a tight fit.

I'm going to use these round forms for the enclosures of the subwoofers I am going to be building over the next couple of months. Sonotube, or one of the comparable products made by other companies, provides a rigid enclosure without extensive bracing or many layers of MDF. MDF is very heavy, and requires you to build a box, so it's a lot of effort to build something that then becomes very hard to move around. The downsides to Sonotube are that you can only place drivers or anything else at the ends, and it has to be round or you don't get the rigid behavior.

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October 31, 2006

TC-2000 Drivers

TC Sounds is having a sale on some of their drivers for a limited time, and since I'm trying to replace my 16-46PC+ subwoofers with something that will go lower, faster, and cleaner, I picked up some 15" TC-2000 drivers.

As part of my cost analysis, I calculated the cost per liter of displacement for various TC Sounds and SoundSplinter drivers. Here's my breakdown (hopefully the math is correct):

Surface Area:
-------------
15" = 1140.09182796937 cm2
18" = 1641.73223227589 cm2

Model	Displacement	Cost	L/$
15" TC-2000	3.192L	$259	.012325
15" TC-3000	3.420L	$395	.008659
15" TC-5200	3.422L	$748	.004573
18" TC-5200	4.925L	$895	.005503
15" LMS-4000	3.420L	$598	.005720
15" LMS-5400	4.332L	$845	.005127
18" LMS-5400	6.239L	$1145	.005449
15" RL-p15	2.805L	$250	.011219
15" RL-s15	4.389L	$529	.008297

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September 7, 2006

Replacement Plus 12.3 Driver

The replacement Plus 12.3 driver I requested from SVSound arrived today, although it didn't get sent to my office like I'd asked. I guess that change got lost in the RMA shuffle. Anyway, swapped it into my subwoofer and the rattling is gone. I played back Kodo's Ibuki and the two tracks Dub Gusset and Swords off Leftfield's Rhythm and Stealth. No rattling from those tracks or the startup thump either.

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August 21, 2006

Shaun of the Dead

I just watched Shaun of the Dead, a movie that Anthony from work said was really good and funny. It's an odd sort of movie, mixing zombies with a sort of casual attitude and British humor. For example, instead of running away from the zombies, Shaun and his friend decide to sit on the couch and figure things out. I enjoyed it, and it was fairly amusing at times although yucky at other times.

One unfortunate thing I discovered is that one of the Plus 12.3 drivers I received from SVSound is defective. It rattles sometimes, and I found it even rattled when out of the subwoofer just from the initial turn-on thump. I thought this was due to a loose screw or loose fastening before, but turns out it's a defect in the driver itself. So SVSound is shipping me a replacement. They do have some of the best customer service I've experienced.

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August 6, 2006

Speaker Comparison

So a poster at Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity asked for speaker recommendations in the sub-$3000 range. I originally suggested he go and listen to a bunch of speakers, but he's interested in getting some more brand names under consideration, I guess. So I replied again with some of my speaker impressions. I've decided to copy that portion of my second reply into my blog.

For myself, I have Monitor Audio Silver S8/LCR/Sfx 7.1 for my home theater. They are overall a little warm, and have some cabinet resonances. The LCR isn't superb, but it's okay. The S8's aren't as precise in sound reproduction as I'd like (maybe cabinet resonances or just the drivers) but they sound pretty good overall. The Sfx speakers are okay. All of them roll off more than I like as they approach 20kHz. However, all of my friends are not audio enthusiasts so everything sounds exceptional to them.

I also have Castle Avon speakers, graciously given to me by JJ, which I also enjoy. Their cabinet build is a better than the S8s, so there is less resonance. But there are only two drivers, the tweeter is located a little low (which is okay because of how I listen to them with my head kind of low) so normally would need stands, and doesn't have as good off-axis response as the S8's, I think. But because of how I use them, that doesn't really matter.

When I auditioned the S8's a few years ago, I also listened to Klipsch speakers in the same room. They seemed too bright and harsh for me. Possibly the horn design being a bad choice in my price range. Possibly the tweeter construction. However others think those Klipsch speakers are perfect for them.

