Looking for suggestions how to improve my office desk audiophile setup

[f1shb0n3]

Until a few weeks ago I used my MOTU M2 as a single device to drive my monitors using balanced out, headphones and as a mic preamp, and for that it's great, especially considering the price. However, I needed wanted a new device to replace it that could drive my Beyerdynamics DT880 headphones to a louder level. In the end I ended up with the ADI-2 DAC in addition to the M2 due to dynamic loudness and the PEQ, and now I just use the M2 as a mic preamp. If the ADI-2 Pro had had a mic preamp as well I would be sorely tempted to buy that one as to have just one device on the desktop.

Due to the pandemic with me and my wife working so much from home, I've upgraded our small home office quite a lot. Below is a picture of our small home office before I bought the ADI-2 DAC. The panels are 2" thick with scatter plates to avoid over dampening the highs, and where mostly added to reduce the flutter echo when having video calls (i.e. not sound like talking in the bathroom). The panels are not for reducing bass as they are way too thin for that.

My excellent Fuji X-T2 with the XF16-55mmF2.8 zoom is used often now for video calls and does not need much light to have a great image. My poor wife just got a new Logitech StreamCam web camera to replace her very old Creative one, but the image quality does not come even close to my setup

As for microphones I donated the Røde VideoMic NTG (a good and very portable mic that even has a small headphone DAC/amp) to my wife and got myself the Earthworks Audio SR314. From before I've the Røde NT1 but found it too much in my face when using it for video calls as it's front side addressed.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that has upgraded their home office in various ways the last year or so.

View attachment 139047

Edit: Spelling, grammar and typos. Or trying to....

You've created a nice home office setup for you and your wife! Room treatment looks nice and I'm sure it improves acoustics and microphone audio quality in the small room.

RME ADI-2 Pro has balanced inputs, but does not have mic preamp or phantom power for condenser mics. I'm considering it too as an upgrade for the balanced headphone amp and the digital audio output which will remove an ADC+DAC from my chain. Looked into ways to connect a mic to it, but any separate mic preamps would be more expensive than the Motu M2 which works great for that already with good specs.

Fuji X-T2 would have a great video quality and low light performance and I considered a similar option to improve video. Chose to stay with my Logitech StreamCam though because I could set it up in a way where I flip it down in front of my monitor at eye level such that I can place my video conference window under it and have something similar to eye to eye conversation. The camera can be seen on the photo I posted flipped backwards on top of my monitor. In my boldest plans I wanted to build a teleprompter setup for video conferencing, but that's hard on many levels. My first prototype worked but was not convenient and image quality was bad so I scrapped it.

The microphone I use is Audio-Technica AT875R shotgun condenser mic. It's similar to the one your wife uses and it's placed the same way. I like having the mic on top of my monitor where it's outside of the camera view but still about 1ft from my face. Shotgun mics work much better than polar pattern condensers and dynamics from 1ft distance, I did some tests and the shotgun mic is a clear winner.

It's very nice to see similar office setups, we can learn a lot from each other and get ideas for improvement!

 

[FeddyLost]

I was not aware that the 5/8" MDF desk top can sing along

Turn on something bass heavy and try to touch it. Usually it might vibrate slightly. Also you may check it with stethoscope.
Something like 1, 5 " Kitchen table dop from IKEA will be much deader. Heavy, rigid, non-resonant is the best. HDF in preferred design will be ok and not too expensive.

thicker piece of solid wood

Wood as structured material have some internal resonances, so it's not the best solution for "not-sounding" furniture.
I mean typical solid wood, glued slab will be more inert.

Modding speakers and sub sounds like next level stuff that I might definitely want to do one day, but now it's above my pay grade

I don't think that glueing bitumen mats and adding some bracing into subwoofer is too complex.
I don't suggest re-engineering speakers again.

 

[Astrozombie]

If you like movies I would pick the Sub. Have you tried any other headphones? Too bad you couldn't have waited a bit longer and gotten the Uni-Fi Reference.

 

[f1shb0n3]

If you like movies I would pick the Sub. Have you tried any other headphones? Too bad you couldn't have waited a bit longer and gotten the Uni-Fi Reference.

I have HiFiMan HE-400i from 2017, I don't like them but I can hear the benefits of planars and would probably buy a Dan Clark Aeon headphones for upgrade one day.

Yup, Uni-Fi Reference looks very compelling. I'm not sure how much of improvement over DBR-62 they would be, but if Amir measures them to be excellent I would be tempted.

