You're going to need a bigger rack...

My whole life I've wanted to have a real rack of my own. I've put in or designed hundreds of them full of shiny black boxes that I would mentally contort into absolutely needing for myself because why wouldn't a house need a 32x32 matrix switcher?

So for years I've been on the lookout and quietly letting people know - "hey - if you come across a rack send it my way". Finally this year I've acquired not one but TWO racks and boy did I think I had it made.

Rack 1: 18 space (thanks Andrew!)

Rack 2: 28 space (thanks Mark!)

Both have casters, doors, removable sides, rear rail. The works!

Then I had this crazy idea to resurrect this monster audio system. And you know what? It takes a TON of rack space. Not even all the gear is in there and I'm minimum 35U with only a few empty spaces including required minimum airflow specified in the JBL manuals. Sh!t.

There was this perfect 44U rack that I had a line on, then my team completely let me down. Thanks a LOT Dylan.

So, if anyone has a 35-45U enclosed rack on wheels, I'm interested.

Soon.

Because the gear is on the way.

The Before times

So here’s the ‘before’ pictures. Honestly a hodge-podge of gear, audio is all from the same era.

The "Media Room"

Notice the bunny ears because like HELL I'm paying Comcast for the privelege of watching TV. And the picture is way better... when it's a clear day

My 'outgoing' pile of gear on the right. The sharp eye might notice a 12-channel Crestron amplifier which I thought I didn't have a need for until I realized people are cramming oodles of speakers in their theaters these days. So, that's what inspired me to say 'fuck it' and go fullly immersive with this audio project.

The famous 4410 monitors, which I am a little sad and nervous to pull out of my main listening area. I LOVE these speakers. I've been through a lot with these speakers. I will be pissed if I go through all this effort and regret pulling these babies out. I don't think I'll ever bring myself to get rid of them. …and no sub. The low-end on the 4410s is so tight and deep (enough) that I never actually got the nerve to try and blend in a sub for fear of muddying it up. 

 

The center speaker - M&K 150 - still sounds crystal clear even with some toddler-provided modifications to the dust caps. Still rocking a Lexicon MC-1, which I picked up years after it was surpassed by the MC-4, from a home theater client that I used to calibrate CRT projectors for. He said it stopped working one day and he went out and bought a different one, and gave me the broken one in exchange for a video touch-up. Some google-fu and a $50 power supply later, and to this day It does the job beautifully. I actually made a few bucks buying dead MC-1s and re-selling them after swapping in new power supplies. The Xbox is the only thing in my photo less than 20 years old.

And the industry's little secret.... monoprice. 4 input 4K60 4:4:4 HDMI switch with RS-232 control for $50? Yespleez. Had to upgrade my video switch and add an audio extractor when I went 4K, because, well, Apple. Two generations of Crestron handheld remotes, because I'm a hoarder.

And some weird ball speakers for rears… The projector is a Sony 295ES and I love it.

OK here's the ugly underbelly... on the other side of the screen wall is the storage room/electronics pile. On display for the world. I can't wait to clean this up into a proper rack.

I’m also a little sad about pulling out this amplifier. It is a BEAST and a unique little animal of its own. A bridgeable 4 channel 100/150 watts, the HK Citation 5.1 THX. Usually these run in packs powering uber stacks of speakers, my little lonesome guy is using three channels for my front three speakers. I’ve never wanted for more power for my mains. Rears powered by a little Parasound ZAMP which doubles as a headphone amplifier when the family goes to sleep and I need to blow some shit up in call of duty.

Black box on the left is a Crestron CP2E currently running my sprinklers, and on the right is an MC3 running my lightig and theater controls. MC4 is here and will replace the MC3 because I'm a glutton for punishment.

Network is gonna get a new home too :)

A 1KVA UPS I'm refurbishing, so the internet will NEVER go down.

OK - inventory complete - now for the plan...

Home(less) Theater

Can a surround-sound system be considered "vintage" at this point?

For interesting reasons, I am about to acquire a complete JBL Synthesis Three system, circa 1999, that has been languishing in storage for almost 20 years.

It was the first generation of the Synthesis line to incorporate digital surround sound decoding (Dolby Digital “AC-3” and the "OG" DTS) in addition to old-school matrix surround (“Pro-Logic”).

This system was my first exposure into real high-end home cinema, and has always since been top of mind for admittedly as much nostalgic as objective reasons.

My goal is to resurrect this gem and bring it all the way into 2020 with the latest object-based audio formats, and hopefully unlock some potential hidden by the highly compressed digital formats of the early 2000s. (Remember? ALL 5.1 channels of Dolby Digital had to fit in HALF of the ANALOG audio track of a laserdisc!)

Well, at least as much audio as I can realistically jam into my basement. And without spending $10K on the latest top-of-the-range Synthesis processor (which seems to be a rebranded Trinnov, instead of the Lexicon like back then).

Basically I'm going to take this thing from 5.1 to 11.2. It's going to be quite a journey and I'm going to tell you all about it right here.

Jeesus I can't believe I am going to have thirteen speakers in my basement.