Name: Andy & Heather
Location: Rental Loft, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY
Years Lived In: over 3 years
What's your philosophy on how to integrate your technology into your living space?: Transparently and passively.
Geek chic. Andy and Heather carefully constructed their Brooklyn living space, thinking not only about what media they used, but how they used it. They carefully designed a system and chose their products with care and consideration for their needs. You won't find any television watching here, but you will find a media room that would make any movie buff or audiophile smile.
The display connects to the Mac mini, and is mounted flush to wall, sitting just a few inches out and secured to the brick wall. The mini is also connected to the receiver via a mini TOSLINK (a high-quality optical audio connection.) The quiet external hard drives offer space for all of their music and media, and the ever important file backup.
Do you have an idea for a tech tour? Let us know! hometech@apartmenttherapy.com
Griffin's PowerMate provides a powerful scrolling controller, which they use for searching through media with Apple's Coverflow or through video itself. The media center doubles as a calling station with the addition of a iSight webcam. This clings magnetically to the back of the display when not in use, or to the top of the display when in use. The microphone still works well when hidden, and voice calls and room recordings can be made throughout the room. Vinyl is not forgotten as an important media source with the addition of a
Stanton Discmaster for greater fidelity. They also rip from vinyl through their receiver connected to the mini.
Every purchase was carefully considered, and they often turned to friends and family for assistance. We bought the display and mounting hardware at J&R, weaseling out of sales tax by shipping it to Andy's folks' place in Jerz, then driving it back into the city. We bought the mini online with Heather's educational discount. Andy bought one drive from Other World Computing and built the other in an identical NewerTech enclosure (also from OWC) with a spare drive he had laying around. The PowerMate was a small payday gift to ourselves. Andy bought the iSight off his brother's roommate after they had been discontinued, and traded his bike to his best friend for the turntable. The receiver, speakers and subwoofer were all hand-me-downs from Heather's generous, stereophile father.
Favorite Feature: Andy: Its size
Heather: The absence of television; it sounds self-righteous, but letting go of TV is the best thing we ever did for our mindspace. We haven't lost time to "what's on" in over a year, although we still have relatively easy access (via bittorrent, iTunes and Netflix) to the few things we truly want to watch.
What Friends Say: That they wish we lived closer to Manhattan
Best Advice: Andy: Be a materials/craftsmanship nazi.
Heather: Listen to aura: objects have long memories; they always carry vestiges of the life they led before they found you.
Dream Source/Inspiration: Andy: The future, willfully imagined
Heather: The past, carefully curated
Favorite Source: Friends, family and each other; gifts, bequests, hand-me-downs and the self-made tend to be the most loved objects.
Biggest Challenge: Getting electricity where we need electricity to be
Biggest Embarrassment: The cabinet under the displaythe last piece of Ikea/MDF in the house
Proudest DIY: Andy: Our sail wallsit took us a while to work out the best way to divide up all this space.
Heather: Restoring the timber postsone of the filthiest, most toxic and exhausting jobs we've ever undertaken.
Resources:
Westinghouse LVM-37W3 LCD Video Monitor - 37", 1080p
Sanus System VM1B VisionMount LCD Wall Mount
Apple Mac mini - 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo, 2GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, 60GB HD
NewerTech miniStack v2 - 500GB HD - Music, Photos, Movies
NewerTech miniStack v2 - 120GB HD - Backup
Apple Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
Griffin PowerMate
Apple iSight
Sherwood RVD-6090R AV Receiver
Technics SL-1200M3D Quartz Direct Drive Turntable
Infinity Reference 2000.6 Speakers
Infinity BU-2 Subwoofer
Excellent set up. Lucky you have one of the isights... trying to get one now but the prices are crazy!!!!! You should consider replacing the keyboard with the new wireless aluminum ones... I did that on my 2 set ups and love them... don't really mis the numeric pad. Now, 2 clear plastic BT keyboards off to ebay!
Thanks for sharing!
-joel
view joel maria pirela's profile
Those floors are GORGEOUS.
view st@cy's profile
Lovely digs.
Am I the only person that doesn't own the "For Like Ever" print?
view I Love Upstate's profile
is this Andy... the Geek Squad guy?
view LotusLove's profile
yeeeeaaaah Sonic Youth. Also, warm & gritty in a good way. nice one.
view Nathan_60626's profile
Those bookshelves look terrifying to sit under.
view Pixie's profile
where can I get the cable concealer you used?
view jrd550's profile
You can find the cable concealer at the Container store.
view Jabber's profile
I'd have to see more of this to decide whether it's well set up, or just "here's the stuff we own." We really aren't seeing very much here.
Another occasional cat shows up in photo 2, but the shot is so busy, it's not used effectively.
view kuroneko's profile
Sweet setup, the unit is from Ikea housing your components is from ikea right?
http://zero255zero.com
view andyh182's profile
Every time I see books arranged by color, it fills me with rage.
Even when it looks nice.
view Bibliophile's profile
If you're looking for better fidelity out of your vinyl, sell the 1200 (they retain value very well) and get a less expensive belt-driven platter. The one you have is direct-drive, which contributes a bit of noise. I know it's got a lot of street cred, but that's because it's built like a tank, not because it sounds good.
Keep the cartridge, as it's the one your records are broken in with (and therefore sound the best with).
view aceyx's profile
*aceyx*
your comment is wrong about the cartridge and the technics.
your needle should be changed every 800 hours of use, or you risk severely damaging your record collection.
a needle and records don't age together or "break in" together. ridiculous notion.
the 1200 series turntables are actually very good tables. not all direct drive turntables are created equal. there are the geared kind, and the electromagnetic kind. the technics has the latter, so it does not suffer any motor noise. also that table has very low wow and flutter, and to get something comparable in the audiophile market, you will need to spend at least 5000$ to get something that sounds as good as the technics.
i personally own a Rotel, an extremely modified Thorens, and a technics 1200, along with an Audiolab amplifier, NAD cd/sacd player Camber speakers, along with many other items.
i would have to disagree with the statement in the article that "but you will find a media room that would make any movie buff or audiophile smile."
that is a load of .... I am an audiophile, and that set up is less than ideal, and it would make most audiophiles cringe.
the set up, and equipment are just wrong. notwithstanding that it seems to be primarily used as a glorified MP3 player.
from experience, to get better sound out of the pictured system, i would
a) separate the speakers more to get better defined imaging and sound stage,
b) buy a much better amp to drive those infinity speakers with. that little Sherwood AV receiver is not up to the task, nor is it good quality.
c) replace that dj cartridge ( which usually have poor signal response in trade for better tracking for scratching and mixing ) for a much better cartridge and headshell combo.
spend at least 250$ on something decent like an AT440ML, and make sure to perform all alignment and weight adjustments, and make sure you align the VTA on that table.
d) dont bother with MP3 or any other compressed digital format. if its not .WAV, its worthless for audio fidelity.
view treserious's profile
What's wrong with ikea?
view muskawo's profile
Although not as eye pleasing I have a similar setup with a Mac mini and miniStack storage.
view Khurt Williams's profile