There’s a few great podcasting guides floating around the internet these days, but for those who may care to take a glance at how we do things around here, I’ve written this podcasting workflow just for you. I was inspired by a recent episode of the Mac Power Users podcast in which David and Katie take us in up to our necks in the various subjects that relate to producing a podcast.

Equipment

Microphones

Five out of the six of us use Blue Microphones’ Yeti USB condenser mic, and they’re honestly the best you can get for the money. They have a built in audio interface, so there’s no need for an external one or mixer. They just plug in and work- and they sound really great.

Personally, I employ a CAD GXL2200 condenser mic that I’ve had for years and have used for various musical endeavors that hasn’t ever let me down. It’s very sensitive, and in this case, can sound overloaded if you’re too close to the microphone and will produce very undesirable results. However, used with care, it sounds perfectly adequate. It doesn’t compare with a $300 Rode mic, but it does the job. In most cases, anything other than the built in mic is always a step in the right direction. I’m serious- nearly anything is better. This particular condenser is a standard XLR mic, which requires an external device of some sort to make the conversion from analog to digital signal. For this, I have a Yamaha MW10c 6-channel USB mixer that works wonderfully, but there are more compact audio interface available.

Pop filters

Pop filters are incredibly important. So much so that I can almost always instantly tell who isn’t using one when I listen to ours or another podcast. The issue at hand is the way ‘P’, ‘T’, and ‘B’ sounds enter the mic. When you don’t use a pop filter, a huge burst of air hits the sensor at once, sending a, well, POP sound onto the recording. For someone speaking a lot, it’s really really important that you take care of this problem by getting a pop filter. There are ways to deal with these sounds in post-production, but nothing is as true a solution as preventing the problem in the first place.

Pop filters act as air diverters, pushing air away from whatever is on the other side of it, and they’re most effective when placed away from the microphone. I’ve found the optimal distance to be between 6 and 10 inches from the mic. If you’re too close, diverted air still hits the sensor and pops. If you’re really limited on space, there are double pop filters available with back to back screens that will let you get closer to the mic.

There are a ton of them out there. Walk into any music store and you’ll find one. Here’s one that’ll work! And if you really need to get cozy with your mic, here’s one you can get nice and close to.

Most of us use basic ones. However, some of us still don’t have them, and though it isn’t always terribly noticeable, the occasional pop will need to be adjusted in the the mixing process.

Isolation

Background noise is perhaps the single most difficult thing to deal with after recording is done. Talking, running fans, or street noise are nearly impossible to deal with if someone is talking while it’s going on. Though noise gates do help (more on that later), if a fan is running audibly while you’re talking, once the noise gate kicks in after you’re done talking, it’s obvious what is happening, and impossible to fully correct.

The only way to guarantee a nice clean sounding show is completely eliminating background noise before you record, and that includes your own headphones and isolating your mic from your desk.

For hearing the conversation, I recommend using earbuds or closed-back, sealed headphones. This way, no sound leaks into the mic, which creates an echo effect that can be tough to edit out. Also, if possible, get a real mic stand and a shock-mount. This will eliminate any vibration that makes its way from your desk to your mic. I use a boom stand that swivels over my desk when I want to use it. They’re pretty cheap, and very worth it when it comes to avoiding noise.

Software

At The Impromptu, we use a number of different software solutions to produce the podcast. We need apps for recording as well as post-production. First and foremost, we use Skype as the basis of our conversation. It’s not perfect, in fact a lot of times it flat-out sucks. But it’s the best solution for group voice chat we’ve found, so we stick with it. Each of us records audio on our own end. This ensures a good quality file even though Skype sounds like a long distance phone call most of the time.

The basic workflow is as follows. Skype facilitates the conversation, audio is recorded on each member’s computer. The resulting recording files are uploaded to a shared folder on Dropbox, which I pull down to my own machine, and are then added to a new project in Logic Express as individual tracks for editing(more on editing in a minute), then bounced to a file which is run through Levelator, coverted to an mp3, and then uploaded for distribution.