I listened to some B&W 805 (I think) speakers about a year or so ago at a boutique store. They were nice, and did the job very well. I don't have a lot of opinion on them though, as I didn't spend a lot of time listening and was mostly interested at that time in finding an amplifier.

I also helped a friend set up a Hsu VT-12 system. For the money, they are a great deal, but noticeably lower in quality than the other speakers I've mentioned. Especially at high volumes. The sound isn't as realistic or enveloping to me, maybe due to tweeter response. His room has more reflections than mine as well. I pretty much don't have any first-order reflections except off the front wall which is covered in velvet drapes, and my sofa back if I slouch. He's quite happy with them though, as far as I know.

If I were to buy new speakers today, I'd be looking at either the AV123 Onix Reference line or asking James Salk about a Veracity HT3 with higher efficiency (maybe by including a second woofer). And a ribbon tweeter is a requirement for me now. However, I haven't heard any of these speakers or a ribbon tweeter, so I still need to do some of my own listening research. Both of these are outside your price range though.

If I were to buy speakers that I feel are equivalent to my Monitor Audio Silver speakers, I'd be looking at the AV123 Onix Rocket line just to save money by going Internet Direct. But I don't feel the Rockets are a significant upgrade from my current system to justify a purchase. Also, this is not based on personal listening and I'm sure they would sound different than my current speakers but would be relatively equal in compromises. The Rockets are in your price range.

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August 5, 2006

The Incredibles

I watched The Incredibles again today. That's probably the fifth time I've watched it. I would have continued watching the anime series I started, except Netflix is taking too long to deliver them. Anyway, The Incredibles has some incredible bass sequences and gave the new Plus 12.3 drivers a workout. One of the drivers wasn't screwed in tight enough, which resulted in some problems during high excursion, so I had to pause the film and fix that.

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SVS Plus 12.3 Drivers

The two SVSound Plus 12.3 drivers I pre-ordered to upgrade my pair of 16-46PC+ subs arrived today. I've just finished replacing the db12.2 drivers with these new drivers and recalibrating using my Velodyne SMS-1. I found that I could lower the overall gain by maybe one decibel, but that for two of my low-end filters I had to decrease the magnitude of cut by about 2dB. I don't really hear any improvement otherwise.

I think the Plus 12.3 drivers are a little heavier than the db12.2 drivers, but otherwise very similar in overall appearance except that the Plus 12.3 driver is black without any logo and has a rubber shell on the outer rim. I also think the Plus 12.3 magnet is a little deeper.

I'm hoping I can use the db12.2 drivers for a DIY subwoofer, but I doubt I'll have funds for that anytime soon.

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July 27, 2006

Velodyne SMS-1

So I'd been using the Behringer FBQ2496 to equalize my subwoofers but just got a Velodyne SMS-1 mainly because I thought it would allow filters to be set as low as 5Hz. Turns out that's not the case. Filters can only be set down to 15Hz, which is still better than the 20Hz limit of the FBQ2496, but not as low as I'd have liked. But the measurement system and real-time feedback turned out to be an plus that really made the SMS-1 worth it.

The first thing that the SMS-1 allowed me to do was identify the ideal crossover point for my speakers. By adjusting the crossover point and then going back to the SPL graph, I was able to determine that my ideal crossover is at 60Hz. Lower or higher results in a bigger cut at the crossover. I did find the automatic EQ to be less than ideal, mostly because it doesn't bother to move off the standard 1/3 octave frequencies. Instead, I got the best results by manually setting parametric filters at the precise locations. Another benefit is I was able to match the subwoofer volume to the mains volume a lot better. The DMC-1's subwoofer calibration signal is a little messed up.

The 1/3 octave smoothing issue mentioned in the Audioholics review is an isssue. I would suggest verifying the response using Room EQ Wizard's signal generator to see if your filters have done anything undesired. But, if you try to make your filters have as high a Q value as possible, you can probably avoid that anyway.

