Energy RC-Mini's + NuForce Icon and a little treat...
29 July, 2008
So after 'Fringe it appears I'm not the only Rubyist with a deep love of music. I love music, listening to it, making it hmm not so much (I can't) - thus thought I'd blog about further adventures in audio-listening-land. I needed some replacements for my desktop system after a minor technical glitch, and have been temporarily using some Def Tech Pro Monitor 800s with a NuForce Icon - see at end. I've looked at Totem Mites, Def Tech Pro Cinema 1000's, and been pouring over product reviews of everything under the sun, trying to find something in the sweet spot of sounding good, but not going to get strung up by..err.. yeah you can complete that one. After an audition the Totems were honestly gorgeous, and sounded wonderful but just too expensive, and still quite big. Deciding losing my left nut wasn't an option they were quickly ruled out. ProMonitor 1000's were a step up from the 800's but getting quite bulky for the desk and lost their appeal. Given that I don't really like the 800's for music they were off the list. Numerous product reviews and "my speaker choice is better than yours" leads you down a rabbit hole. So Saturday I went to "go get the cat food" and ahem well we alll know what that means don't we?, came back with a pair of these...
(note the bling gloss of the desk I made.. a year on it still looks hot)
So they're Energy RC-Mini's, I hadn't seen many product reviews as they're relatively new. However the Futureshop next to said pet food store had some in a listening room. Audiophiles will likely cringe with the slightest mention of going to FS, but well, tough!. One look and was all over them "ok, if they sound even half decent I'm getting them". The sounded more than half decent, and while definitely not at Totem level, they also weren't at Totem pricing.
Now, there's something special about any toy that requires "100 hours of running in" (no shit). So it will be a few weeks before I really try to get them singing but at moderate listening levels they're pretty hot. Teamed up with a powered sub and my work place has a whole new sound to it.
So what to drive them with ? Well I had previously reached out to the tubes and found this a few weeks ago....
Nestled between the speakers is a a NuForce Icon. This tiny little amp packs a little 12w punch which is MORE than enough to power any reasonably sensitive speaker in a desktop environment.
After reading many reviews I picked this up online (a $199 deal had something to do with that). I'm fence sitting. Honestly on one hand it has fantastic imaging, the DAC is brilliant, I've heard things I've never heard before. On the other the hiss. It's a class D amp so by design it will hiss when no signal present. 
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Updated 26th August A number of amp boards later, some very helpful staff at NuForce, and suffice to say, the Icon (at this stage) won't work well with Energy RC-Mini's. So don't buy my setup Something in the frequency response curve of these speakers really disagrees with this amp. I'm moving on to a different amp - using the NuForce as a preamp. I have a tasty little tube amp on it's way up from the states at the moment, which should be quite something on the desktop. So if you're contemplating different speakers other than the S1 for the Icon, I'd recommend posting on forums and seeing if anyone else has them. You may run a very small risk that they won't work.
Now for the little treat...
So you get something out of reading this - people will pfaff on about audio gear forever. But it's all about the music. So here's one kiwi band that is truly amazing and tends to get rave reviews - if you're into electronica and dub, try Pitch Black out for size - some free MP3's from live performances, I recommend listening to the Tokyo mix http://www.pitchblack.co.nz/default.asp?s1=downloads. You can buy full mp3 downloads from here amplifier.co.nz (although for quality I obviously recommend CD Purchase)
Enjoy.
