ProJect MaiA Review – the shrunken integrated amp / DAC

I like to listen to music most of the time, sometimes its in the background, sometimes it makes a car journey more tolerable, sometimes I’m in the audience and sometimes I sit in front of the main hifi and just focus on listening.  Listening to the artists’ works, sometimes carried away, sometimes confused, sometimes just enjoying the flow, sometimes trying to “get” the message in the lyrics.

And sometimes, I’m away from home (quite frequently, actually).  When travelling by train or plane, I use an iPod or FiiO X3 and earbuds or phones and occasionally I have room in my suitcase for a Logitech Purefi Anywhere 2 for the hotel room.

But when travelling by car, I can take something a little more substantial to the hotel room, and have a large camera case that currently contains a pair of tiny but well made Tangent Evo speakers (no relationship to Evolution Audio, the dealer mentioned in this thread), a Trends TA 10.1 integrated t-amp and the necessary speaker and interconnects to fit to an old-style 30-pin 160GB iPod Classic or anything with a 3.5mm output (such as the FiiO or a phone).  I also carry a work laptop, sometimes used for iPlayer / other catch up services, but not currently for music.  It’s a decent listen and I prefer to listen to music through speakers rather than being tied to a device or location by a device and headphone cables.  Last thing at night, some chill tunes on a 30 minute timer on the iPod often help me get off to sleep in a strange location / room – speakers are far better for this than the need to take off headphones as I drop off to sleep.

Now that the laptop and the phone are part of the entertainment package, something with better connectivity would be useful.  In steps a HiFi Wigwam post from Evolution Audio announcing the Pro-Ject MaiA integrated amp, with analogue, digital (up to 24bit/192kHz), Bluetooth and phono (turntable) inputs.  It probably makes the toast too.  Given that Evo Audio offer a 10 day sale or return service, I thought I’d give it a go.

Now the Trends TA10.1 amp has done very well for me in this system for probably around 5 or 6 years.  Its small, runs cool, its light and has been very robust.  In the camera bag it nestles quite well wrapped in a soft wool scarf, nicely wedged between the speakers – keeping everything tightly packed but not scratching each other.  It does a decent enough job too – way better than most high street “midi” or “mini” systems.  Limitations?  Well, power, but that doesn’t matter in an hotel room when volume is necessarily limited.  Inputs? Yep – there’s only one pair of line level RCA sockets.  Remote control?  Nope.

Unboxing

Evo Audio had shipped the Pro-Ject box, wrapped in a couple of layers of bubble wrap, inside another cardboard box, along with the receipt and an Evo Audio branded pen.  Delivered in reasonable time, it even managed to survive the Hermes courier system undamaged.  Opening the Pro-Ject box revealed the amp, in a plastic bag, contained by “waffle” sponge padding on all 6 sides.  The mains cable, PSU with captive DC output lead and remote control were in a separate sub-box, with no padding around these components.  There is an 8 page instruction leaflet that’s low on content and quality, but is sufficient to get you up and running.  Clearly, the budget needed some corners to be cut, but this is a good place to do so.  The amp itself is very slim (only about 35mm high), around 200mm deep and 210mm wide,  It feels substantial though – the folded steel case and flat alu front panel are decent quality and its very well screwed together.  It gives a good first impression.  Four small rubber feet protect surfaces and help to keep the amp steady on that surface.

Around the back, there are a pair of phono sockets and a binding post for a turntable (yep, there’s and RIAA phono stage crammed in there), 2x pairs of phono sockets for line level inputs, 1x 3.5mm line level input, 1x coax RCA digital input, 2x optical digital inputs and a USB socket (for a PC, rather than an iPod or similar).  Outputs are volume controlled line level 3.5mm, and a pair of small combined binding posts and 4mm banana sockets (which are crammed close together at one end of the panel).  There’s an input for connecting the PSU’s DC cable too.  A lot going on, but clearly labelled, straight forward etc.  I used plastic shrouded 4mm bananas for speaker connections – it’s what I had already, but Paul from Evo advised this type of connection as metal bananas and bare wires are a bit risky with such closely packed connectors.  Generally, those who hoped to use in-your-face mega chunky interconnects / RCAs will be a bit disappointed, and needing to shell out for something more practical.  Bluetooth pairing was straightforward with my Android Samsung phone (Lollipop OS version).

image from ProJect Audio

image from custom-cable.co.uk

Control

Across the front there is a soft touch power on/off (tiny blue LED indicator), headphone socket, rotary volume control and a row of tiny blue LEDs indicating which source is selected – these are flanked left and right by cursor keys that move the source selection across the row of options.  Clear, simple.  The credit card sized remote gives volume control, source selection, power on/off and the ability to activate Bluetooth pairing.  Its responsive enough, but is necessarily light in weight and functional rather than a pleasure to use.  The main rotary volume control on the amp itself is a little stiff (maybe it will loosen slightly with use – hopefully not too much), but is very smooth and not so stiff that it causes the box to move on a desk.