For recording purposes, there’s several apps that will work. Quicktime is a great free solution, and works fine for most purposes. A step up from QT, Piezo is really the perfect balance of simplicity, functionality, and cost for podcasting. Piezo allows you to record a number of different inputs, apps, and sources. You can even record an entire Skype call (which is very handy as I’ll explain in a minute). Personally, I use Audio Hijack Pro. It’s fantastic to use and incredibly powerful. I barely scratch the surface of what this app can do. For our purposes, I have it set to record both the Skype call and my own audio into two separate files.

Audio Quality

Because we use Dropbox to share our recording files, we need to keep our individual files’ sizes to a minimum. This means we all record our own audio at about 256 kbps. This isn’t optimal. These files are lossy and eventually some quality loss will occur, though it may not be entirely noticeable. In a perfect world with unlimited Dropbox space, we wouldn’t have this issue and could record to uncompressed AIFF. That being said, I welcome any alternate solutions.

When all is said and done, and I bounce the project to a single audio file, I convert it with XLD to a 128 kbps mp3 for upload to our Rackspace server where we host the files.

The Editing Process

So I’ve covered the technical details behind the Impromptu. The next step is putting every audio file into a project in Logic Express, where each track can be tweaked. A six-man show can be quite time-consuming as you can probably imagine. I start up a project with 8 tracks. The first track added is the Skype master track. This lets me line everyone up as quickly as possible when their track is added to the project. We try to start recording at the the same time, so that makes things even easier. I line up the files, trim the beginning chatter and mute the Skype master. Then I can start editing.

The Noise Gate

This is an area I’m still getting better at. It’s tricky to get the noise gate settings just right, and you really have to pay attention as you listen through the show to make sure you set the correct threshold. The trick is to set the noise gate to mute any consistent background hum, but not cut off any words. I start around -25dB and go from there. The typical threshold sweetspot for all six guys is between -25dB and -30dB. Logic has a few presets for the Noise Gate filter, and I usually select the Backing Vocal Gate for each track which seems to work well, and then back off the threshold to -25dB.

Clicks, Taps, Bumps, and Coughs.

The most time-consuming part of all this is editing out the stuff the noise gate won’t catch, but still doesn’t belong in the finished product. I’d love to give the Impromptu guys a hard time for their inability to sit still(seriously though, they aren’t bad), but the reality is that you just can’t expect complete silence for a typically 90 minute show. Fortunately, Logic makes it easy to cut out the distracting noises that come through the mics. I just select the Marquee Tool for the left click tool, and start playing the show. When a noise comes up, you don’t even have to stop the track from playing, just select the offending track region with the tool where you see the blip, and tap the delete key to cut it from the track. Easy as that.

Having six guys can lend itself to several instances per show where we’re talking over each other. I do my best to keep editing to a minimum, but there are appropriate times to trim down to only the person making a point.

It would also be a good time to mention that you make sure that your individual tracks are nice and big on the screen, so you can scan for noises by looking at the tracks as they go by. In the lower right hand corner, you can adjust the zooms, or you can just hold Option with a two finger drag up and down or sideways to adjust respective zoom levels.

Other Tweaks

Equalization is fairly important. If a decent condenser mic was used to record, you probably won’t have to do much besides some basic adjustment, but if you have a member with a sub-par mic, chances are you’ll have to spend some time making sure his or her track sounds at least similar to the rest of them, as a big difference can be distracting. I usually add just a bit of top end or take a little of the low (which has basically the same effect). If a speaker isn’t using a pop filter and sitting fairly close to their mic, it may behoove you to subtract a little extra low end overall form their track to help take the ‘boom’ out of the ‘pop’s that will inevitably show up.

I also add a bit of compression to each track. The type and amount will vary from person to person. Adding compression can also affect the EQ settings you used, and vice versa, so be sure to pay attention when using these two in combination.

Bouncing

Bouncing, or exporting, to an .aiff file is the next step. I use the mono setting, as stereo is basically worthless since everything is centered. After export, I use a little utility called Levelator which acts as a number of different tools to finalize the file and level everyone out.

