As I no longer have any DAC for my set-up, I’m kind of stuck on “stock” DAC so to say. But it’s not bad as I’ve always said about this HP EliteBook 8460w. The ones I’ve just tried cost like a thousand greens, and I don’t even have that much saved from the allowance that I actually am lucky enough to get. Well, since I’ve only this already described set-up to work with, it’s time to work out the minor details to squeeze the best out of them.
So far, I’ve looked at the specifications of the SS-K10ED and see what other clues I could get to squeeze that extra potential from these speakers, and found that there is somehow a point in the specifications sheet, from what I found online, on the placing of these speakers. They specified, that the ideal distance from the wall to these speakers are about 10cm away. Now, I know I live in America, but I’ve never always lived here. I spent my Elementary School days in Singapore, along with a year in Secondary School. I’ve had my fair share of centimeters, and so I had a lot of rulers with them. I used that to get exact measurements of the back of the speaker from the wall. I also made sure they were a set distance apart from where I sit, but placing them near the edges of the table so I can easily gauge the distance from the edges themselves. Once I got that done, I needed to figure out the situation with the Subwoofer.
Well it’s not very difficult for Subwoofers, as general(?) knowledge (correct me if I’m wrong) would have it, Subwoofers work best in corners, or close to the wall. However, I can’t freely move my Sub, due to a not well-thought out decision during the making-of the system. I had a limited amount of speaker cable given to me, so as I had to make the best use out of it, I cut it up according to what I thought were good enough lengths and opened up the ends from the covers as my Dad has just thought me. I didn’t take into the account being able to move my sub quite a long distance form the Topping Tp-41, so it’s stuck in the position it’s in as you can see in the pictures in the set-up description page. So, as experimentation, I moved more forward, and then moved it backward from where it was. I put it in the forward position for quite sometime because I wanted to observe the woofers move (it was interesting). Now that I’ve tried to move it back and closer to the wall, there was a noticeable difference in the bass I was hearing from where I was sitting at the desk.
There used to be a difference in the bass heard from where I sit at the desk than when I stood up or sit on the bed. But this time, after the move, it was more uniform across, and I could actually hear and feel the bass more than before. I guess that theory worked, as the vibrations were distributed more evenly. As I squeeze the potential from my system, I’m reminded of how good these are compared to my dad’s. He has better stuff obviously, but I’m satisfied with the experimentation and the results of this optimization of of system. It has yielded differences discernible by my human ear, and I’m a more than satisfied (broke) youth.
HIFI Sound Enthusiast 