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June 29, 2006

Front Yard Cleaned Up

Over the past month or two, I've had my front yard cleaned up by one of my neighbors, Del Sol Landscaping. They topped the four 45' Italian Cypress trees that run alongside my driveway, pulled all the weeds and laid down landscape felt, and put bark into the non-grass areas. They also installed a sprinkler system and automatic timer.

They did a good job, although spread out over a somewhat extended period of time. That's okay because I wasn't in any hurry and let them know that. I'm having them continue regular maintenance on the front yard because I would just never get around to spending the time myself. The automatic sprinkler system solves my problem of watering a brown lawn.

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June 21, 2006

New Fence

The fence on one side of my house had been falling into disrepair recently. A small portion of the back fence fell down completely. Several weeks ago, the landlord of the house behind replaced that small portion of the fence. And yesterday my neighbor, who runs Bow Construction, finished replacing the side fence. I paid for materials, and he and his crew put the fence up in two days, including a gate which I didn't have before. I was surprised at how quickly the fence went up, but it looks very well done. I just need to get a better gate-pull because right now it opens with a short wire.

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June 2, 2006

Blackout Curtains

Today I finally finished sewing blackout cloth to the last of my upstairs curtains. There are a total of ten curtains, and I used about 13 yards of blackout cloth and a few hundred feet of thread to sew blackout cloth onto the outside-facing side of each curtain. Now, the sun is completely blocked in both bedrooms and the computer room. This should do three things: keep the overall heat down during the summer by reflecting more light back out, allow me to play video games during daylight hours without being blinded, and keep the sun from waking me up too early in the morning.

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May 28, 2006

Surround Acoustical Panels

Several weeks ago I was patching an anime which had the voices sometimes move into one of the surround speakers as a person moved off screen. When this happened, I immediately noticed a problem. It sounded like those people suddenly moved into a completely different, live, room. And so I decided I needed to put some acoustical panels up to tame the surround speaker acoustics. I was able to go back to California Central Insulation and get some IS300 2.5" semi-rigid fiberglass and then some cotton cloth from the fabric store. And then I started to work on building the acoustical panels.

I built a total of eight panels. Four 2'x4' panels for the ceiling, and four 1'x4' panels for the walls near the top of the ceiling where there would be interaction with the speakers. It probably took me about ten or twelve hours to sew the sleeves for the fiberglass and then mount them on the ceiling and walls, but the results have been worth it.

Mounting the panels onto the walls was not too difficult. I threaded some steel wire through the sleeves and then hung them off eyebolts I screwed into the walls near the ceiling. However, mounting the panels onto the ceiling was very difficult. I could not run a screw through the fiberglass, as it would just go through the entire thing and then the panel would drop. I couldn't hang the panel from the ceiling because there was nothing to attach a hook or eyebolt into on the panel.

So I ended up having to get some transparent plastic wire and screwing four hooks per panel into the ceiling. Then ran the transparent wire between the hooks as a support for the panels. To ensure the panels stayed as close to the ceiling as possible (with some air to serve as a trap), I had to pull the wire extremely tight. Needless to say this was very tiring and hard on my hands. Since there was no one to help me, I often had to use my head or back and stand on the furniture to support the panel as I was pulling the wire.

Unfortunately I don't have the disc which originally made me want to do this to test how well that voice would sound now, but so far I've been very pleased with how much better the surround speakers sound. They are slightly less enveloping but I would say in a good way as the sound is more distinct and clear now. It is too bad that my surrounds happen to be bipole speakers (dipole operation possible) which is good for ambient sounds but bad for distinct sounds. The acoustical panels are making the tweeters on the surrounds much less useful. If I have the chance to upgrade my speakers, I will go for direct firing surrounds. Bipole or dipole operation is not as great in my open room anyway.

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May 27, 2006

Flat Tire

I was driving out this morning when my neighbor told me that my rear passenger tire was flat. So I had to change it to the spare, and then drove to Wheel Works (how come their web site is so bad?) to see if they could patch it. They said they couldn't get to it for a few hours, so I left the tire there and went to work.

