I am also on IRC, since the actual defrosting doesn't require anything more than staying home to mop occasionally.

I'm in!

I'm in for a bit, testing out ghetto-rigged 4.1 desktop speaker setup.

nice. We've got one of those, with subwoofer. I'm so so excited about this apartment we're going to see tomorrow since it's the only one in the building, above a store, and we can finally crank the music!

I have a decent but cheap little 50 watt 2.1 set with a nice sub that's plenty loud for my little studio/room.

I also have a pair of (also cheap import) self powered 5" desktop monitors I'm using. I picked up this pair years ago and I've always really liked the sound and detail they had - 10-100x better than your average computer desktop speakers.

The newer 2.1 set I have doesn't have enough midrange or crispness to my ears though, and frankly subwoofers mostly annoy me 'cause I'd rather have a proper pair of full range 2 or 3 way speakers, so that's why I'm trying out the quad rig with my old pair of desktops.

The self powered were on loan to someone for a while, and being kinda abused, so I had just had to rewire the inputs, but I'm still having a bit of trouble with the left channel.

But even with just one of the speakers as a center speaker for a sort of 3.1 setup it has a lot smoother, warmer and more detailed sound.

Though, the 64k stream (not the music, the encode rate) is kinda starting to bug me, so I'm gonna go do some more testing with high bitrate VBRs and actual uncompressed sources.

Mixing crappy speakers can be iffy, too. Takes a lot more tuning and balancing to get it sounding right.

And thankfully I'm not over someone's apartment anymore in my crappy old paper thin apartment, and this room has hardcore plaster/lathe walls and a concrete floor so I can really crank it now.

We have this fancy schmancy digital speaker setup my roomate got.
He insists it's because he's an electronic musician, and as such requires high end speakers for when he's making backing tracks and mixing.

I think he just likes fancy toys.

But, I get to reap the rewards of his expensive hobbies, so how can I complain?

Good speakers or monitors make all the difference in the world when making studio/recording/electronic music, besides just enjoying it and being able to hear stuff you wouldn't otherwise hear.

I have a few tracks I made and mixed down with crappy speakers and when I play them back on my nicer speakers (or on even better ones, like my friend's vintage Bose monitors, or his vintage EV/Crown PA) it just sounds all wrong, 'cause it was engineered/tuned on crappy ass speakers.

It's kinda funny, actually, 'cause if I play tracks back on the same crappy speakers it sounds great, err, tolerable, and if I play it back on nice speakers you can just tell it's tuned all wrong. Almost no bass and way too much mids and highs.

This is why people will go out and drop $1k-5k on what amounts to fancy bookshelf speakers - the "near field reference monitor" which is all about providing an ultra "flat" industry standard response in a close-up listening environment. They're not meant to be too loud or anything, just real clean and crispy.

Conversely audio engineers often intentionally do mixdowns on really crappy speakers - a lot of the AM era Motown stuff was done this way so they could make sure it sounded great on the lowest common denominator, portable transistor radios, car stereos or low consumer grade home radios and the like. And for pop/mainstream stuff they still do that in the mix booth, just with more modern crappy speakers. You'll often see a whole array of monitors and amps in a studio for this purpose.

Yeah, I'm geeking out and digressing here, but I'm just listening to various tracks and mixes I know and tuning stuff, and it's starting to sound pretty crispy.

A lot of the music I listen to is pretty acoustically challenging for speakers, from really harsh experimental noise and feedback, to wispy-dry ambient noises with lots of small but complex textures, to thumping, drippy psytrance that has a shitload of dynamic range and lots of tiny tweaky subtle sounds going on in it.

I was at work; that's my defense.

No worries, I was particularly pleased with the playlist, so I may rerun it at some point tomorrow with a few tweaks, if there's any interest/no one else on.

Again, again!