yesterday afternoon, i tried the spiral beach again first, through just the celestions, and was happy with the output. the next record i wanted to test in the bedroom was sister machine gun's metropolis, as it's another synth record i had around that i know well. it's a record i could test the setup with. the outcome was acceptable and i'm happy with this. i then stopped to eat.

my monday meal turned out to be the salsa i made on sunday evening, which was an expansion of my normal salsa recipe.

my normal salsa is prepared for nachos and for eggs and consists of:

- one lime

- one beet

- 1/2 tomato

- 1/2 red pepper

- 2 big cloves of garlic

- one avocado

- 1 tbsp cumin

- 1 tbsp paprika

- 1 tbsp oregano

- 1 tbsp cayenne

- pepper

- frank's hot sauce

i skipped the salsa for the two egg meals this cycle and also for the first nacho on sunday moning, so i doubled it up in a large serving bowl and expanded it into a meal by adding a can of chick peas, ceasar dressing, nutritional yeast, hemp seeds, dill and some grated cheese. i also swapped the red pepper for yellow pepper and fresh tomato for canned tomato, as both were food bank subs. this was a big bowl of salsa. i'll probably have this again in a few days as a separate meal.

i needed to get the kitchen cleaned up, so i set up the yamahas and nads on my old coffee table, ad-hoc. i listened to the sister machine gun first, as i was cleaning. i was initially not sold on it. disc two to try was the do make say think, and i realized quickly that the problem was that the input was too loud. triggering the low level made the do make say think sound far better, and it got a few cycles to test it thoroughly, culminating in my decisive post early in the morning. the sister machine gun also sounded substantively better on second listen, with the low level triggered.

i was eventually able to: 

- do two runs of dishes,

- thoroughly clean up the space

- get a new cabinet installed up on top of the stove

- clear out a pile of boxes

- vacuum

- scrub

- move to shelving units into the hall for cds

- moving the sewing table into the bedroom

- move around a large pile of boxes from one room to the other

- make some coffee

- do a lot of exfoliating. it's getting there, after a rough few weeks of moving, etc where i didn't have time to wash or shower and the weather has made the living conditions in here extremely harsh and dry. its been pretty gross.

as has become the norm, i got a little sleep in the morning, after cleaning up the kitchen.

i've got the nad set up in the kitchen with the 6 ohm speakers.

it sounds better with the low level button pushed, but i'll point out that my source is currently a dvd player that is probably sending the signal out very loud. i would like to turn down the input, actually. that will be less of an issue when the in is the chromebook, as i can and will turn down the input.

do make say think's country hymn is a challenging record to reproduce and it's doing ok, even with the likely driven input (shouldn't a dvd not do that? maybe that's exactly it, that the device is designed that way by flaw). this is likely more than i will need this amp to do. i think this will work fine.

so, the kitchen system is going to be:

- nad 3020e in low level mode

- yamaha ns-e55 (these are 6 ohm, 50 watt)

- expired lenovo chromebook running in guest mode for digital audio (via usb) or streaming media (audio and video) from bandcamp or youtube. i am able to put a hard drive in this device but it does not currently use one by design and preference. this is primarily for watching the news or documentaries when eating, in the kitchen. through the tuner or tape in.

- it's currently a sony dvp ns-325 as optical drive source and will likely stay that way. this plays dvds, cds and mp3 cds (cds with mp3s). through cd/aux.

- there's a boxed widescreen monitor connected to this system.

- there is also phono input on the amp, and will be an extra tuner or tape in that will probably not be immediately used.

i could send a dvd video out to the monitor in theory, but i have had minimal interest in buying video dvds or bds and only have a few scattered burns. that is likely all i will need in the kitchen.

the bedroom system will be:

- yamaha cr-320

- celestion ditton 110s as primary

- to be purchased 30-50 watt secondary speakers

- cd audio from a jvc 5-disc changer from the 90s, cd only. no mp3 cds.

- i am looking at getting a recent blu-ray player with a usb in that plays flac natively and has an rca out. this will be for digital audio over usb and also for any optical media with dvd, bd, mp3, wav or flac. it should be under $100, as bd is being phased out due to netflix.

- i have a record player and two cassette decks for potential use. it might make more sense to put the record player in here.

- i am not currently intending to watch video in the bedroom, but that might change.

- this device only has four ins - cd/aux, tape 1, tape 2, phono. so, i could not use all five ins and the phono is not usable for anything else. it is not likely that i will set up a cassette deck in here.

the typing pc (the main bedroom pc) does not currently have a soundcard out to connect to an audio system, but does have a legacy altec-lansing system connected to the integrated sound out (1/8th inch computer jack). this system is very annoying, because you can't turn the subwoofer off, but the satellites actually sound quite good, for what they are. it was intended for gaming, not audio. it was purchased with my 90s pc and intended to be for music production, but my dad got badly upsold on that one. as mentioned, the system would be good for gaming, but i don't game, and that's not what it was meant for. i have barely been able to use it at all. i will have this connected on the computer table, but it's just intended for the computer, not for audio.

if i connect a video source to the cr-320, it will be from a laptop and not from the typing machine, which is intentionally kept isolated as a glorified typewriter.