Wrap-up

These are just a few tricks I’ve learned over the last few months of podcasting. Certain things you just have to get used to. Eventually you’ll get better and it’ll become more natural and you’ll be quicker. The first few episodes took me several hours to finish because I had no idea what I was doing. I was just making everything up as I went, trying to do my best. Now, I can finish an episode in a little over 2 hours (which includes listening through the whole episode).

Thanks for reading. Get at me on Twitter if you have any suggestions or comments.

Visit The Impromptu on our website and follow us on Twitter!

Subscribe on iTunes here.

TL;DR

Here’s a list of things we use:

Blue Yeti

Pop Filters 1, 2

Boom Stand

Piezo

Audio Hijack Pro

Logic (Logic Express is no longer available)

Levelator

XLD

While home, I picked up a Technics SL-series turntable from a friend. Not a high-end player, but, man, it sounds great. The main place it will serve is in my room back at my apartment at school but as it turned out, it would serve an even better purpose much sooner than I realized.

There were a few records at home that didn’t make the trip back to school with me earlier this year, so I spent parts of the last few days spinning vinyl on my dad’s great system in our living room. My brother’s kids took an interest in it, all three of them having seen a record player perhaps only once or twice in their lives.

Earlier this evening, my mom pulled out a stack of records she had under her bed from her younger years, and as it turned out, there were many records in there that both my brother and I remembered quite vividly from our childhoods. We spent the better part of two hours in that room with the entire family spinning records from our past, reminiscing about old times, and introducing favorite old songs to younger ears. Bedtimes were disregarded, liner notes passed around, and laughs were had as we sat around the record player enjoying sounds that brought back many, many memories.

It was an unplanned and wonderful experience and it was, after all, the very reason we set aside time from our normal lives once or twice a year to be with each other and enjoy each other’s company. Though we may not have much time together in the present or future, it is indeed fulfilling to recall those times which we spent together so many years ago– the times that formed our family into who we are today.

Though I planned the record player’s future selfishly, its role as a memory-maker slipped by me unnoticed until tonight. We internet dwellers place a lot of importance on digital experience, but this weekend has once again reminded me that the best things in life are completely analog. Had I not gotten the turntable this week, we surely would have missed out on this whole thing. The same couldn’t have happened tonight without the player, my mom and dad’s old records, and the presence of good company. A simple and rare lesson, but an even rarer family memory made, thanks to a some slabs of vinyl and a needle.

The app I’m referring to is Enqueue. It has a beta tag stuck on it still, but it really doesn’t feel so beta to me. Development has been happening at a rapid-fire pace– the first public release was in June of this year, and since then, features have been added and bugs killed. The user interface has seen a few changes since the apps inception, so clearly this is still in a rather volatile state, but Enqueue’s core purpose hasn’t changed.

Enqueue a great app for playing all kinds of audio files- FLAC, ALAC, MP3, OGG…the list goes on. But that’s not my favorite part. I’m a huge fan of the way Enqueue looks. It’s very simple. A familiar one-window interface beats Fidelia’s multi-window UI hands down, and best of all doesn’t include the massive player that takes up over half your screen. The mini-player is great, and there’s a cool queue column on the left that you can add and remove tracks from, essentially creating a quick temporary playlist. Listening history is displayed similar to last.fm, with a nice tab that visually shows you what you listen to most frequently. Playlists work as expected, and there’s the standard EQ settings page. Media keys work appropriately too.

This really is a great effort for any app, let alone a beta. I strongly suggest you try this out if you have FLAC needs.

PS- if you don’t have an Rdio account, you can sign up for one for free using your Facebook account or just as a normal sign-up. There’s a limited amount you can listen to on the free plan, but I think you’ll find it worth it to upgrade to the $5/mo listening plan.

1. Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Easily my favorite of the year, if not the last two years. I thought their last effort For Emma, Forever Ago was pretty solid, but Bon Iver really takes them to a different place. It’s always a treat when you can listen to an album front to back and never get sick of it.

2. Dawes – Nothing Is Wrong

A solid rock record. Great harmonies, great guitar riffs. Though I miss the sound of their last record, they bring a little cleaner tone to this one, and the songwriting has matured as well.

