Happy 19th Birthday to me!

Last weekend (28th) I went to Richer Sounds and bought myself a few bits to upgrad my 2.0 Hi-Fi system to a 5.1 Surround Sound System! I kept the same floor-standing Eltax Symphony 6.3 front speakers, and added a Mordaunt-Short 905i centre speaker, a pair of Mordaunt-Short 903i’s as rear surrounds, and a Mordaunt-Short 308 Avant subwoofer. I swapped my Cambridge Audio A5 amplifier for a Cambridge Audio Azur 540R AV receiver, which is connected to my PC’s S/PDIF output using a very thick Cambridge Audio digital coaxial cable.

It took me quite a while (several hours) to get everything installed, and then another couple of hours to get the S/PDIF output on my motherboard to send the correct signal - AC3Filter helped a lot here, once I got it working.

Music still sounds great, although the extra bass is very welcome I also tried some DTS-encoded music, which sounds amazing, compared to normal stereo music. And of course movies sound awesome too. It makes a pretty big difference playing games too, once you get them working in surround-sound mode

For more photos of my desk, the speakers and the receiver, take a look on my Flickr.

I started a new job today!

I’m working for a small company who “specialise in the planning, design, installation and commissioning of high technology facilities to the broadcast and media industries”.

So far it’s been pretty interesting - I spent the first half of the day loading up a van, stuff like Apple Mac Pro’s, ViewSonic 22″ Monitors, 48U Racks etc, that was being shipped to Paris. After that I tidied up about a third of the storage area of their premises - various bits of equipment, racks and cardboard boxes that had to be moved, packed, unpacked or thrown out.

The second half of the I spent rebuilding the first of about 5 PCs: Putting Windows, Office and AutoCAD on it. The PCs themselves are pretty crappy and old, but the monitor I’m using is really nice - a reasonably new Dell 2407WFP

I went to Brooklands’ “Italian Day” yesterday!

There was a huge selection of most Italian car manufacturers there, including Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati, as well as a few less well-known ones, such as Bugatti and Pagani.

I took about 160 photos while I was there, and uploaded the best of them to a new photoset on my Flickr.