Jittery Dragonflies

I thought it about time to document my desktop audio set up. It’s nothing super fancy or flashy, but it has done the job well.

Out of the back of my iMac, I have an Audioquest Dragon Fly Red. I got this a few years ago to use with my phone and some headphones. Recently I have been able to pick up a new volume control contraption that allows me to use it with the computer. It’s a big step up on the M-Audio M-Track Hub I was using, which had a fairly basic integral dac built in, and only allowed for USB connection.

Between the Dragonfly and the computer is an Audioquest Jitterbug. I don’t know if I can hear a huge difference, but it was cheap enough so I got one.

The analog signal from the Dragonfly is piped along a Supra MP cable to a passive volume control from JBL, a Nano Patch+. This is a pretty simple little box, but is very effective. And it has a mute switch that doesn’t pop!

The JBL unit isn’t a big heavy thing, it has a plastic volume knob, but it does work very well, is simple and looks pretty cool.

From here I use some DIY cables to connect to a Tannoy TS-8 subwoofer. I have had this for years, and its a nice little sub. It’s an 8″, 200 watt box, with all the requisite connections to connect to some active monitors.

More DIY Cables go from here, up to a pair of M-Audio BX6 Carbon active monitors. As the name implies, they’re a 6″ carbon fibre woofer, with a 1.25″ silk dome tweeter. These are internally bi-amped at around 130 watts or so. Plenty of power for an office, that’s for sure. When I first got them, I thought they were very bright, but either they’ve settled down, or I’ve gone a bit deaf, because they sound great now.

They look pretty cool.

I have the M-Audios sitting on a pair of foam speaker stand things, that angle them up a little bit.

This set up is excellent for anything I do on the computer. Often I play guitar in my office and this system is great to learn songs with. It goes loud when required, maintains excellent clarity and the sub helps low frequency response.

None of this stuff was expensive, but the results are great.