Evolution of my desk – Part 2
This is the evolution of my PC setup since I’d moved into this house in August 2002 not counting when I lived in the dorms.
I included two pics with this, how my desk looked before the big upgrade, but after the speakers, and then what it looks like today. This is a temp image which’ll be far better when I finish and am able to finally close up my case and move all the wires and tools and screws and other things back where they aught to go.
Now I have those big ol’ loudspeakers. Such a complete change aesthetically. It also made the entire desk look smaller and really, there’s very little room for wires and other things anymore. Looks pretty awesome though. Those top speakers were gonna be rears but I wouldn’t get them plugged in because of cable length and decided against buying longer wires because I didn’t need ‘em really. And of course there’s that subwoofer up there with the torn foam. I’m using it to route the audio to the loudspeakers and will eventually turn it on when dad an’ I finish up with the new foam. I don’t really think I need it considering how self-sufficient those speakers are, but we’ll just have to wait ‘n see. Other than that, there’s another microphone there but without it’s own stand at the moment, and I have my new mobile phone now which sits on my desk charging. Later, I moved the big monitor back too and that really gave me a lot of room. Too bad I don’t have a picture of that shift. Either way, it’s a cluster mess.
In the next picture which is how the desk looks today, I have the cover off of one of the speakers so I can examine how it looks while it’s working at various volume levels so I make sure not to blow ‘em. Although, my receiver can’t handle the maximum wattage they call for as far as I know, so I don’t see that happening at all. Immediately apparent is that some things are missing, namely, two of my monitors which have been replaced by a 26″ DoubleSight display based on the H-IPS panel. It’s not only great with colors and has amazing brightness, it has an insane response rate for gaming, and I would have to 100% agree with this having see what Age of Empires III looks like. Another good thing is that lower resolutions (non-native) actually look good on this display. 1680×1050 is completely acceptable. I can hardly tell the difference with that and 1920×1200 actually. That gives me a bit more flexibility in gaming thankfully so 1280×800 and 1440×900 are also there should I need them and possibly even lower ones as well should Crossfire not be enough for a game.
The second microphone has a stand now and moved to the other side where it is closer to my mouth. The old mic is now up top. I might do some strange things with that configuration in due time. I think I would use the old one if I ever sit on the couch and play on the TV because it’s gonna pick me up better up there than in between the monitor and case. That’ll also put it away from the noisy case fans. Lemme see, for some reason, the speaker cover is standing up all by itself. Dunno how or why it’s like that, but I noticed it after taking this pic. It’s only got one leg sitting on the desk top so I deem this not possible which is why it’s still like that now, just has to be weird on me. The best part about this new setup is that you can actually see the “behind the scenes” things. There’s the ThermalTake BlacX sitting back there should I ever need it again, but at least it has that really nifty USB2.0 hub. I’ve used that a lot lately. I have my recorder sitting on the desk as I was playing the Age of Empires theme song for fun.
You can also see my new case towering over everything ‘cept the speakers and the new placement of the Fatal Fury hat Mike gave me. I moved the bell underneath the left monitor and fixed up the speaker switch box so it’s in a much better and easier-to-access spot as well as somewhere people can actually see it now. Other than that, that’s about all that’s changed in this temporary picture of my constantly changing system. I can’t wait till I’m done w/ all the upgrades!
– Kevin out
=D