 

[Trell]

You've created a nice home office setup for you and your wife! Room treatment looks nice and I'm sure it improves acoustics and microphone audio quality in the small room.

Thanks!

The light colors of the panels was chosen to facilitate use of indirect lightening during video calls, and as well as make the room seem a little "bigger". The main camera light is an Aputure AL-F7 that is bicolor so I can easily change the color temperature to match daylight if needed, while when dark outside I prefer a warmer color. During the day I can get much light from the windows and then the AL-F7 is used to light the other side of my face to lessen the otherwise dramatic effect of half the face in deep darkness divided by a sharp line In this case I change the lights color to match incoming daylight.

During the video call the screen's light output is sharply reduced in order to control the lightening.

RME ADI-2 Pro has balanced inputs, but does not have mic preamp or phantom power for condenser mics. I'm considering it too as an upgrade for the balanced headphone amp and the digital audio output which will remove an ADC+DAC from my chain. Looked into ways to connect a mic to it, but any separate mic preamps would be more expensive than the Motu M2 which works great for that already with good specs.

Yup, same decision for me in the end.

Fuji X-T2 would have a great video quality and low light performance and I considered a similar option to improve video. Chose to stay with my Logitech StreamCam though because I could set it up in a way where I flip it down in front of my monitor at eye level such that I can place my video conference window under it and have something similar to eye to eye conversation. The camera can be seen on the photo I posted flipped backwards on top of my monitor. In my boldest plans I wanted to build a teleprompter setup for video conferencing, but that's hard on many levels. My first prototype worked but was not convenient and image quality was bad so I scrapped it.

I already had the Fuji camera so I thought I would put it to good use, apart from use a still camera. Since the Fuji USB does not introduce itself as a webcam I bought the Elgato Cam Link 4K that works very well. After that some stands and magic arms and so on to place the camera where I want it, including the main light and the small monitor.

The microphone I use is Audio-Technica AT875R shotgun condenser mic. It's similar to the one your wife uses and it's placed the same way. I like having the mic on top of my monitor where it's outside of the camera view but still about 1ft from my face. Shotgun mics work much better than polar pattern condensers and dynamics from 1ft distance, I did some tests and the shotgun mic is a clear winner.

My front addressed condenser microphone is not visible in the call, unless I chose to. It's about 7-10 inches from my mouth, and placed a bit below and at an 45 degrees side angle. This way I don't need pop filters. My Earthworks SR314 microphone has excellent side and rear rejection, though, and does not change tonality when moving a little away from it.

It's very nice to see similar office setups, we can learn a lot from each other and get ideas for improvement!

Indeed!

 

[f1shb0n3]

Thanks everyone who voted in my poll and apologies for not listening to your advice

Wanted to provide an update how I upgraded my system and how this improved my listening experience. Trigger warning: subjectivism and irrationality will be included And a manifesto why that's OK.

Admission of biases that I started with:

• I was really bothered by the unnecessary ADC in my system and really wanted to get rid of it.
• I did not trust the "old" MiniDSP SHD AK4490 DAC is providing the best sound quality.
• When my system is perfect enough I wanted to wire it with the best cables for good measure.
• One subwoofer did not seem enough. Not a bias, everyone agrees that for subs more is better

Started with comparing DACs - trying to figure out if they sound different. With an A/B switch I compared level-matched Topping D90 (AK4499 chip) vs D90SE (ESS9038Pro) vs RME ADI-2 (AK4493) vs MiniDSP SHD (AK4490). I heard all kids of imagined differences between them but could not possibly blindly distinguish between any of them. There was an audible difference though - when I put my ear on the tweeters I could hear different levels of noise - ranked from highest to lowest noise: SHD, ADI-2, D90, D90SE which is unsurprising given their measurements. Highest noise of SHD was audible only up to 2 inches from the tweeter, while lowest of D90SE was almost completely inaudible with my ear touching the tweeter. Inconsequential difference, but it's there.

After tinkering with DACs I set up A/B comparison of signal that goes from ADI-2 DAC's XLR out to MiniDSP SHD's ADC input (with the system as shown in the diagram of the original post) vs a direct USB to SHD. With my now sort-of-trained ears that struggled to hear differences between DACs, I was able to hear a loss of resolution from the ADC of SHD. No, I did not perform multiple blind tests to confirm it. Given I already had a bias to believe it's there it's quite possible it was mostly imagined. This was all the evidence I needed to buy what I wanted which was RME ADI-2 Pro I kept the D90 DAC for my mains and added a second sub for stereo bass and here's how my system looks now:

Everything was great after the upgrade - it was an actual tangible improvement in my listening experience that made a difference in my enjoyment of music.

