New Speakers

If you read my previous post, then you are no doubt fully aware that Neumed is not getting the FDA's recommended daily allowance of melodic content. The end result being that Neumed's life is woefully audio deficient.

And although that post was 90 percent jest, it did not fall too far from the truth.

I actually have a stereo in the living room. Only trouble is, the dual cassette deck died months ago and my CD changer died a couple weeks ago. So what little time I spend listening to that unit, I'm reduced to listening to FM radio. (Bleh...)

My iPod also died a while back and I'm not sure I'm going to bother replacing it. Probably will eventually, but these days when I want to listen to music, I find myself going straight to online music videos.


(Didn’t know you could hook a widescreen up to a Commodore 64, did you?)

So anyway, Monday I got tired of listening to cheap computer speakers (lip reading would actually be an improvement) and started looking into ordering some new ones. After pricing several and not finding anything worth buying, it dawned on me that I would be better off to just get a small bookshelf stereo and feed the computer's audio output into that.

So off I went to Best Buy to check out what they had. Sony had a nice sounding unit for about $200 that came with a subwoofer. (Neumed like subwoofer.)

I was tempted to buy it, but careful shopper that I am, I came home and checked online reviews and prices just to be safe. Good thing I did. Most of the reviews agreed with me on the sound, but several had a problem with the CD changer. Apparently it breaks after a year or so. Not good. I have enough audio equipment that's broken, I didn't need to buy something cheap that I knew wasn't going to last.

As I was wondering what I could get to drive some speakers I remembered an old stereo receiver I had in the basement. Don't know why I didn't think of it before. Anyway, I cleaned it up and patched it into the computer's sound card. Next I used some old car speakers just to test it out and make sure it was working and boy what a difference! I could actually hear the bass and kick drum! Everything sounded better.


I could probably get by with the car speakers, but they aren't that good. And I'm so excited about the sound improvement thus far, that I decided Tuesday night to order real stereo speakers through Amazon.

They are supposed to arrive today. I'm anxious to hear how the videos will sound through halfway decent speakers.

Oh, by the way, if you're wondering why I didn't just use my living room stereo? The speakers are too big. There's no room for them in my little study area. Besides I want that unit where it is. I intend to someday fix or replace the broken components and get that whole system back into operation.

Update: The speakers arrived about two hours ago. They sound good. Very crisp and clear. Different from my big speakers, but so is the room acoustics. Overall, I’m happy with them. They are definitely a step up from the car speakers and a world of difference over the cheap computer speakers.

Next project: Hooking up a subwoofer to the old Gramophone.

Oh, and here’s the type of music I really listen to…