Be afraid, be very afraid. Finally got around to taking pictures of my ahem, home theatre. Living room. Whatever. Here you go, you junkies...


Overview shot



Left QS4 (my wife, taking the better pictures, says, "What's a QS4?")



Left M50 (glamour shot)



VP100, obviously. Flipped over on its back for less visual impact. And it sounds better that way than straight on, anyway.



Right M50, with one of our cats. Who is somewhat confused. That's normal for her, though.



Right QS4.



Side shot of the entertainment center, which I built myself over the period of several years. I don't work very fast.



Front of said entertainment center. See the CD changer? Best sounding one I've ever owned...



Cool shot of the VP100 and the Italian mask.



And finally, a shot of the cable that I *ahem* built myself, for all you exotic cable junkies. OK, fine, it's just Canare Quad star, but I put ends on the receiver end! Poorly!

I don't see a sub

It's not worth taking a picture of, anyway. It's in the left front corner of the room; I would have had to move the coat rack. Just a Cambridge Soundworks Powered Subwoofer 1. Nothing exciting...

Ahem. I love it.

Very nice entertainment center. Lovely finish. Some things are worth waiting for.

I'm not really "afraid". Should I be concerned?

Cool, Ken. Thanks.

From this "junkie", thanks for the very artistic photos! Your setup looks great!

The mask looks like it's looking down over the VP100 rather than sitting on top of it...pretty cool! Also, I see that your cat is enjoying herself posing with the M50...BTW, would that be her toy rubber duck in the background?

Tom: Thank you for the compliment on the entertainment center. I agree with you; it was worth the wait. The wood is white oak, the finish is 2 or 3 coats of American Natural, and 2-3 coats of satin poly. The doors were done about a year after the rest of it, and I didn't have all the resources for finishing (ie a closed garage) available when I did them, so they're a little less nice. I'm just being nitpicky, though... I don't think you need to be concerned, unless you're using a modem, in which case the pictures are still downloading.

Mary: Thank you very much! The picture of the VP100 (which I should point out belongs to my wife--I should have said "our home theatre") was taken from below, and the nose of the mask is actually hanging over the edge a bit. In fact, that's part of how it stays on, as the back of the back of the VP is tilted downwards.

We have a number of rubber duckies around the house... some the cats play with. That one, I believe, fell of of the Christmas tree, and we are in fact too lazy to pick it up.

Oh yeah, as far as the beautiful entertainment center goes (which I forgot to mention in my first post), if you could belt some more out (like you have all the time in the world, huh?!), you could sell those for a nice price! I'm looking to buy a media rack that looks similar. So when would you like to start on it?

Heh. I should give some history on this thing... Back in 2002, I found the pattern in a Wood magazine of some sort. This is the first woodworking project I have ever attempted. My friend, a more accomplished woodworker (who lives a little over an hour away and actually owns tools) said we could belt out not one, but 2 of these in a weekend. I completed the cabinet (sans doors) in 2004. He has not completed his. I did virtually all of the work at his house and at our other friend's house, a block away.

With their tools.

My wife and I just talked about it; we put about $400-$450 of materials into it.

In short... well, you're cool and all, but I'm not doing custom cabinetry for anyone.

Very good, Ken. I've been especially dying to see a picture of those infamous cables.

Very nice cabinet indeed.

Where's the closeup of the HTPC? (At least I thought you had one)

I like it, Ken. Don't worry, your cat is just pretending to look confused, just doesn't want you to know any better. I think I'm done squinting at my screen trying to read the titles of all the books. Some look familiar, others don't.

Thank you for sharing. And, yes, that entertainment center does look nice.

Thank y'all.

Nope, no HTPC for me. I'm not ready to give up on the TiVo just yet.

No, Sprite really isn't that deceptive. That would take more than her allotted amount of brain cells. Sweet cat, though. Now, if it had been Kali...

*Special note: Never name a cat after a god or goddess of destruction!

I think most of the books visible in that picture are David Weber titles, with the balnace being Larell K. Hamilton and Robert Jordan.

Question of the day--will Robert Jordan EVER finish his series? Or at least attempt to tie up some of the loose plot threads? Don't get me wrong, great series, I've read the first six or seven books twice, but I'm afraid I'll have to read them again just to refresh my memory. Sheesh.

The cats I've had (knock on wood) have all been pretty nice. No nutcases yet.

He has one book to go on the main line, and 2 more prequels. Sadly, he has also recently been diagnosed with a (some?) rather nasty disease. He has publicly stated that he will finish book 12 at the very least.

Man, that's not good news--his disease, I mean. I was kinda suprised to see a prequel released before the main series was even done.

His blog is here.

I was kind of surprised too, but it fills in some interesting stuff. I think it might have been a let down if he had released the prequel trilogy (bad words! bad words!) after the main sequence was over.

Thanks for the link, Ken. I haven't read the last couple of books yet. I like to have everything available in a series before I start reading it. Yes, it is limiting, but I like to have everything fresh in my memory. Soon, I will have to dig my Robert Jordan books out of whatever cardboard box I packed them in. Has it been 10 years since I first started reading it? Yikes. Time flies.