Why stop there though, it was time for the cherry on top - better cables. Ordered a set of the best reasonably priced cables available for the whole system from Blue Jeans - analog and digital interconnects and speakers cables. $300 for practically unmeasurable "improvement". You know what though - it made it sound better to me. Knowing I have well-made cables of quality wire cut to the right size from a good no-nonsense local company did add to my enjoyment which translated to improved perceived sound quality. I won't bother explaining "how" this improved the sound because it's irrelevant and probably all in my head and not in objective terms. My listening experience is mine though and that's all that matters! Knowing the psychology of personal biases and how they affect our reality I could "hack" my mind it to take advantage of it. You can also call it self-delusion and it would be accurate, but why not? Our experience is our own reality after all.

If you calmly followed along with me so far let me try to push you over the objectivist cliff My system was perfect and sounded amazing, what can I still improve? I had always been using random generic 18AWG power cables for the components, while many claim cables make a difference and that's just silly right. Too many people believe that though and although I know it's not physically or scientifically possible no puppies would be harmed if I get better power cables especially when there are fancy thick good looking ones at Amazon for cheap. Bought a 10AWG thick as a snake "Audiophile HiFi" cable from Amazon for $30 and plugged it to my amplifier. Switched a few times between it and the generic 18AWG cord and guess what - my system sounded more "aggressive" with the thick power cable Yes, this is impossible - power cables can't make a difference and audio memory is too short to perceive any difference when comparing a minute apart. I was happy to had been successfully self-deluded though and $30 is worth it for the fancy look at least

Here's a picture of the components with the thick snake power cable behind the amp:

I wanted to make a point overall - it's fine to be an objectivist (with engineering degree) and still take advantage of subjectivist approaches to improving your own listening experience. I think this is a valuable insight, a successful psychological science based mind hack and also a way to understand the subjectivists that seem "silly and irrational" to us, but represent at least half of the people who are into HiFi. Like how religious people also are large part of society and have their own beliefs which I might not share. There's no point of arguing against anyone's own personal experiences and beliefs, we can just accept them for what they are - personal experiences and beliefs not objective reality.

Now throw the stones

 

[Trell]

That power cable sure looks big, assuming it actually is power cable as claimed and not part of some water cooling of the amp

How do you power on/off all the devices for listening to the speakers?

The moment one wants bass management it quickly adds up in number of devices for a stereo setup like yours. One reason that I chose Genelec for my desktop 2.1 setup was that the calibration itself is stored in the monitors/subwoofer and the bass management is via the Genelec subwoofer so no extra device(s) needed for that. My DAC is the RME ADI-2 DAC FS connected to the PC that I also use as a headphone AMP.

 

[f1shb0n3]

That power cable sure looks big, assuming it actually is power cable as claimed and not part of some water cooling of the amp

How do you power on/off all the devices for listening to the speakers?

The moment one wants bass management it quickly adds up in number of devices for a stereo setup like yours. One reason that I chose Genelec for my desktop 2.1 setup was that the calibration itself is stored in the monitors/subwoofer and the bass management is via the Genelec subwoofer so no extra device(s) needed for that. My DAC is the RME ADI-2 DAC FS connected to the PC that I also use as a headphone AMP.

10 AWG power cable from Amazon, it just looks impressive, how could it not improve sound Looks the same as my cable sleeve which is great.

After going through the journey I'm realizing Genelec is a great alternative for desk setup. I really like my Dirac Live though, makes room correction / EQ so much easier and objectively and subjectively improves the sound of my system.

Powering on and off the system with SHD's remote - when it goes in standby it turns off the amp with USB--->12V trigger cable and D90 goes in standby by itself because there's no digital signal signal. If RME ADI-2 had trigger out and MiniDSP SHD had trigger input it would have been perfect.

Genelec is doing ADC on the signal though right?
I had a negative subjective impression of degradation when comparing Macbook ---USB--> RME ADI-2 DAC ---XLR--->(SHD ADC/DAC)--> amp vs Macbook ---USB---> SHD DAC ---> amp. Now that I have ADI-2 Pro I could measure it objectively. ADI-2 Pro has SOTA ADC that can measure these chains easily. Need to learn how..

 

[Trell]

10 AWG power cable from Amazon, it just looks impressive, how could it not improve sound Looks the same as my cable sleeve which is great.