3. Maritime – Human Hearts

Maritime’s vocalist, Davey Von Bohlen, has long been one of my favorite songwriters. From 90′s era Cap’n Jazz to The Promise Ring and now Maritime, the guy can definitely write a good song. I’ve been listening to his bands since 10th grade, and on his latest effort, Human Hearts, both the songwriting and sound are equally good. Their previous release, Heresy and the Hotel Choir, I thought could have used a litte more production and refinement. Human Hearts fixes the hole I thought they left there. Great engineering, great songs.

4. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

I wasn’t sure where to put this one on my list. It has my favorite song of the year (Helplessness Blues), but isn’t a front-to-back record like the previous three. I don’t dis-like any of the songs, but some of the tracks on this record just don’t feel like they belong. The tracks that really DO stand out to me are Helplessness Blues, Sim Sala Bim, Montezuma, and Lorelai.

5. Fionn Regan – 100 Acres of Sycamore

Though his first record hooked me, this Irish lad’s last record just about lost me. A major style change doesn’t really work going from acoustic folk to full-band rock, and I quickly gave up on it. 100 Acres was pretty unexpected to me, but once I heard the first few songs, I knew he was back on the right track. This record more than makes up for the last.

Headphones

I’m still a complete amateur when it comes to most of this stuff. However, before I owned these headphones, I had no idea what I was missing. “Audiophiles”, folks who strive for a better sound, will throw around terms like ‘soundstage’ and ‘imaging’ that, if you’d never put on a decent pair of headphones, you’d have no idea about. These words refer to an experience of listening to music that can cost thousands of dollars to perfect. Though the SR80s certainly aren’t the end-all-be-all of headphones, you’d be surprised with what you hear from them. My girlfriend’s first words after having heard She & Him’s Volume 2 through them were “Wow. It sounds… 3D.” The word she was searching for was what folks familiar with the matter call ‘soundstage’. It isn’t just right and left stereo sound, there is actual depth and detail you haven’t picked up on before. Individual instruments are more discernible than they were on previous listens, and subtle tones ring through much clearer. The sound is provided by carefully engineered headphones and audio components that optimize the listening experience in a way that lots of off-the-shelf equipment can’t match. The world of “audiophile”-grade components is quite expansive, and one that I’m just beginning to explore. Literally every piece down the line of an audio system can be upgraded for optimal sound. We’re talking everything from $200 speaker cable to $3,000 turntables.

It’s quite easy to hear the difference between a pair of Apple stock earbuds and nearly anything made by a company like Grado. I’ll use the well-worn car analogy here- it’s the difference between driving a 1990 Geo today and a 2011 S-class Mercedes. There is such a striking difference that I sometimes have a difficult time listening to music through anything else. But there are many brands that have similar awesome-ness, and to further complicate things, there are different brands and models of headphones that are better for certain genres of music. Here is a great article about the frequency response of headphones, and here is another great one for newbies looking to get a good pair of headphones.

The solution to the problem you’ll run into when trying to decide on a new pair of headphones is just to try them. An old buddy from high school had the SR80s before I did, and once I heard them I knew I had to get a pair. Search your area for any place that offers high-end audio equipment, and chances are they have some sweet headphones you can go in and audition. It’ll be worth it if only to hear what you’re missing.

Though headphones are critical to the chain, there’s more to the equation. Many setups have a DAC (digital to analog converter), an integrated amplifier, headphone amplifiers (desktop or portable), and multiple different source components like turntables, computers, and CDPs.

File Formats & Software

Though I’ve used iTunes happily for years, the other night I stumbled on a new app that really struck my fancy. It’s called Fidelia, made by Audiofile Engineering and available on the Mac App Store for about 20 bucks. Though I wouldn’t really push this on someone for everyday listening (I really do think iTunes is a good app for that), this app really shines in its ability to play back FLAC, something that iTunes just can’t do. Say what you will about the skeumorphism- the app is designed to look like an integrated amplifier- the functionality here is nothing short of well done. Plus, if you’re running a dedicated music Mac in your house, they even have a great iOS remote app to control playback over your home network.