System

For my first try with the amp (it was on 10 days sale or return remember), I used the following equipment which seems appropriate to the type of use I will put the amp to, and perhaps others will too:

• FiiO X3 (internal DAC line out and digital coax output)
• £8 3.5mm to 2x phono interconnect from Amazon (decent build quality, nice tight gold plated connections)
• 99.99 OFC copper pretty standard speaker cables from Maplin – roughly 42 strand and fitted with soldered on “Shark” 4mm gold plated banana plugs
• Tangent Evo bookshelf speakers (the ones I would intend to use the amp with) and Mission 773e floorstanders (to better expose differences between line and digital inputs)
• Music included “Tears Run Dry” by Malia and Boris Blank; “Gaia” by James Taylor; “King” by Tuung; “Rise” by Samantha James; “Doors Unlocked and Open” by Death Cab For Cutie

Listening

I left the amp playing to itself at low volume for about 2 hours – using the FiiO line out and the Evos, just to make sure it was at least warmed through, if not exactly “burnt in”, if that’s necessary at all – its not something I’ve tested so far and won’t be bothering as it seems a bit of an overkill for this kind of product.

Kicking off with the TA10.1 amp, I reminded myself of its capabilities.  Its fast, a touch on the bright side (but not excessively so), and its best listened to at medium volumes – it gets harsh quite quickly as the volume is cranked up, but is a rather dull affair at the lower volume levels.  So about right for the job really, and good value at £110 about 5 years ago.  It has been reviewed in some quarters as a “giant killer” and paired with very exotic speakers on some web sites.  It is astonishingly good for its size and price, but that’s all.  A healthy NAD 3120 from the 1980s shows it a clean pair of heels in terms of musical enjoyment and information extraction, if not exactly neutrality.  Lets just say the TA is great for what it is and is very neutral (with the exception of that slight uplift in the higher frequencies).  But its also rather “grey” to listen to – it doesn’t have much verve or life to it.

Swapping over to the MaiA and it was initially difficult to try and get a perceptually similar volume level.  And that’s because it has a greater perceived (or real, who knows?) dynamic range – the quieter bits are that much quieter than the Trends, but equally, the louder bits are that much louder too.  It better shows through the subtleties the artist has put into the emphasis or de-emphasis of a phrase.  Nice.  So a quick switch back and forth helps to work out where to position each volume control to get as close as I could to something like equality.  Next thing to notice is what appears to be a flatter response – its easy to note that it has less emphasis at the top end, but it is still a touch bright.  Its showing the splashy nature of the FiiO’s DAC well too – this is something I noted when working out which system to go with at Scalford this year – the FiiO’s top end is pretty unruly on the internal DAC.

The MaiA manages somewhat better separation of instruments too – its not epically etching them out, but they are easier to distinguish, as is the location in the image and the stability of that image.  A welcome improvement over the TA.  What of the bass – well, there seems to be a little more of that with the Pro-Ject, and its worth having with the tiny little Tangent speakers.  Music bounces along with a reasonable sense of pace and rhythm.  Its not the last word in refinement, but you can tell the intention is to provide a bit of fun with the music.

DAC

What of the internal DAC?  Well, in this appraisal, I only had the FiiO to hand to compare, but that’s OK, because that’s what I’ll be mostly listening to.  Comparing the FiiO’s internal DAC and line out to the MaiA’s internal DAC again gave some volume control setting challenges.  I didn’t use any equipment to sort this, just a number of back to back comparisons to get a feel for where the control needed to be set.  This comparison did reveal one thing very quickly indeed – the MaiA has a much better controlled and smoother sounding DAC in comparison with the X3.  But it doesn’t image or separate the instruments any better, and has a tendency to suppress female vocals a touch.  Rhythm and pace are still good, with bass perhaps a touch more fulsome than with the X3.  I think it’s a bit swings and roundabouts really, but with the Tangent Evos being a lightweight sounding speaker, the better controlled top end and weightier bottom notes won out for me.  You might come to a different conclusion, so it’s a preferences thing rather than anything clear cut.