After going through the journey I'm realizing Genelec is a great alternative for desk setup. I really like my Dirac Live though, makes room correction / EQ so much easier and objectively and subjectively improves the sound of my system.

Powering on and off the system with SHD's remote - when it goes in standby it turns off the amp with USB--->12V trigger cable and D90 goes in standby by itself because there's no digital signal signal. If RME ADI-2 had trigger out and MiniDSP SHD had trigger input it would have been perfect.

Genelec is doing ADC on the signal though right?
I had a negative subjective impression of degradation when comparing Macbook ---USB--> RME ADI-2 DAC ---XLR--->(SHD ADC/DAC)--> amp vs Macbook ---USB---> SHD DAC ---> amp. Now that I have ADI-2 Pro I could measure it objectively. ADI-2 Pro has SOTA ADC that can measure these chains easily. Need to learn how..

I'm sure I would like the Dirac as well but for me it's a priority to maximize usable desktop space in our small home-office as well as ease of setup and usage.

As you ask, with my desktop setup there is an ADC done in the Genelecs. I don't believe that I would hear any difference between analogue and digital input to the Genelecs, though, but to test I would need to upgrade my RME ADI-2 DAC to something like the RME ADI-2 Pro. I could "donate" the ADI-2 DAC to my wife

My signal chain is PC --- USB -> RME ADI-2 DAC ---XLR-analogue --> Genelec 7360A Subwoofer ---XLR-analogue --> Genelec 8330A.

The Genelec subwoofer will quite simply send a copy of the monitor output to the monitor which will apply a high-pass filter for the crossover. Genelec call this "distributed bass management" and is quite handy even in the case you don't use Genelec subwoofer as you can set the high-pass filter on each monitor to easy integration with non-Genelec subwoofers.

The SAM Genelecs do have a very handy feature where one can set the delay for entering standby mode and I've set it to an hour.

 

[f1shb0n3]

I'm sure I would like the Dirac as well but for me it's a priority to maximize usable desktop space in our small home-office as well as ease of setup and usage.

As you ask, with my desktop setup there is an ADC done in the Genelecs. I don't believe that I would hear any difference between analogue and digital input to the Genelecs, though, but to test I would need to upgrade my RME ADI-2 DAC to something like the RME ADI-2 Pro. I could "donate" the ADI-2 DAC to my wife

My signal chain is PC --- USB -> RME ADI-2 DAC ---XLR-analogue --> Genelec 7360A Subwoofer ---XLR-analogue --> Genelec 8330A.

The Genelec subwoofer will quite simply send a copy of the monitor output to the monitor which will apply a high-pass filter for the crossover. Genelec call this "distributed bass management" and is quite handy even in the case you don't use Genelec subwoofer as you can set the high-pass filter on each monitor to easy integration with non-Genelec subwoofers.

The SAM Genelecs do have a very handy feature where one can set the delay for entering standby mode and I've set it to an hour.

I'm sure I would like the Dirac as well but for me it's a priority to maximize usable desktop space in our small home-office as well as ease of setup and usage.

As you ask, with my desktop setup there is an ADC done in the Genelecs. I don't believe that I would hear any difference between analogue and digital input to the Genelecs, though, but to test I would need to upgrade my RME ADI-2 DAC to something like the RME ADI-2 Pro. I could "donate" the ADI-2 DAC to my wife

My signal chain is PC --- USB -> RME ADI-2 DAC ---XLR-analogue --> Genelec 7360A Subwoofer ---XLR-analogue --> Genelec 8330A.

The Genelec subwoofer will quite simply send a copy of the monitor output to the monitor which will apply a high-pass filter for the crossover. Genelec call this "distributed bass management" and is quite handy even in the case you don't use Genelec subwoofer as you can set the high-pass filter on each monitor to easy integration with non-Genelec subwoofers.

The SAM Genelecs do have a very handy feature where one can set the delay for entering standby mode and I've set it to an hour.

Sound like a pretty nice and clean system.

You can do a cheap test to see if you can hear ADC vs no ADC by getting a USB to digital out device, output both to ADI-2 and digital out, level match and switch Genelec input to compare. Likely there will be no audible difference or it will be hard to hear one. From my experience though, I would say don’t bother with that and enjoy your system if you are content with it. I just could not resist

 

[cheapsoundguy]

Your upgraded chain is almost exactly what I want. Do you think the SHD or the new (coming) Flex is the best box for the DSP job? Any pros or cons over one or the other?

