The pain the dick. AV system upgrades.

AlienALX · November 12, 2022

OK so I am a AV fan. Over the past three and a half years I have been slowly adding asses to my swine. Currently it goes like this...

Tag Mclaren AV32 SP. This was the first piece I got through my cousin. Set me off on a very slippery slope lol.

Tag Mclaren 60i integrated in power mode. This runs a set of Sonus Faber Principia III as part of the front stage.

Tag Mclaren 60p #1. This runs bi amped, and was connected to my old centre (Linn Centrik).

Tag Mclaren 60p #2. This runs the rear. Quads with ribbon tweeters.

Tag Mclaren 100p, modified by Kevin Green. This runs the outer front array speakers, which are Revel M105.

Home made sub. 15" Vibe Black Air on a 400w amp.

Thorens TD209 running a Denon DL-110 MC. Project phono stage.

Philips Ambight 75"

So this was the front end before.

Now note the Linn Centrik is under the cabinet. Not ideal, but for many a moon I could not decide how I wanted to improve that. There was simply nowhere for it to go because of the hooj TV. However in the pic you can see a ceiling speaker I got. It is this one.

Revel C763L. It has four drivers. Two small mid range, a woofer panel that works out to 6.5" if it were round, and a positional tweeter. In the pic above I was just tuning it and doing some testing, and I concluded it was a thousand times better than the Linn on the floor. Now at first I was going to stash the drawers in the TV stand and build it out. However, after lots of pricing up materials I realised quickly it would be cheaper and more efficient to replace it. So, that went into the kitchen to house my computers.

And all of my tronics tools and computer spares.

Which when you consider what it looked like before...

Was much better. This left the TV like this.

Not ideal !. So then the task of finding the correct TV stand began. In the end I settled on this.

Which has RGB, IR blasters and etc. I won't go into the two weeks it took for them to send one that wasn't smashed, or the completely wrong panels etc. I wanted to add a horn to the centre array, because I did not want to leave half of the amp with no load on. Eventually I got this.

Please note carefully. The horn is not even loaded with the driver yet. It is also going to be bodyworked and painted white, and all but the two screws at the end of each side will be filled and painted. Satin white.

So I needed a crossover for that. I took apart the first centre speaker I bought (Quad) for £40 over three years ago. I then converted it to just high frequency, and mounted it on rubber grommets into the centre cabinet wall.

I then set to work. I used the connectors and plate from the Quad centre too.

Some deadening mat. Not a huge problem because the speaker is sealed unlike many ceiling speakers.

Which is also why they have a RRP of £850. I paid £120 for it from Fleabay.

Then around back to sort out all of that, and wire in the network cable for the Fire Cube.

Then a long time later after lots of lugging dragging and hurting my back...

The right side cabinet is for my dad'd vinyl collection that is coming next week. You can see what I have done here, though it needs to change slightly. It is currently on the hinges, and bracketed shut.

However, I am not happy with the alignment of the middle door and no amount of hours of adjusting could take that out. So, when I come to final fit and finish I am going to remove said hinges and bracket it in on both sides after shimming it 3mm at the bottom. I can then position it between the two outer doors perfectly.

This is the left side. It houses the tronics and IR blasters. I used 50mm white tape to hide the wiring.

The 7" touch screen was built into a case and then a AV to HDMI converter was used so that I can access the tuning menus on the AV32. As here.

I will also be moving the Sonus Fabers to the rear, replacing the Quads. They are cherry or something, and I think the Fabers will look much better back there. The bedroom is being upgraded as I type this too, so the Quads will eventually be set up in there.

I have also now connected up the Earthquake sub in there.