Around 4:30pm they hadn't called me back yet, so I gave them a call and asked what was going on. I saw this morning the damage was to the side wall and so I had to buy a new tire. I drove back and bought a new tire but took it home myself so I could save the money and install it myself. They placed the new tire onto my wheel and the mechanic was kind enough to balance it. Once I got home with the replacement tire, I jacked up the car and swapped the spare back out.

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April 27, 2006

Behringer FBQ2496

I purchased a Behringer FBQ2496 to act as a parametric equalizer for my subwoofers. I managed to get it for a great price, and after spending a few hours with my SPL meter, got measurements for input into Room EQ Wizard, a freeware (donations appreciated) audio measurement and correction tool. This software is amazingly good, runs on many platforms, and has just about every feature you'd want. With the FBQ2496 and Room EQ Wizard, I managed to flatten my subwoofer response quite well, although it would be better if the FBQ2496 could go below 20Hz.

This graph shows the measured frequency response of my subwoofers on the top purple line, and the corrected frequency response on the bottom purple line. The target response is the horizontal blue line, assuming a 150Hz cutoff. I performed my measurements with a 160Hz cutoff, to flatten the response as much as possible and allow the processor to handle the different cutoffs. Plus, the LFE channel is not cutoff at all.

The PEQ filters in the lower-right were automatically calculated by Room EQ Wizard, specifically for the FBQ2496. In other words, Room EQ Wizard knows the options available via the FBQ2496, and uses those constraints to determine the correcct filters. No boosts are assigned, as that can be a very dangerous thing to do.

Unfortunately, since my subwoofers are tuned to 12Hz, there's a huge 12Hz bump which the FBQ2496 cannot address. I tried tuning my subwoofers to 16Hz, but that resulted in a fairly gradual decline from 16Hz down, rather than a flat response due to room gain. This is because my subwoofers are ported, and so the frequency response will drop off dramatically once you hit the tuning frequency. You can see this at the 12Hz point in this graph as well.

So for now, I'm keeping that 12Hz bump, until I might be able to purchase a Velodyne SMS-1, which supports filters as low as 5Hz.

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April 2, 2006

Center Channel Stand

I built a new center channel stand today which has an adjustable tilt. So I can precisely angle the speaker up towards my head when the center channel is laid horizontally. I've been using the center channel vertically because it sounds much better when sitting directly in front of it, but this does mean people off-axis don't get as good of sound. But now I want to lie it horizontally again because I also lowered the projector screen. I lowered it by about eight inches after making sure people in the back row will not be blocked by the front row heads. This screen height is much more comfortable for the people in the front row.

The center channel stand is made of two 10"Wx24"L pieces of shelving, and an odd connection between them. One of the shelves serves as the base. To this I attached two 8" angle brackets in the center, lengthwise. The top shelf had two pieces of 2"x6"s screwed into the bottom so that they would fall right inside the angle brackets rising from the base. I could then shoot a 5/16" hex bolt through the angle brackets and through the 2"x6"s. Now the top shelf can freely rotate using the hex bolts as its axis while the base remains flat. To lock the shelf's angle, I can tighten the hex bolt and nut, and I placed locking washers on both sides of the 2"x6" to keep it tight.

It's works very well, although you have to be certain to tighten the nuts and bolts enough to prevent the stand from rotating while the speaker is on it. I used some mounting stickies to keep the speaker in place on the top shelf. To put the stand at the correct height, I bought some 6" tall cinder blocks and placed them on the floor below covered in some leftover black felt. I spraypainted the wood and the brackets black to prevent reflections, although I didn't spraypaint any of the nuts, bolts, or washers because I didn't want them to get thick with paint or stuck with paint either.

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Drywall Patching

Got up a little early this morning and patched up the small drywall hole the plumbers had to cut above my shower to reattach the 90° pipe. Based on a suggestion by Ruben, one of the plumbers, I stuck a piece of 2"x6" into the wall through the hole and attached it to the existing drywall using drywall screws. Then used that to support the piece that was cut out and screwed that piece into the wood as well. Then used spackle to cover everything up. It's not perfect, and you can see the outline where the spackle caught, but if you painted it over, I'm sure it would disappear.

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