Proper Speakers

And what of the performance with the Mission 773e?  These were used at Scalford to reasonably good effect in 2014 and whilst not the last word in lower end speaker technology, they’re effective and enjoyable to listen to.  Normally they are fed by an SBT / MF V-DAC1 / MF V-PSU2 and a Cyrus 6 integrated amp when they’re pretty fast, boogie well and deliver a good performance.  On the MaiA, however, it was quickly noted that all wasn’t what it could be.  That fuller lower end, which worked so well when working with the little Tangents, became somewhat unruly, fat and a bit woolly.  Not great.  The effect was the same with the FiiO’s DAC back in action – slightly less noticeable, but still not really something I’d want to spend a long time listening to.  And the splashiness was back too.

£400

So all this tech and connectivity, squeezed into a small box comes at a very reasonable price.  It would be good to compare this amp with a NAD D3020, and that might be on the agenda at some point in the future.  It fits my use case for it very well, brings a useful increase in sound quality and a massive step up in connectivity and usability.  When the 10 day trial is over, it won’t be going back to the helpful team at Evolution Audio – it already has its place in the camera bag.

So to use this in a kitchen / bedroom / study or as a semi-portable system with a small set of (not too good at lots of bass) budget bookshelf speakers, I would say this amp is a success.  For me, that’s where it does a great job, just don’t expect it to cope as a main system centre piece with a pair of full range speakers.

One final thought – if all that modern connectivity, compact size and sensible pricing gets it into a good number of student bedsits, perhaps a TT connected to some of them, it might well be the way to generate a new set of audio enthusiasts.  Lets just hope they don’t get underwhelmed and miss out on the capabilities of this amp by feeding it a load of compressed MP3 junk data!

"Portable" Project Part Four - Up And Running

Part One is here

Part Two is here

Part Three here

Now to focus on the speaker chambers.

Another bit of online shopping snagged some self-adhesive sheets of sound deadening for £8 to help with damping the panels - I used these on all the speaker chamber surfaces that had room for them.  I also used a set of 4x 40mm Polipod feet underneath to both raise the box up to allow airflow, and to try and stop energy going into the surface on which the box is going to stand - typically this will be a table and they're horrible when they start vibrating along with music.  The Polipods were drilled and screwed to the underside.

The mid-bass drivers are fitted on the front and the rear with rubber sealing rings, the tweeters aren't. So the drivers were installed into the cabinet (pilot holes being drilled first for the screws), then sealed with clear silicon sealant from inside the cabinet.  Speaker cables from the crossovers are soldered onto the drivers.  The anti-vibration sheets were then cut to size and stuck onto the relevant panels.  Cables were then p-clipped into position and sealant applied to where the cables enter the speaker chamber.

Speaker chamber completed, damping panels in place.  Note the hinged lid

The plan was for the hinged top lid to create a seal to ensure that the speaker chambers were properly sealed to ensure they acted as infinite baffle enclosures. There's a clamp on the box lid, but the wood just isn't flat enough to provide a seal.  A quick search around the garage and an old 700C cycle inner tube was pressed into action.  Halved lengthways, cut to length and stapled onto the box, they provided an excellent seal - the natural curve of the halved inner tube spreading under pressure and completing the seal.  Now, with the box lid closed, pushing gently on one of the mid-bass drivers forces the other mid-bass driver to move in the opposite direction - a sign of a good seal.

Playing some tunes from the FiiO portable FLAC player produced a fairly light, boomy kind of sound - pretty much as you might expect when just looking at the completed box. Another quick Google search reveals that most infinite baffle speakers use polyester as a filling material - just like many a low cost pillow, of which there were a few old ones lying around in the garage - good protective packing when moving stuff around in the boot of the car. One was opened up and the polyester filling teased out (wearing a breathing mask and rubber gloves for this) and each speaker chamber filled with half of the content of one pillow.

FiiO X3 FLAC player used as a source during testing

Well, this was not a small nor subtle change - more bass, more control, but still boxy.  Another pillow was sacrificed and another improvement noted. A third pillow was pressed into service, and it took a bit of compressing to get this material into the chambers.  But this was very successful - providing much deeper and more controlled bass, with much much less boxiness. So the less than scientific approach of trying different options gave a good final position.