Truth be told, if you’re going to bother having a ridiculous hardware setup, you really do need to consider the source of your music as well. If you’re using a killer turntable or CDP, your sound is still only as good as your weakest link allows it to be, whether it’s the rip, the record, the sound card, the cabling, or the speakers/headphones. If you’re using a computer for your source, it’s a great idea to have lossless-quality audio. FLAC files are bit-by-bit reproductions of the original rip. There is no compression or signal loss whatsoever. If you ripped it perfectly from a pristine vinyl and a great turntable, the FLAC file you rip it to will be exactly what came through- not so if you rip to an MP3 or similar format, as there will be some signal and quality loss. Other formats have minimal quality loss, like MP3 V0. Most will tell you that the audible difference between a file encoded with MP3 V0 and a FLAC file is not noticeable to most people. Whether that is true or not, playing music encoded at anything below 256kbps on high-end components is going be disappointing, as it will bring out the flaws in the rip. I usually go on the safe side and grab a 16bit FLAC rip if I can, that way I can down-convert to a lower setting if I want to save space in the future or put it in my normal iTunes library. Remember, you can always re-encode your music to a lower bitrate for more casual listening and to save space, but if you trash your FLAC, that quality is gone for good unless you re-rip. For encoding to MP3 V0 or the like, I use Max. The same developer also has a great app called Tag that is a FLAC metadata editor.

Getting Started

If you’re interested in all this and you’re worried that it’ll be expensive…well, you’re absolutely right it’s expensive. But the main idea is to start with what you have, and slowly build a good setup from there. Do your research. Upgrade your components one at a time and don’t worry about having the greatest stuff all at once. In fact, I think that’s half the fun. I’m pretty certain that if I had my dream setup right away I wouldn’t know half of what I do about this stuff (granted, it’s still not much), and it definitely would have taken the fun out of conversing with other people interested in the same things and getting advice on where to go and what to buy. Also bear in mind that there’s nothing wrong with buying used components. Especially with turntables and amps, you’ll save a bunch of money if you can find one on Ebay from someone who just upgraded themselves.

You do need to find a good place to start, though. I recommend starting with headphones. You can’t go wrong with a pair of SR80s or even SR60s to start out with. From there, move along the line to a DAC and then to an integrated amp or whatever pushes your buttons. It’s really important, however, that you do your homework. Head-fi and Stereofile are great resources to find product reviews, information on frequency response and other topics that deal with the minutiae of sound reproductions that I won’t discuss in this post.

Resources

Have a look over at head-fi.org and stereophile.com for some great forums and blog posts by people who know what they’re talking about. For the most part, everyone at these sites is good-natured, helpful, and generally non-snobby.

It’s Worth It

Sure it’s expensive. But it’s so, so worth it once you get a setup that works for you. There’s nothing like winding the day down with a cup of tea, plugging your headphones in, and putting on a wonderful-sounding record. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about.

For those unfamiliar with app launchers, Alfred does its job well in a niche category that has some competition. It allows you keyboard-based access to almost anything on your computer (Files, Music, Movies, Documents, Scripts) and allows you to manipulate, open, and execute these in many different ways. There are a couple alternatives. I dabbled with Launchbar for a while, as well as Quicksilver, but settled on Alfred after having such a great experience with it. I realize the power of Launchbar and Quicksilver possibly outshines that of Alfred, but it has the right amount of power that I need to have, and I don’t even come close to doing with it what others do. For those into pressing a few buttons and making your computer do crazy things, Alfred is perfect. I should mention that a lot of this stuff I’m going to mention requires the Powerpack version of Alfred, which is like 20 bucks, so go buy that. Do it. It’s still cheaper than Launchbar, and will provide you with much of the same functionality.

How I Use It

Here’s where things get kind of nerdy.

First and foremost, I’ve been using Cmd-Space for the hotkey which brings up Alfred. I’ve actually learned to just tap both keys at the same time with the side of my thumb if I’m already typing, which works roughly 50% of the time, though I’m steadily getting better at it. Alfred lets you pick a combination of keys when you set it up, though, so don’t feel constrained to Cmd-Space.