Amazon link for the speakers (for those in the US) Energy RC-Mini Bookshelf Speaker (Single, Black)
Searching for an affordable freelancer/SOHO backup solution? I think I found one on the weekend. I use 
Unboxed it, set it up. It's a fairly attractive little unit, the aluminium blending in with any respectable SOHO. The funky blue bulge actually is a big red/blue light & one touch backup button. It's a bit more attractive setup than the product images would have you believe. Some designer has put his name to the unit so it looks the part. On the back you have the drive caddies - in theory it's hot swappable (if one drive fails, replace it and the data will be rebuilt to the new drive), with the RAID setting switch, drive status lights, and connectors. I chose the 'Triple' unit meaning triple interface - USB/Firewire400/Firewire800. There's also a 
should you want skynet hooking up to it and leading a bunch of terminators... woah wrong script :)
I flicked it over to RAID1 and switched it on. A few blinks of various LED's later as the drive reconfigured itself from RAID0 to RAID1 I had a drive ready to be formatted. Use DiskUtility and format/partition it, was then good to go and store files away with peace of mind. And well what can I say - it's just another drive at this point ! I neglected to install any of the packaged software, time machine was quite keen on turning itself on and using the drive but I'm still too cynical and want to control my own backups. A couple of days later having consolidated all of my media and backup files strewn across various drives I feel exceedingly virtuous and safe in the knowledge if one drive goes tits up my data is still safe**
Okay so things aren't quite perfect, the only downside I can see is I hate noise with a passion, I really would like a noiseless drive but that's not going to happen anytime soon. Given what this unit does the noise is a good compromise, it has a tiny little fan hidden away behind the heatsinks, so with the drives idle it's liveable, just a gentle whirr. Accessing it it's a different story - both drives spin up and it crunches away, but given the data's getting written twice to both drives it's unreasonable to expect whisper quietness. The initial dumping of gigs of data to it was quite something but now streaming back mp3's during the day I don't notice it. If you like ultra quiet you may want to store it away in a desk unit or something.
So if you're not backing stuff up, sort it out, now that drives like these are reasonably priced there's no excuse. Also bear in mind always think worst case scenario, and use something like 
The Golden Rule
Always isolate your speakers from whatever they're sitting on (be it floor, bookshelf whatever). It's just the golden rule in life. You must do it. Well, I built this new desk**, and completely forgot the rule, I was just so happy to have somewhere for these puppies to sit on. I happened upon some 8mm strips of rubbery packing foam - night and day difference, event at low volumes it makes a difference. I'm not sure the maple was really adding to music
Just listening to some Ben Harper and it sounds GORGEOUS. No more annoying little bass resonances. Put on some Vivaldi and we get bone chilling clarity. Nice - that's what studio monitors are about, reproduction (this is a moment of triumph, I bought them 5-6 months ago and haven't really had a chance to *use* them until now).
Of course a true audiophile might be a little horrified that sound waves are going to reflect off the desk, but you can't have it all.
** The other golden rule, never try to figure out how Ikea can sell furniture so cheaply.
A long way from Paperboy.. Bioshock
What a busy evening, picked up stuff for my significant other, went out for dinner, did some coding, managed to give the cats some attention, and last but not least sneaked in a few minutes of playing the 
All I've got to say with Bioshock, is I'll be very suprised if it doesn't come in a close 2nd, if not 1st with Gears of War for sales this year. It is absolutely spectacular (and this is just the demo). I was blown away from 15mins of play time, the water effects are very nice indeed. An eerie atmosphere pervades each section of gameplay. Well done. There goes my productivity for a few days...
I'm just putting this out there, you know instead of the 'come join our startup for equity ' type emails, how about you be a bit creative and 'come join our startup and we'll get one of these bad boys in your driveway' ?? That's one way to get my attention..
Better acceleration than anything I've driven or been in (and I'll tell you 600HP is pretty damned quick and this would be faster), limited pollution (the electricity does have to come from somewhere) and it looks like it has fun by the bucket loads.
Check out this video. The astute will notice the Porsche has to do a rolling start, no doubt worried about destroying some clutch plates and the X1 *still* wipes the floor with it.
Or another..
And to think, you wouldn't have the difficulties of getting a high horsepower sports car off the line, like triple-plate clutches (not fun in traffic), it's just like an on-off switch. C'mon already, what are you waiting for, lets see these in production...
People in the performance world are really starting to see the benefit, check out this... 