Very nice... Your M50 "glamour shot" made me start my day off with a chuckle. Good stuff...

Speaking as one who is incapable of building anything with any one side either parallel or perpendicular to another.............................I HATE YOU!

Nice job Ken.

Great looking pad you have there Ken. You did a great job on that entertainment center, top quality craftmanship.

I think you need to get a 32-42" LCD widescreen to sit on top, that would be killer.

Ken, the more I look at that entertainment center the more impressed I am. Good job. The color is beautiful, and the grain stands out really well. That must be a tremendous source of pride for you.

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That must be a tremendous source of pride for you.

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You have no idea. Every time anybody comes over, he immediately walks them over to it fishing for compliments...

kidding

Great job on the entertainment center Ken!

...and the cables, too!!

Nice to see a pair of M50s standing OutSide of their restricting cabinets for a change!! Looks good!

Also nice to see a black-with-white cat near the M50s as well, as our poor ol' 15 year-old family member passed on just before we got our M50s.

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Every time anybody comes over, he immediately walks them over to it fishing for compliments...

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LOL!

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Also nice to see a black-with-white cat near the M50s as well, as our poor ol' 15 year-old family member passed on just before we got our M50s.

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Sorry to hear that, F107. My parents had a tabby that was 16 years old and going deaf. You could sneak up on it outside while it slept in the grass. Only bad thing was that it meowed really loud, because she couldn't hear herself. She usually did that at 3 in the morning.

Sounds like my deaf cat. He was born deaf, though.

Thank even more of you!

SQ-my little plan is to get a 32" widescreen when they come down in price (and/or when this thing kicks the bucket). We'll see...

The entertianment center was a lot of work, but well worth it. And a lot of fun. Other than the finishing. I'd love it if I could just build things and have someone else finish them... That's actually what took the most time. I screwed up pretty badly on the finish (never use a rotary sander between coats....) and was so depressed by it I didn't even look at it for 6 months.

Sorry to hear about your kitty, F107. Our oldest girl is about 12. The one in the picture is 10.

I know what you mean. The more I look at it, the more I get impressed as well. I have a feeling Ken is very meticulous in his work. Look at the doors...they fit in the cabinet perfectly like a piece of a puzzle...no gaps anywhere and they're totally even! That perfection is not seen too often in premade stuff. Again, Ken...wonderful work!

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I have a feeling Ken is very meticulous in his work.

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So you're saying Ken's a control freak, huh?

Well, yeah...

The doors were remarkably difficult, and I'm still not entirely happy with them. Unfortunately, with front mounted things, it's kind of hard to redo them! The holes are there, they're not going to go away if I want to reposition stuff...

The entertainment center does look fantastic, I wish I had near that much woodworking skill. And the rest of the room looks great also, how do the 50's sound?

Great looking digs Ken,you have a nice setup there. One thing I wonder is why do you have the center pointed up?

Nice Cables!







Everything else too!

Ken - nice set up! The stand you built turned out great (and if I remember correctly, took a REALLY long time to get done ). Very cozy room.

Ray

Ken, two things:
1) That plant will completely destroy your imaging but,
2) if you shift the cat to the right speaker instead, you might get it back through balanced absorption.

Thank yuh. Thank yuh verra much.

HomeDad- The M50s sound really good. I don't do a lot of critical listening, but when I was repositioning them yesterday I got a chance to listen to some stuff and remind myself how much I like them.

Rick-The center's pointed up for higher waf, and because it sounds better than straight on. It sounds even better tilted down, but then my TV looks like a WATT/Puppy. Which I'm not particularly fond of.

Chess-The plant's not usually that much over the drivers, and it hasn't seemed to impact the sound that much (to my surprise). And I keep trying to put the cat in front of the right speaker, but she won't stay. I suppose if I put a supply of bugs there, she'd stick around. Or knock over the speaker. Plus, it would be really gross, so....back to the drawing board.

Nice setup and environment Mr. Carlile! I do believe that mask would be spooking me if it were on my center though.

Ya know, I thought it might too, but it really doesn't bother me. I rather like it.

Hi Ken,

Very nice indeed. I worried for a bit about interference effects of the philodendrun (I think that's what it is; I had one and it just kept growing and growing . .) but decided that it's OK.

Regards,

Nice work Ken. That'll be a nice addition to the Axiom pic section on this site.

Whew! For a second I thought there was a solar eclipse, but when I looked up at the sky and the moon was in the totally wrong direction, I started to freak out.

Then I realized it was just Ken's swollen head -- from the the (well-deserved) compliments -- obscuring the setting sun all the way out west in California....

Ahh, I thought that was just another storm heading in

Gotta have someone to keep me honest... I guess.

nice job with the setup and especially the entertainment center.....

Hey Ken - don't let Pete run your happy place . That's a nice set up, you built part of it with your own hands and you just need to sit back & enjoy.

I kid only because I jeal.


(that's the verb form of jealous)