Finally, do you use the EQ in the RME unit or only the Dirac in the SHD?

 

[f1shb0n3]

Your upgraded chain is almost exactly what I want. Do you think the SHD or the new (coming) Flex is the best box for the DSP job? Any pros or cons over one or the other?

Finally, do you use the EQ in the RME unit or only the Dirac in the SHD?

You ask the right questions

I would not consider miniDSP Flex Unbalanced or Balanced because they lack digital output other than through USB. It will have an excellent DAC and you don't need better, but why limit future upgradeability? There are some great near-field options that can be connected to digital output of Flex Digital, SHD or SHD Studio - a pair of Genelecs for example
With the hindsight of my upgrade path so far, I really understand how pretty much any of the many great measuring differently sized Genelecs that have digital input and are bi-amped with DSP would have been a great clean SOTA endgame done with my desk system forever option. And it still is

Btw now I'm playing around with A/B testing speakers in preparation of arrival of KEF R3 - my exploration in coaxials for near field. Documenting it at this thread: How to properly A/B compare speakers? Elac DBR62 vs Infinity R152 vs KEF R3 comparison.

As for best MiniDSP product - I like SHD for the flexibility - it essentially has full connectivity - 4 analog inputs with good ADC (XLR, RCA), 4 analog outputs (XLR, RCA) with good DAC, plus 4 digital inputs (AES/EBU, SPDIF on RCA, TOSLINK) and 4 digital outputs (SPDIF on RCA). I don't use it all - the ADC in particular - which btw makes the case so freaking wide. I would trade it for SHD Studio and get another DAC for the subs to minimize floorspace. Flex Digital also sounds fine, but I would hold off on being an early adopter on MiniDSP products - my impression is that their QC, software and overall support are sub-par. I expect issues and don't want to be the one dealing with them. SHD and SHD Studio are stable and proven products that are endgame for their use case. SHD Studio to Genelec monitors would be my choice if starting from scratch. Might even not need the MiniDSP though, people say Genelec does room correction superbly and I suspect their well engineered speakers probably won't benefit much from Dirac Live impulse response correction. Stand to be corrected. I'd be very curious to compare best near-field passives I find (R3 or LS50 Meta in the contest) to Genelecs one day, with and without Dirac and vs Genelec GLM.

DSP is done by SHD - crossover for subs and mains and full-range Dirac Live calibration of it all to my preferred target.
RME ADI-2 Pro feeds digital signal to SHD which is attenuated and pre-processed with DSP to my liking with its unique features.
Overall I use RME ADI-2 Pro for:

• Volume control, display, spectral analyzer.
• Loudness - invaluable if listening at low volume often.
• Bass/Treble controls - when you adjust them to your liking you can add just the right amount of thump to the thin old recordings or cut the treble harness on some poorly mastered ones.
• SOTA headphone amp with PEQ profile for my HD6xx that makes them sing, switchable between speakers with a button press. When you switch between outputs volume is remembered (of course!) and gradually increases (alleluia moment when you hear it first time), crossfeed controls.
• Analog XLR input with SOTA ADC, tad better than SHD, but probably insignificantly so for the eventual analog source - vinyl, cassette or tape.

You can go without the RME for sure if these are not that important for you. You can even XLR from MiniDSP SHD to headphone amp and have a separate profile to EQ headphones. You will even have 10 PEQ bands (vs 5 + LS,HS with RME). That's valuable to have - gives you "access" to the full Oratory1990 database if that's important for you, It's important for me, but I solve it by buying only headphones which Oratory calibrated for RME already
The inconvenience of having to switch MiniDSP profiles between speakers and headphones is a deal breaker for me though. Tried similar setups - I always forget and don't even notice it for a long time until it hits me after 3 hours of listening that my system sounds like crap and makes me feel like a fool for not noticing it earlier. If I didn't notice my system sounds horrible for that long why even bother with all that stuff?

 

[SimpleTheater]

I explained in posts above my challenges with second subwoofer integration, not having flexibility to move subs but also having two separate audio systems in the room that share two subwoofers makes it more complicated too.

I would then argue that, for improved low end fidelity, to use some absorption in the corner behind the sub.

 

[f1shb0n3]

I would then argue that, for improved low end fidelity, to use some absorption in the corner behind the sub.

Not much space for proper deep fiberglass absorption panels, 4” which I can do would not do much for bass I think.
Happy now with stereo R12 subs for the near field desk, 4 for the HT.