As a side note, I have each key to the left of my space bar plus the Spacebar set to do something

• Command-Space: Alfred
• Option-Space: New Task Entry for Things.app
• Control-Control-Space: Context-based Task Entry for Things
• Control-Space: Spotlight (I use Spotlight searches for Mail)

Hotkeys and Keyboard Shortcuts

I’ve set up a bunch of Hotkeys for my daily routine with Alfred. There are also a bunch included that I didn’t even have to make myself! With so many to choose from, here’s a few of my favorite and most-used:

• Cmd-Opt-F5: SuperQuit
• F6; SuperOpen (yep, opposite of SuperQuit)
  • more on these two further down the page
• Cmd-Opt-Return: iTunes Mini Player (included)
• Cmd-Opt-Down Arrow: Downloads folder
• Cmd-Opt-Up Arrow: Active School folder
• Cmd-Opt-Right Arrow: Position active window on right half of screen
• Cmd-Opt-Left Arrow: Position active window of left half of screen
• Cmd-Opt-/: Open Alfred to user directory (included)

SuperQuit and SuperOpen

As I mentioned in a previous post, SuperQuit quits every open app except for the currently active one (the one that has its name next to the Apple menu in the top-left corner of the screen). It’s awesome. When I’m feeling distracted by stuff on my computer and need to write or get something done, I use it. It prevents me getting further distracted by other apps as I go through and quit them or hide them one by one. I’ve since modified my original SuperQuit to hide the dock as well. I use it at least a few times a week.

SuperOpen is one I don’t use as often, but still gets a fair amount of use. Occasionally I’ll restart or shut my computer down to rest overnight (maybe not totally necessary), and I have it set to launch back up with absolutely nothing open. There’s nothing worse than waiting a year and a day for your apps to open while your machine boots up, so I like to boot with a nice clean desktop. On a normal day though, I like to have a particular suite of apps available for the majority of the day, so I wrote a quick Applescript to launch what I need to get through the day, but only when I hit the hotkey. Included in this list are:

• Things
• Mail
• Twitterrific
• Rdio
• iChat
• TextMate
• TextExpander
• iCal
• Dropbox
• Cloud.app
• F.lux

Plugins/Extensions

Alfred also sweetly supports Extensions, and many users have written their own to share with the community. There are new ones popping up around the web from time to time, and I’ve been using quite a few of them myself. Just type a short keyword, hit return, and something awesome happens. Here’s (another) list of things I use!

• Rdio Search- type in a search key and it whisks you off to Rdio with your search results.
• Connection Speed- uses speedtest.net to determine your current connection speed and returns it in a Growl notification. Very handy
• Lipsum Text- grabs specified amount of Lorum Ipsum filler text from the web. Awesome awesome awesome.
• IP- gets your current public IP
• PHP Syntax- type a function, get the syntax back in a growl notification.

Other Good Things of Note

• I especially appreciate the integrated iTunes controller.
• Every time I need to compose an email, I launch Alfred, type ‘Email’ followed by the first few letters of the contact, hit return, and a Mail message window is brought up for me to type in.
• Alfred’s Clipboard History is really great.
• Best way to search the web, period. Hit the Alfred hotkey, type your query, press Enter. Done.

I drive about an hour per day to and from school, so podcasts are a choice way to pass the time. Here’s a list of the podcasts I listen to on a regular basis (in no particular order). Yep, a lot of them are from the 5by5 podcast network, but they all deserve a link.

-Creatiplicity
-Geek Friday
-The B&B Podcast
-This Is My Next Podcast
-Build and Analyze
-Mac Power Users
-Back to Work
-The Talk Show
-After Dark
-The Pipeline
-The Bro Show

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

-Steve Jobs

I read the reviews and they seemed to be pretty good. Any step down will have its compromises, but they didn’t seem to be too plentiful in this case, and they were certainly rated better than almost everything else in their price range. I made up my mind after a week or so of looking around, and decided to turn to eBay for the purchase, thinking maybe I would get a great price on them. That turned out to be a great decision. I lurked the listings for about 2 weeks and one night spotted a pair of AV30s two hours away from ending for 50 bucks. Bingo.