Each speaker chamber stuffed with the content of 1.5 polyester pillows

And that was that. One ex-Austrian army ammo box pressed into a new lease of life.  One extremely solid (read very heavy), sort of portable, sort of Linn, sort of Mission, sort of dock.  Which pays music. Very much better than expected.

A very pleasing result, and one that has a nod to its Linn heritage through the use of the "Krate" die-cut stickers (another £5) and the XL label as it's pretty big!

Constructed from an ex-Austrian Army ammo box.  Very solid pine and ply panels, heavy duty rope handles, robust hinges - you get the picture

Shiny volume knob is the only concession to any kind of quality look

Playing tunes on the dining table.  It sounds better than it looks!  Linn silver interconnects in use at this point.

"Portable" Project Part Two

Part One is here.

Using hole cutters on the drill, holes were cut for the drivers in the front panel, and some repair work was done to the wood as a result of my handiwork (PVA glue is a good thing).  Positioning the drivers was decided by putting the tweeters as far apart as possible, the need to squeeze 2 mid-bass drivers per side in the space available and the position of the hinges for the lid of the box.  Some suprisingly long and substantial nails were found in the panels by the hole cutters, which quickly went blunt, so won't be any use for future projects.  Ho-hum.

Fitting the crossovers, amp, cables etc. into the space available wasn't too bad, but sequencing what to when was pretty key.  I also used 5mm p-clips to keep stuff tidy.  Wherever possible, connections were soldered and covered by heatshrink can cables p-clipped to the inside of the box.  Bi-wiring was used from the back of the amp to the crossover boards, as that was just as easy as it would've been to re-bridge the connections on the crossover itsself.

Crossovers mounted on the insider of the front panel - the hole lower down is for the ALPS pot volume control

Crossovers are on small plastic "stand offs".  The multi-coloured cables pass from this central amplifier space, through the 18mm dividers into the speaker cabinet spaces.  The gold coloured cables will go to the amp

Wiring up the volume pot was straightforward, using a wiring diagram found using Google.  It uses Linn black analogue cables from the input panel and then onwards to the amp.

Part Three is here

"Portable" Project Part One

Look back far enough in the blog and you'll find a bit of nonsense that resulted in a cardboard portable iPod dock using a T-amp and Linn in-ceiling speakers.

It filled a few hours and, although it worked, it sounded pretty rubbish, as might be expectd.  Within a week the taped seams had fallen apart and all the bits were back in their boxes.  So that was that and here is the result, plus the early ideas about building something more substantial, that also came to absolutely nothing, except that the speaker drivers were still around in the garage:  Sneeker Part 2

Although this post and the next 2 parts are being written in the early Summer in the UK, it actually relates back to a project that ran from time to time over the Winter of 2014/2015, I just haven't had time to write it all up.  The actual result made a début in the bar at the 2015 Hifi Wigwam Show at Scalford Hall in Melton Mowbray - providing background music on Saturday evening.

So here are the first parts (the drivers) and thoughts about how to make something more substantial, more Linn and hopefully tolerable to listen to:

Drivers

I thought it through and decided I wanted:

Standard RCA / Phono inputs so it could connect to pretty much any source
Mains powered - batteries are too restrictive
USB charging port to keep iPod or whatever going
Decent volume capability and therefore a proper power amp
Use the drivers already "in stock"
Room to add a Raspberry pi streamer later
Analogue volume control
A "robust" look
Low low cost

Here were the bits I had lying around in the garage that would suit:
4x Mission 100mm mid-bass drivers (see pic above)
Mission tweeters from 773e
Bits of wire
Mains cables
Mission 773e crossovers
T-Amp (which actually went elsewhere before work started, thankfully!)
Bits of wood and wood sheets

So much searching was done on ebay, and I discovered that Linn RoomAmps (from the Knekt multi-room system) sell for very small amounts of money.  I also found that older Linn tweeters sell for a reasonable price too, and ALPs volume controls are cheap, if you can wait for them to arrive from China.

So, the following was assembled:

Linn RoomAmp (£27)
ALPs 10k stereo pot (£12)
USB charger (£3)
Mains switch and socket (£4)
Pair of Linn Index tweeters (£17)
USB socket (£5)
USB cable (£2)
Small black perspex sheet (£3)
z speaker plugs (£7)
Vivarium airvents (£3)

Originally I intended to build a box to put it all into, but my woodworking skills are a bit rubbish, to be honest, so more ebay searching for wood boxes found me something suitable - solid, the right kind of size, and very much fitting in with the "robust" theme.  The box added another £15 to the parts cost.

