Anyway, I've always had this thing for good music. I know that it comes third on the list of wine, women and song but then I've never gotten a hangover from too much music and when it starts to give me a headache, I can switch it off!
Having ventured into the world of music at a tender age of 9 (or thereabouts) with the sounds CCR, Neil Diamond and others, it eventually evolved into a part of my life. I've also enjoyed seeing the evolution of the technology of music. I remember my dad's old open reel tape unit, 8 track stereo cartridges, casette tapes, 33/45/78 rpm records, direct drive turntables, CDs, portable storage media (iPod, mp3players etc). With today's technology, I can now easily store 25 albums (cds/records/casettes) compressed in mp3 on a 1GB Secure Digital card the size of a 20 cent coin. For an 8G card, I could fit 200 albums. Isn't technology great? However, trying to find where I kept the damn tiny thing is entirely another issue!
In the past, I've built preamplifiers, amplifiers, mixers, effects units (flangers, enhancers etc.), speakers and disco light controllers. I do have a sound practical knowledge of electronics as I've also worked as a support engineer providing answers to their questions of our 100,000 plus parts. I've run my own mobile disco, I've done outdoor PA systems, I've done recordings (amateur) and set up my own home theater (several times). And may I add, I've been successful in all ventures. My best amplifiers were rated at about 160 WRMS per channel into 8 ohms. When driving my bi-amped Peavey speakers, the earth moved.
I'm not going to go into detail on how to do this and do that because there is already a whole lot of stuff on the internet on most of these topics. Since I also don't believe in re inventing the wheel, I'll only speak about my own experiences and perspectives. However, if you need some specific info, just send me a note and I'll try to help.