Mike MacDonald's

I know everyone is using frames now but I personally find them annoying and hard to work around. Maybe if I get ambitious I will redo this site. Anyway, I will be expanding the information here to include some home audio gear as well.

Who am I?

I am an Advanced Network Specialist and lab manager for a network prototyping lab within Nortel. I have a degree in computer/electrical engineering. I am also a musician and an audio/video buff. 'nuff said!

Home Audio

My home theatre set up includes an Onkyo 727 amp, a PSB C5 center, PSB Stratus Silvers for the front, PSB Alphas for the rear and a Mirage BPS-400 subwoofer. I currently use a 35" direct view tv and a Panasonic A300 DVD. This player was one of the first to emerge but it has also been rated as second only to the original Sony.

The Mirage BPS-400 is a large cabinet housing two 12" woofers and a 400 watt rms switching amplifier. It has frequency response down to 18Hz and runs about $1800 post tax Canadian. During my search for the perfect sub I tried several M&K models, Velodyne, Definitive and a few others. The most impressive sub was the M&K 5000 but it also runs about $4000 Canadian. For the money the BPS-400 was a great buy. This thing rocks. It will pump anything you can throw at it. My only complaint is that the response could be a little cleaner (some harmonics at sub 20Hz frequencies). The BPS-400 is a bipolar design.

My floor plan is as follows...

The PSB are decent sounding for the money. The Stratus silvers run about $1200, the Alphas about $220 and the C5 about $450. If you could wing it I think the Stratus Golds would be the ones to buy. I kind of wish that I stuck with Mirage as they have some really nice speakers (but they are expensive).

Both Mirage and PSB are Canadian and that is exactly why I bought them. Retailers boost American speaker prices by as much as 50% and then do the exchange. Thus an American speaker bought in the states may cost $1000 but in Canada will cost $2000. This is crazy. Conversely, Canadian speakers can be purchased in Canada at a good price but sell in the states with a mark-up. It's knd of stupid but if you purchase a Canadian made speaker from an Amerian retailer instead of a Canadian one, you will end up paying up to 50% more. That's a little excessive even with shipping!

Mirage is located in Scarborough, Ontario along with Energy (its sibling company line). PSB is located in Pickering, Ontario. Both of these are handy to Toronto.

Onkyo -> Japanese audio gear
Yamaha -> home audio gear
Runco -> projection televisions
Panasonic -> video and Technics audio gear
DVD -> information on digital versatile discs
PSB -> Canadian made speakers

Home Recording

At this site you will hopefully find some useful info on home studio recording including pro line gear and instruments. I have tried to put together a useful list of sites all of which I think are essential to look at if you are interested in home recording.