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  • Bruce H. McIntosh
    scotsman@afn.org
    Visit my work homepage
    Last revised Jan 04, 2021

    Ain't got no speakers
    Ain't got no headphones
    Ain't got no records to play

    Audio and video endeavors

    Main System historical notes


    Main system - in the family room

    Some historical notes

    When we moved into our current house,the a/v setup was much the same as at the old house (see here). After a couple of years we finally reached the conclusion that we had a big enough room to support a really good sized screen. Out came the cardboard cutouts; from them we deduced that a 55" screen was big enough without overwhelming the space.

    Once we settled the size question it was off to shop. After weeks of reading reviews and staring at screens in the shops,we finally settled on the Sony KDS-55A2020 rear projection TV. We got a really good deal from Amazon,including free shipping and unboxing/setup and extended warranty (cheaper than replacing the heinously expensive projection lamp).

    When we first made the jump to the big Sony TV,we hadn't any real idea how we wanted to arrange things,so I just banished the old TV/record cabinet to the other side of the room by the sofa,and set the coffee table between the speakers to hold the new TV. That's how matters sat for a while.

    As we got used to the hulking monster in our family room and grew more enamoured of its dazzling picture,a certain amount of anticipation started building,especially given the prospects represented by Tebow & Spikes & Co. The idea that we ought to share all this big screen hi-deffy goodness has led to the initiation of Gator Football Saturday,our nearly every game day potluck and game watching party. We love watching the Gators play,and we love having a roomful of friends with whom to watch.

    I finally settled on a fairly simple cabinet that would hold all the a/v gear under the TV set. It's made of oak plywood with solid oak edges. There are standards let into the sides for the adjustable shelves. The turntable shelf is mounted on 100lb. capacity full extension file drawer slides. As originally built the cabinet had a 3" tall base,but that made the TV just a touch high,so for a long time it rested on the 3/4" cleats that aligned the cabinet on the base. When I finally got around to building the shelves I decided to cut the base down to 1-1/2". The TV's not too high,and the cabinet looks MUCH better with the finished base under it. Eventually I'll end up putting another shelf in under the turntable to hold an equalizer (against the day that I finally find an affordable MQ-101 to make the woofers happy).

    The presence of that enormous display,combined with incessant badgering from Sue and the girls plus a fairly fun afternoon over at Eli & Sara's finally wore down my resistance to dedicated gaming platforms,and we sprung for a Wii. I don't play with it much at all,but everyone else seems to be enjoying it immensely.

    Right now the system is made of the following components:

    • McIntosh MAC-4100 receiver
    • McIntosh Stereotech 3 speakers
    • Thorens TD-125 turntable w/SME 3009 tonearm and Signet TK9e cartridge
    • Sony ES CDP-X303 CD player
    • Sony KDS-55A2020 SXRD 55" rear projection TV
    • Oppo DV-981HD up-converting DVD palyer
    • Scientific Atlanta SA-4250HDC hidef cable box from Cox
    • Homebuilt Athlon64X2 PC running Mythbuntu,Ubuntu linux bundled with the MythTV DVR software
    • second Scientific Atlanta SA-4250HDC hidef cable box from Cox tied via firewire to the mythbox
    • Nintendo Wii gaming system

    From conversations with Roger Russell,I've concluded that my Stereotech 3s were probably either the prototypes or extremely early production samples. I long ago had to replace the foam grills with cloth stretched over wood frames; that foam pretty much disintegrated after 20 years. The speakers themselves have been heavily modified,first by my cats,who stropped their claws on the woofers one day and shredded their surrounds. Then they were altered by my firstborn,who one day long ago decided that tweeters were just the thing for poking with toddler thumbs. Sigh. Anyhow,Parts Express sold me a new set of foam surrounds for the woofers. Once the woofers were woofing again,I bought a pair of Vifa D25AG-05-06 tweeters from Madisound. Serendipitously,they dropped right into the holes in the boxes vacated by the old tweeters; even more serendipitously,they didn't require any crossover mods to produce something moderately close to flat response! As an added bonus,the old tweeters rolled off like crazy about about 12,000Hz; the Vifas are nice and smooth out to about 18,000 or so (which is beyond where my tattered, abused ears can hear anyhow).

    I recently discovered that one of the cats managed to get a claw into the dustcap on the right speaker's midrange,necessitating a repair using the time honored technique of gluing a couple layers of toilet tissue over the rip. Didn't seem to have caused any audible degradation at any reasonable listening level,but it did underscore the desire to upgrade the speaker situation at some point.

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