They arrived a few days later, and I set them up to see what they were made of. (Turns out it’s wood, though it feels more like plastic.) Sound-wise though, I’m happy. I’d award them about an 8/10 on the Dan Scale of Audio Reproduction Quality. Eventually I’m going to need to pick up a pair of speaker stands or wedges to get them properly angled. Since they aren’t at ear-level, some of the high-end from the tweeters is missing me, but it’s an easily remedied problem and one they specifically mention in the user manual, so I have a hard time being too upset. It’s kind of common sense. The bass on them is particularly tight and punchy, while not too boomy. There’s a Bass Boost switch on the backside of the left cabinet that will boost it even more, but I’m really kind turned off by it. I wish they would have just tuned the speakers to an optimal frequency response and left it at that, rather than making the consumer decide which way it should be (boosted or not). Having another switch between the sound card and my ears is asking for a hard time getting the right sound. As I said, quality is not much of an issue with these speakers. I’d like a little more clarity– perhaps a boost to the higher-end middle frequencies would help (it certainly did when EQ’d that way).

I should mention that my ears are generally spoiled when it comes to music. A few months ago I splurged (again with the splurging) on an amazing pair of headphones– Grado SR80’s. They lie towards the bottom of Grado’s line of headphones, but they’re surprisingly wonderful cans. They run about a hundred bucks, but the clear, transparent sound you get from them is completely unparalleled to anything I’ve ever heard. Comparing the AV40s to the SR80s is sort of an exercise in futility, since speakers and headphones are a totally different game, but I will say that listening to Miles or Dylan from the AV30s does invoke some of the same great feelings I get with the SR80s. They particularly shine when playing more pop-sounding rock. Phoenix’s “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” album sounded awesome. That tight bass sound really comes into play with a well-produced album.

Size-wise, for me they’re perfect. They’re certainly big enough to put out some serious sound, and small enough to fit comfortably on my desk on either side of my 24″ monitor. Included in the box were two acoustic pads that stick to the bottom of each speaker so they don’t vibrate your desk too much– a really nice touch. Basically, they serve to more evenly dissipate the sound across the surface of your desk. Putting them on the rubber wedges I plan to get eventually should remove any leftover buzz entirely, but for now they work great.

To touch on input/output stuff, there’s nothing special here. RCA input (back), 1/8″ Aux input (front), and a headphone output (front). There’s a glowing blue volume control on the front left speaker where the headphone and aux inputs are. There’s also a power switch on the back of the left speaker.

I may in time upgrade to the AV40s. Admittedly, the 30s have room for improvement, specifically in the higher middle frequency range and up. I had to fix those problems myself with EQ. But for 50 bucks and an absolutely gorgeous pair of speakers that sound good, I’m not complaining.

Duh.

She mentioned the idea to him one saturday, and the same exact day, he went to his shop and made me this in a matter of hours. I was stunned. It was exactly what I wanted. Handmade by a man I respected and looked up to, and he wasn’t asking me for a penny. What were “scraps of wood” to him was a total jackpot for me.

The wood was untreated and for the most part un-sanded. I used my limited knowledge of the two of those things to produce the finished product (albeit with his help) the next afternoon. Since I was off to school that morning, we didn’t have much time to treat it, so we elected for about three coats of this Minwax Antique Oil Finish.

We let it dry for an hour or so, and since I had already transported the bulk of my belongings to my apartment at school, I had room to throw the still-drying legs atop the desk in my car and make the two-hour trek to school with the windows providing necessary ventilation in the cabin. When I got to school, I immediately screwed the legs and lateral supports on and set it up. Here’s what it looks like at the moment.

I wanted absolutely zero cable showing in the back. So I picked up some plastic adhesive hooks at a local hardware store to run the cables across the back of the desk and down the leg to the power strip, and also running to the MacBook Pro’s ports on the side of the desk. I achieved a great simple look with very minimal effort.

The desk is a huge upgrade. It’s nice to go from a tiny desk that holds nothing but my computer, to having everything I need within reach. The dimensions, if you’re curious, are as follows: 30″ high, 54″ wide and and 30″ deep. This semester should be a good one.