Some experimenting on the bench with the drivers fitting into a cardboard shoebox indicated that the crossovers worked well with the drivers, and that the RoomAmp was healthy enough, so wood cutting and metal bending started.

Inside the Linn RoomAmp

The RoomAmp is essentially a simple 20-25W per channel power amp - designed to be fitted into cupboards, loft spaces etc.  It has a Knekt proprietary input, a pair of RCA phono outputs and BFA set of speaker outputs.  For the purposes of this project, the "output" phono sockets are used as the inputs - no changes necessary to do this, they're just directly connected to where the Knekt signal has be separated out to go into the power amp, so its simple enough.

The amp has a bent metal sleeve that has overhangs along the long edges.  I removed the sleeve, removed the fillets at the ends with a bit of sawing and power filing (power files - if you don't have one, get one, they're magical!), the overhangs were then bent at 90 degrees to the top panel, forming a lip that could be used for mounting the amp vertically inside the player.  A bit of matt black spray paint was added to prevent rusting.  After fitting the sleeve back onto the amp then a trial fit showed that it worked well inside the box.

Positioning the amp inside the box allowed measurement of where the dividers could be fitted to form the speaker cabinets, where the crossovers could be mounted, how to position the connections panel and where to cut holes for vents.  Holes were then cut for the vents - one in the base to allow cool air in, one in the back to let warm air out, and the vivarium vents were glued in.  The hole was then cut for the connections panel and the 18mm marine ply dividers were cut and fitted, after holes had been drilled to allow the 3 pairs of speaker cables into the speaker cabinet spaces.  At this point all the internal joints were sealed with clear silicon sealant.

Lower cool air inlet vent, one of the divider panels (on the left) and 2 exmaples of how poor my woodworking skills are - good job this is all on the inside

Sealing all the joints with clear silicon sealant

Gluing the lower vent in place

Part Two is here

FRANKENKEILIDHS - Zombie Speakers Rise Up: PART 3

PART 1 here
PART 2 here

The starting point, a set of cabinets in very good condition, but kinda missing tweeters, mid-bass drivers, wadding, crossovers, terminals and any sense of self esteem:

Empty cabs - no drivers, crossover, wadding, terminals nor bases

Inside, Linn fitted these "Kustone" blocks which are said to help with absorbing internal reflections

The Linn logo is moulded into these, but a bit tricky to see here

Its a loosely packed set of granules, held together with adhesive.  Water would probably pass through this material

Here you can see some of the internal cross-bracing and the thickness of the MDF in use.  These are suprisingly sturdy and well constructed boxes

Further internal bracing - the flat board with small holes is horizontal and the larger hoop is in the vertical

So I started with tweeters - and already there is some doubt over how to calculate the budget for this build, as I attempt to keep track of the spend.  I have decided the following (possibly dubious) rules:

- I only include the cost of what goes into the final version
- Parts tried along the way can be sold on or used in other projects, so are not included in the total
- Where I've used parts which are components of some other product or project, I've allocated a nominal value to them, based on a vague recollection of what I paid for the complete product
- Labour is not included, otherwise I'd be looking to buy a brand new pair of M140s or something...

Here were my choices of tweeters.  Why Mission?  Well, I have some lying around in the workshop, there's loads of them about and they sell at very reasonable prices.  The left hand flat faceplate driver looks very similar to other Linn drivers from earlier designs such as Isobariks and early Kabers.  But they also look very similar to a million other soft dome tweeters out there and probably originate from a limited number of manufacturing plants, regardless of the branding on the product.  Of course, there will be many subtle variations in design, materials and sonic outcome.  This particular pair are from a pair of Mission 737R speakers from the 1980s.  Sourced from a pair I had that suffered a little too much from aging cabinet glue and the mid-bass drivers having brittle rubber surrounds.  So I paid about £45 for those originally, breaking them after about 3 years of ownership.  Let's call it £15 the pair.

At the time I was looking into this, a pair of much more recent Mission 782 tweeters came up on ebay and I picked those up for £18.  As it happens, later testing revealled suprisingly little difference in the performance of these drivers - the 737R driver sounding a little more enthusiastic, the 782 smoother and more cultured, but these were very slight differences.

At £15 and £18 a pair, both options look like they're going to be within the budget.

