Enjoyable Minimalist System & Wireless Convenience

by shawnparslow on Budget Minded
AG_FullSystem

Description

This system represents what I believe to be a thoroughly enjoyable entry-level system that offers an intimately pleasing performance, convenient simplicity, and clean & functional minimalist aesthetics. I am a technology guy and cherish the expediency of having an entire music library centralized, organized, and at my fingertips. With this said, I have never liked the idea of compressed digital music for home use and it was in the past few years that solutions for me became available (affordable drives that can hold full uncompressed music libraries, wireless devices that allow lossless data transmission, etc). As a whole the personal computing realm did not have much to offer the Hi-fi realm and I really gave a hand to apple (with there compressed music cash-cows) for keeping Hi-Fi features (lossless transmission/toslink/etc) in their products. The wife and I also are not ones to want cables and components all over the great room of our condo. With this focus I set out to build a system that would have wonderful sound and pleasing fashion in order to bride my digital collection of music into a lush sound in the air that surrounds me. I am quite pleased with the outcome and have never found my music more enjoyable (which is the real feat). As far as prices I was able to pick most of these pieces up for a decent price (X-DACV3 for $650, X-150 for $700, and Totem Sttafs for $850).
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    • Apple iMac G5
    The well-styled iMac Apple computer contains a 250GB drive, which contains all my music CD's in lossless (bit for bit/no loss) format. I have all my music categorized in iTunes for quick and easy access. This component is 1/2 of my source/transport system (the wireless Airport express being the other half).
    • Apple Airport Express
    The Apple Airport Express allows me to place this small device where the audio components will be. I then can stream (bit for bit) wirelessly from my lossless iTunes collection on the iMac. I use the optical toslink output on this device to feed the lossless digital data directly to my DAC. This device serves simple as a transport to hand off wireless data to the DAC. It performs this function only and is not tasked with any other network responsibilities in my setup.
    • Musical Fidelity Musical Fidelity X-DACV3
    This wonderful device with its modest footprint receives digital data from the Airport via the toslink input and produces sweet music (literally out of thin air ?). My research showed this device has internal time-syncing which does a better than average (considering the price point) of controlling the jitter introduced by toslink. I am very happy with this unit and how it marries the digital and analog realms of my setup together.
    • Musical Fidelity X-150 Integrated
    Matching components, style, and the discreet theme …this small piece packs a punch. With great detail and presentation the X-150 is a nice affordable unit that you can depend on. Given the design and scope of my system it is the a perfect match.
    • Totem Acoustic Sttaf
    These beautiful boys have a full, rich, and detailed sound but still a relatively small footprint. I also looked at the Arro's but decided on Sttaf's for having a bit fuller sound and better bass. Also these guys are the easiest of the totems to drive (at 88db) which is nice in a discrete setup like this. These speakers introduced me to musicality and were after evaluating many speakers and my budget they were my first purchase in this system and I expect they will not be leaving any time soon.
    • Totem Acoustic Beaks
    The Beaks are tuning pods you place on top of the speakers that control resonances and aid driver performance. You can also put them on your temples and look like Frankenstein.
    • Totem Acoustic Claws
    The Claws are feet that attach to the bottom of the speakers and provide three decoupling points where the speaker meets the floor. These where an optional accessory for the Sttafs, I picked them up to replace the original putty/pedestal/spike system since I have hardwood floors. They also improve the aesthetics of the already pleasing speaker and with the beaks allow the speakers to scream “yup, we are totems”.

Comments 21

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Too bad the Airport Express doesn't stream audio through it's USB port. There are some good USB DAC's that I'd like to try (Scott Nixon USBTD). I don't have one yet and am looking at an Entech Number Cruncher 205.2 (made in 1999) because it has a toslink ouput.

Nonetheless, I am new to this and am quite...stoked..on the convenience. Even the sound out of the analog AirEx is pretty good compared to just plugging your computer straight in.

Don't know if you've changed speakers, but did you find the Totem's a little "bright" (harsh). I had the Totem mites (much cheaper speakers), and they were new, imaging was great but fatiguing. Although, I wonder, if I had a DAC?

Also how is the sound through the toslink? There's all this stuff on the internet about SPDIF and jitter. I don't even know if you can hear this stuff.

There is a delay with the AirEX, so supposedly, it's no good for video. However, with Airfoil and VLC, you can change the settings on VLC so that it syncs up with the audio out of AirEx. Use your mini as a torrent/divx media centre. I tried it, works perfect. Go to (or read the following if the site is no longer around).

www.j4mie.org/2006/05/03/using-airfoil-with-vlc/#more-44

1. Launch VLC.
2. Open the Preferences page from the VLC menu on the menu bar.
3. Tick the “Advanced” check box in the bottom-left corner of the window.
4. Under the “Audio” page (the page that comes up first when you open the Preferences), set the “Audio desyncronization compensation” value to -2700 (note the negative). *
5. Drop down the “Input/Codecs” menu on the left-hand side of the Preferences window, then drop down the “Access Modules” menu. Select the “File” item. Set the “Caching Value in ms” to 3000.
6. Quit VLC.
7. Launch AirFoil. Select “VLC” from the “Source” drop-down list at the bottom of the window. Click the Transmit button (the one with the speaker icon on it).
8. VLC should automatically launch. When it does, open the movie you wish to watch and enjoy your syncronised, high-quality audio.

Any other new changes to your Mac system? I have an Intel Core2Duo Macbook. Love it. It's hard to find a material possession, like my first snowboard, that has brought me so much... joy.. but this laptop has.

Nice system. And it took me till late 2007 to figure it out.

elf73

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