Realized I can go the amp route and connect the presumably still-functional speakers from my old set to it at least as a stopgap. Amazon had this apparently beloved little guy on sale for half off, so one is on its way to my place for Thursday.
That really does make a lot of sense to do. If I want 5.1 in a game I am playing, I am going to use headphones. I had to toss a 40 year old pair of bookshelf speakers (like 50lbs each) that I had been lugging around for years. The tweeter on one was crackly, and they were so g-d heavy I couldn’t bear to move them a 3rd time. I definitely could use some new bookshelf speakers for my record player.
That’s fine, I do it all the time. It’s how I listen to audiobooks in the car, or hook my phone up to stereo equipment while travelling, etc.
Not even the fancier versions! Most of those rPi music players are designed to be headless servers driven by a swanky webGUI accessible via any browser on your wifi network. PC, tablet, phone, etc.
Heh, I dug out my ancient Carver integrated amp and my equally ancient Bose Acoustimass stuff, and an also ancient 3.5mm to RCA cable, set it up, plugged in my Mac, and…hey, it works great! For the time being at least, I can use this for sure. Thanks for the suggestions!
@inactive_user Thanks a lot, jerk. I was perfectly happy with my speakers, but this thread got me reading up on all this stuff again for the first time since getting them. The good news is that the Micca set you are looking at is one of the main budget recommendations in the last few years (along with my Infinity P163s and the Pioneer PSB22). But now I’m seriously considering moving my existing speakers to surrounds in the home theatre, and replacing them with these:
Hey, I’m just doing my part to stimulate the economy.
Hey, so it didn’t even cost $5!
The sound quality should be pretty good! I’d make sure the volume on the Mac is about 1/4 to 1/2, since you’re double-amplifying the music. Just play around with the Mac and amp volumes and see what gives you the best sound clarity, but you want the Carver to do most of the amplification.
I’m using a pair of Klipsch computer speakers that I bought in 2001. They sound fantastic, but I’ve noticed the subwoofer is finally starting to sound a little crackly and may die soon. Whenever that happens, I’ll probably just buy another set. They’ve been great computer speakers and it looks like they’ve barely changed them in 15 years. Pretty close to the best $200 I ever spent.
And here we go:
They obviously lack the bottom of a x.1 setup, but all other reproduction and detail is like chalk and cheese. Needed to give them a slight boost to the bottom of the range to make them a bit more balanced in this configuration, but I am pretty happy with it so far, given all it set me back was some extra banana plugs and 45 minutes!
Test listening on a bunch of favourited YT music vids I have typically only viewed on PC revealed detail I had not noticed before. Tracks I am familiar with are more favourably reproduced than my Sonos Play 3, though I might argue that is hardly a surprise, given audiophile sound quality is not really where their value lies.
Those seem much smaller than I was figuring they would based on some of the other posts. . . or maybe you just have an enormous desk/monitor ;)
Nonetheless, please don’t mind me while I drool over y’all’s sick audio setups :)
Yeah, these things are better described as mini-bookshelfs! The Miccas pretty match these in dimensions.
Those LSK M4s are smallish. The woofer is 102mm.
I’ve had the Pioneer SP-BS22s or a few years at our TV/stereo. Caught them on sale for $60, but wasn’t all that impressed until I finally also caught a sale on the matching subwoofer. Much, much happier now. Hasn’t stopped me from wanting the Elacs, of course, but the B6 have never budged from $280 at Amazon. Plus, they’re probably just enough bigger than the BS22s that my wife would notice if I tried a stealth upgrade…
I think you mean the tweeter!
The woofer is 4".
:)
They seem to be another series that is highly, highly regarded for their cost/size/performance.
Now Andrew Jones, who was behind them, is at Elacs:
I deny ever saying any such thing. Those are simply common words expressing a common feeling and are pretty much what My Little Pony said about speakers anyway.
That, and apparently I can’t read the specs table correctly.
Oh and @ArmandoPenblade, this one is just for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7wNSkxsU60
/shitty recording on phone disclaimer
I SEE HOW THOUST TAUNTEST ME
Ha, try it now! For some reason I though private would still work if I shared the link!
So, when you say “just for me” with “Welcome Home” playing, I can only assume you’re talking about this:
Well, now I need to thank you!
I had a rough idea that would be a Coheed and Cambria guitarist, but I had to google the image just to be sure, which led me to this as the second hit:
Holy shit, that is good - the vocals in that are great, with just a touch of sustain to add some haunt. Now, 4" woofers just ain’t gonna drive down to 40Hz and shake your ass when Addicted to Bass is cranked, but they will crush vocals like that all day long.
Oh, for goodness’ sake. I didn’t even realize that I need different cables to connect my old speakers to the amp - what I have are RCA plugs, and I need banana plugs. So my amp is sitting here in a box under my desk, and speaker wire and banana plugs will be here Tuesday.
Grumble, grumble.