Digital home music system

I work from home and wanted to listen to music and so I looked into the options for playing digital music.

I didn’t want to listen to poor quality MP3s. I also don’t need to use headphones or small computer speakers. The room is large but noisy because of a lot of hard surfaces—not the best acoustics—and so an expensive, audiophile system isn’t warranted.

Commercial music servers

I thought a networked, digital system would be the way to go — so that I could add to it in the future, but the commercial models I read about all seemed too expensive. Besides, it would be much more fun to build my own.

Budget

I wanted to keep this around $500 NZ, which meant that I would need to look for second hand components.

Speakers

I started looking for some bookshelf speakers and got some Celestion F10 speakers for $165.00 on TradeMe.

Amplifier

I searched on TradeMe for a small amp with a built-in DAC and found a Topping TP30 for $181.00. I read this review and thought that the Topping would be a good match for the Celestion speakers and the room.

Speaker cables

I made my own cables with this guide: http://diyaudioprojects.com/Power/Low-Inductance-DIY-Speaker-Cables/.

Speaker stands

I was lucky to find some Lovan Affiniti 24" Speaker Stands for $20 on TradeMe.

Set up

This was useful for speaker placement: http://lifehacker.com/5883665/how-to-be-an-audiophile-on-the-cheap.