I can finally listen to music....

[Evangelion]

I have a sizable music-collection. Not huge, but not small either. And so far I have listened to it with my iPod, since listening to music through the speakers on the MBP is.... not nice.

Yesterday I took the step to correct that problem. I went and bought a pair of Genelec 6020's. Absolutely superb speakers! They are pretty small and low-wattage, but it just shows that size and watts are not everything, quality and craftsmanship is.

Next step is to buy AirPort Express, and hook the speakers to that. That way I can position the speakers in the best possible location (furniture permitting) and control the music with either my MBP or my iPod touch.

The bad thing is that I don't actually have the speakers yet, since it takes few days for them to arrive from the factory. The waiting is killing me!

Additional step to take might be to re-encode my music in lossless format, so I could squeeze every bit of quality out of 'em. But I'm not sure that is it worth the hassle.

the idea of actually sitting on my couch and enjoying good music through quality speakers is really, really tempting. And it's just few days away!

[jstanier]

I have decent speakers too - I just connected the line in on my Mac to the amplifier with a very large cable. Works just as well. :)

[bpiercerox]

oh good suggestion...thank you

[Killyp]

6020s are great little speakers. I personally wouldn't want to drive them purely from the AirPort Express' output. You'll want a pre-amp to control the volume, which will also allow you to control connect multiple inputs.

Example (http://www.amazon.com/AudioSource-Pre-One-Stereo-Preamplifier/dp/B00004UFQJ)

Also disable the iTunes EQ, volume control and 'sound enhancer'. All they do is add distortion and make things worse.

[Evangelion]

6020s are great little speakers. I personally wouldn't want to drive them purely from the AirPort Express' output. You'll want a pre-amp to control the volume, which will also allow you to control connect multiple inputs.

That is on my "to-do" list :). But right now I do not have a need for multiple inputs, nor do I have the budget for it. But, at some point I will be getting anew television, and that will bring with it stuff like blu-ray. And I will naturally want to hook those to my speakers, so I will need some new gear to hook it all together. But that's still in the future :).

[Killyp]

Okay. In that case, I'd look at going for a surround sound receiver of sorts (don't bother with one with built in amps).

Rotel's RSP-1069 is one of the best IMO, and it's definitely worth making sure you've got a good receiver to drive your speakers - you wouldn't want them going to waste.

[Evangelion]

The store called me few hours ago, the speakers are waiting for me to pick them up :). they shipped them in 24 hours, which is pretty good.

Just few more hours.... Then I need to discuss with the wife as to where I will place those speakers :).

[Killyp]

The Genelecs usually don't tend to be that picky when it comes to placement. Either way, if you've got quite a few options, try them in as many different places as possible, you'll be surprised how much the sound can change with regards to placement.

[garybUK]

Okay. In that case, I'd look at going for a surround sound receiver of sorts (don't bother with one with built in amps).

Rotel's RSP-1069 is one of the best IMO, and it's definitely worth making sure you've got a good receiver to drive your speakers - you wouldn't want them going to waste.

Rotel is way overkill for those speakers.

[Killyp]

Have you ever even heard the Genelecs? They're stunning little speakers. Genelec's offerings are generally considered to be the best on the market for monitoring...

[Evangelion]

Those speakers sound absolutely, positively, fabulous. Even my wife, who hates the idea of speakers and my little "project", commented after 30 minutes of listening "Ok, I admit it! They sound great! But I still don't have to like looking at them". Well, she hates the looks of every single speaker out there, so I'm happy with that :).

The hookup to Airport Express works beautifully. The speakers turn on automatically when I put some music on, and they turn off when I stop listening. Everything just works, and it's so easy that you don't have to be a geek to use it. The speakers are tiny, so the acceptance-factor from the wife is quite high.

This project is a total home-run :). Now, the next step would be to create a some kind of iTunes-server, so we would have a centralized location for all our music. And that seems like the hard part in this....

[garybUK]

Have you ever even heard the Genelecs? They're stunning little speakers. Genelec's offerings are generally considered to be the best on the market for monitoring...

Indeed i have listened to them, they are still monitors, imo they still can't beat a decent pair of speakers + proper pre/power amp set. I'll repeat again, something like a Rotel is over kill, just get a stereo pre-amp and you'd be set.

And I DO know my hifi ;)

[OllyW]

Now, the next step would be to create a some kind of iTunes-server, so we would have a centralized location for all our music. And that seems like the hard part in this....

Why can't this be easy :confused:

[Evangelion]

Why can't this be easy :confused:

Well, consider this:

We currently have a MacBook Pro that is used for day-to-day computing. It has two user-account (me and the Mrs.) wuith two separate iTunes-libaries.

Of course, we would like to keep those libaries separate, since they are being used by two different people. And I don't think that the Mrs would be interested in looking for her Charles Aznavour-songs in the middle of my Manowar-songs ;).

We also need to retain the ability to sync iPod from our iTunes-libraries. So we can't rely on streaming alone.

So what we need is a third iTunes-library (that would run on our fileserver) that would be a combination of our two separate libraries. Naturally it would be ideal if that third library would update automatically when either of us adds content to our respective libraries.

I haven't found an easy solution to this problem

[Evangelion]

Indeed i have listened to them, they are still monitors, imo they still can't beat a decent pair of speakers + proper pre/power amp set. I'll repeat again, something like a Rotel is over kill, just get a stereo pre-amp and you'd be set.

And I DO know my hifi ;)

There are plenty of people who would call the Genelecs "decent pair of speakers" ;). They are highly acclaimed speakers, and I don't think that anyone would call them "bad".

Of course I would have gotten even better setup. 6020's are on the low-end of the Genelec-range. I could have bought 8030's for example. And there are other speaker-brands that are kick-ass as well (like Amphion and Aurelia, if we stick to just Finnish brands). But I think that I got just about the best possible setup for the money. In total, I paid 790e for this setup (700e for the speakers, 90e for Airport Express). Had I used non-powered speakers, I would have had to spend money on the amplifier as well, and that means less money invested on the speakers. And I'm of the school of thought that speakers are BY FAR the most important component, when sound-quality is concerned.

Of course, have I had more money to spend, my setup would probably look (and sound) different. But I only have so much money to spend. I had to think how to spend my money. And for the money, the Genelecs are top of the class.

Besides money, there are other things to consider as well. I simply do not have space for an amplifier at this moment. It was hard work enough to get the Mrs. accept these small speakers. Making her live with speakers AND an amplifier would have been even harder. In the future, when we re-do our living-room, I can expand my system. But time for that is not now.

[Killyp]

Indeed i have listened to them, they are still monitors, imo they still can't beat a decent pair of speakers + proper pre/power amp set. I'll repeat again, something like a Rotel is over kill, just get a stereo pre-amp and you'd be set.

And I DO know my hifi ;)

I wouldn't really call Rotel overkill. Indeed even a relatively cheap pair of monitors are more than capable of revealing flaws in a good pre-amp or source.