Tweeter options.  737R (1980s) and 782 (90s - 2000s). Front

Rear views with the 737R at the top

Here they are in the original homes:

Mission 737R

Mission 782

Trial mounting these in the cabinets immediately gave the need for the use of a file (to provide clearance within the cabinet for terminals in the case of the 737R, some head scratching about the way the face plate is designed on the 782.  Much use of blu-tack too.  Mocking up stuff is a bit crude, rough and ready, but hopefully gives an approximation of the way stuff will work when finished from a sonic and physical perspective.  I had a pair of old Linn tweeters in the workshop too, but there faceplate is huge and the magnets won't go through the hole in the Keilidh baffle.  I don't have any wood routing equipment so major changes to the holes in the baffle were of the radar.  This is my first real attempt at doing stuff with speakers, so I wanted to keep it as straightforward as possible.

Mid-bass drivers:  the main challenge.  Where to get something that will fit, and at the right price.  I'm sure Monacor's drivers from the likes of Wilmslow are very good, but they're out of budget for this build.  Pretty much nothing else fits in the size and power bracket.  The size though, is common place in the car audio arena.  But then they always seem to come coupled with a matching tweeter (and a not so sophisticated single capacitor crossover, in the main).  So an ebay automated search was instigated and a couple of weeks went by.

The up popped something quite interesting from Monacor's CarPower branded speakers - a 165mm woofer, boxed, new old stock, no tweeters and 2 pairs available, model CRB-165PS.  At a buy it now price of £25.95 a pair, worth a punt.  Only 4 ohms per driver though - which is the standard in the car hifi world, but something which could present amplifiers with a load challenge.  The cones on these are polypropylene, which might fit well with the tweeters, with the 737R also using that material in its mid-bass driver.  The look like a metal cone, with their blingy sliver finish.  With their 4ohms and 35W nominal power handling, they were always going to be a bit of a gamble.  Manufacturer's details here.

The back of the Mancor CarPower mid-bass driver.  The basket is very thin steel (in line with the price of the drivers) and I added some foam pads in an attempt to damp them a little.  Pictures of the fronts come later.

More on mid-bass drivers later!

The final component is the crossover.  Another rake around in the workshop and I dug out some old Mission 773e terminal / crossover units.  The Missions, like the Keilidhs, are a 2 way design with 3 drivers - again the mid-bass drivers doing identical work and arranged vertically above and below the tweeter.  They look like this:

Mission 773e - similar to the Keilidh in concept, but newer, cheaper and a somewhat less well built cabinet.  Decent sounding for their price though.  Might be a good donator of a crossover.  Or not.

So what are these crossovers worth, when considering the budget?  They're from a pair of 773 that I bought from ebay which were described as "immaculate".  When they arrived, they'd clearly been stood in a puddle at some time and the side panels were separating from the base, with the wood de-laiminating in the way that MDF does. The cabs were good only for the wood recycling skip down at the local tip.  Fortunately a full refund was paid immediately and the speakers weren't required to be returned.  So I have 4 drive units, 2 tweeters and a pair of crossovers spare to help out with any problems I have with the pair we have in the dining room.  I'm therefore going to count the crossover costs as £0.  If you're not convinced by this logic, no worries, it all comes back to bite me later...

So the major components are selected, a few bits and pieces such as terminal posts have been sourced and build can commence.

Tunes In The Garage

Assembling cheap but good secondhand stuff, listening for a while and selling on is part of how I keep my urgings to change kit in the main system at bay.

The main system stays relatively static, with the occaissional step forward when funds allow, but messing about with old stuff that was well respected in its day allows for the sampling of lots of kit whilst not breaking the bank.  Some of it sells for less than I paid, some for more and some for about the same.  Rough with the smooth and all that.

Then there are the bits that hang around for a bit longer.  They're still cheap, but are worth slotting into music somewhere about the house.

So here's the current system in the garage.  Listening to tunes when working on the car or the bikes or just tidying the place up makes the work seem less arduous.  Plus, during the winter, I'll plug the laptop into the system and watch some DVDs or cycling vids on YouTube whilst I try and become less unfit with the bike on the turbo trainer

So this £250 system consists of Squeezebox Touch (connected to QNAP NAS via Ethernet over mains), NAD 1240 pre-amp, NAD 2155 power amp and Mission 773e speakers (the earlier version with the leather look baffle trim.  Speakers hang from a shelf on the rafters, hence they're upside down.  This keeps them off the floor (which is good as that's a pretty in-hospitable environment - both for water when the car comes in wet and the danger of being kicked / damaged by box shifting etc).  They're upside down as they are floor standing speakers, so the theory is that the large shelf on the rafters is acting as though they were standing on a floor.