Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo A couple of additions for the office setup.

I've been running my computer through my old H/K AVR25 ProLogic receiver for a while now. Sounds pretty good, but for a couple of caveats: 1)The sound is kinda thin and I get some noise from the various components in the case on occasion. Another thing: Though the M3s are really great near-field speakers and even can thump a little, they do have that mechanical roll-off at 60Hz. I like some thunder when playing Battlefield2 and when watching movies on the PC when the wife Bogarts the HT to watch Desperate Housewives and such. So I spent a reasonably small amount of cash on a couple of additions.

First, I picked up an Onix (AV123) X-Series sub. $242 delivered. They really to a nice job of packing their (built in China) sub. It was in a "box-in-a-box" package with foam risers separating them. The sub itself was in a nice cotton "sock." The sub looks great and is real solid. Just had to tighten the screws on the base plate. It has the usual features you would find on any sub as far as I/O, C/O, and phasing so I won't go into that. One thing I did not like is the speaker connectors. I had to use them because my old H/K doesn't have a Sub/LFE out. The connectors are pretty cheap and "plastic-y" and are WAY too close together. I had trouble getting the speaker wires connected to the high-level ins and outs.

So, after getting connected I set the crossover to 60Hz and let 'er rip. WOW! I didn't even have to adjust the volume! Nice, tight, goes pretty low. Sounds great! Gives those M3s just that extra OOMPH they need on occasion. Love it.

To solve the issues with case noise and "thin-ness" I picked up a Silverstone EB01 USB DAC for $93 with 2-to-3 day shipping from Newegg. Nice little brushed aluminum case turned out to be an uncanny Mini-Me analogue of my computer case! Same brushed Al, same blue panel lights, same curved front bezel! Very strange yet very cool! I wonder if Silverstone and Coolermaster are somehow affiliated.

So, I had a pair of good RCAs in the drawer so I hooked those to the H/K (FYI this is a week after the sub arrived) and hooked the USB cable to the PC and it autodetected the unit as "USB Speakers" and that was it. Well, there's not a whole lot to say. The "noise floor" is now down to 0 and the sound is clean and full. Just what I wanted.

All and all it's money well spent in my opinion. I spend quite a bit of time in my office and I really wanted to hear my music a bit cleaner and with a bit more chutzpah and I got exaclty what I paid for.

LJ

Mark, that X-sub is quite the nifty little gadget. Price/performance-wise it is very hard to beat. Very affordable way to extend some smaller speakers without taking up too much floorspace.

Sounds like you made some nice purchases. Congrats!

Thanks Sean. The X-Series is a nice little box for the money. One good thing about it is that it isn't picky about placement. I really had only one choice as far as placement goes without a substantial rearrangement of my office but it just went right in and sounded fine. No fuss, no muss. As mentioned before somehow the volume level was perfect right off the bat. I couldn't be more pleased.

It's probably to match their TJ05 case, which I have. Not quite the same, but... As far as I know, Silverstone and Coolermaster have no affiliation.

Nifty looking piece of equipment that Silverstone EB01, but unless I'm missing something, wouldn't an internal sound card give you the same results without the need of an external component? Not as sexy, but easier, no? Perhaps I'm missing the point. (very possible)

The problem is that my sound card was picking up noise in the case. My old AVR25 has no digital input so I couldn't use a Toslink or digital coax connection and was using a .125'' stereo mini to rca cable from the analog line out (FYI strangely enough the problem happens when running via the motherboard's built in sound chip as well). Moving the card to different slots on the mobo didn't help. I swapped in an older SBLive card and it was a little quieter but I still got noise. You could hear the second hard drive whir when it spooled up and there was occasionally a soft, rhythmic popping noise. The interior of my case is as clean as can be with ATA cables being the rounded kind (SATA cables are of course small and flat) and all cables routed around the case for better cooling.

Anyhow, my choice came down to either picking up a new sound card and probably getting the same results, yanking parts out of the computer until the sounds go away, or picking up the external DAC. Being a geek, I of course had no choice but to pick up a cool new piece of gear. Being that I'm preparing to upgrade the computer anyhow I figured why tear the machine apart right now?

As far as the similar designs, check out the computer chassis here and the EB01 here. Like I said, the EB01 is the mini-me version of the case, no?

I'll post some pictures as soon as I am motivated to get my lazy @ss up and take some.

ah...that's certainly a good reason.