The Art of Building a Home Audio System: A Tale of Trial and Error

As we embark on this journey to build a home audio system, it's clear that our host is eager to get started. "I think this basically just has to be a storage shelf," they say, as they begin to assemble the components. But, as we all know, things don't always go according to plan. Our host hits a stud with a drywall anchor, and the wall takes on a rather dramatic shape.

Undeterred, our host continues to work through the project, determined to create something truly special. They opt for an LCD 2s amplifier, citing their lack of experience with tube amps as the reason. "I have never heard these off of a tube amp," they explain, as they plug in the audio source and turn it on. The result is nothing short of magical, with the sound filling the room and captivating all who listen.

As our host continues to tweak and adjust the system, they invite their friends and colleagues to try it out for themselves. Dennis takes a seat behind the headphones, listening intently as the music swirls around him. "I feel like such a headphone slob right now," he quips, as our host asks for his feedback. Despite some initial hesitation, Dennis comes around, praising the clarity and engagement of the sound.

Next up is Willy Wonka's candy shop – or at least, a setup inspired by it. The headphones are a hit with the test subject, who declares them "pretty cool." However, they do have one criticism: the lack of variety in sources to experiment with. As our host nods in agreement, they offer a solution: checking out Amazon for all sorts of goodies and features.

A huge shout-out goes to Silverstone for producing the headphone holder that made this project possible. It's clear that it was a game-changer, allowing our host to create something truly special. And, of course, we can't forget audio – who else would provide us with such excellent amps and dacks for everyone to enjoy?

In the end, it's clear that building a home audio system is all about experimentation and having fun. Our host may have hit some bumps along the way, but the end result is well worth it. So, if you're feeling adventurous and want to try your hand at building your own system, be sure to check out the links in the video description for all sorts of goodies and features.

Shoutouts abound as we wrap up this article. To our host, who bravely took on the challenge of building a home audio system – despite some minor setbacks along the way. To Silverstone, for producing an incredible headphone holder that made it all possible. And to audio – well, you guys are just plain awesome.

Get subscribed and check out where to buy the goodies featured in this video. And if you liked it, hit that like button – we appreciate it! If not... well, as our host would say, "that's about the most thing I can say about it."

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enmy friends it is finally here oh that one's empty the solution to the ultimate in first world problems how to store your racks upon racks of headphones in such a way that you will be easily able to pick out exactly the one you want for exactly the genre of music that you are in the mood to listen to and we are taking it a step further so we're going to convert an ordinary corner of the office into the ultimate headphone auditioning room and I'll be doing it with the help of my wife and my infant daughter today you going to help okay so before we get started yvon's unpacking the whack ton of these ebaa 02s that we have I feel like this product deserves a little bit of History because this this is not not your everyday headphone holder I mean yes it holds headphones but it's special I had a problem I was trying to get all my headphones off my desk and up onto the wall so they could be more organized and like look really cool and not take up so much space so we announced a contest in partnership with Silverstone where members of our community submitted their 3D model designs my mini Factory printed for us free of charge those guys are super cool all of the top designs and then sent them to us to evaluate in person which ones we thought was best so Matthew Vidal ended up having the best balance between something that looked really clean and professional and something that could actually be manufactured so the way it mounts is you kind of throw it on the wall a little something like that you throw this on a little something like that okay I'm doing this wrong why don't we just why don't we just get started then iby power and msi's new lineup of gaming laptops feature Intel's 7th generation core i7 processors check them out at the link below so the idea is that whatever cell phone or computer or whatever device someone brings in here they would be able to plug it in to the amp and back of their choice and plug in the headphones of their choice for the most custom possible listening experience so wow this thing is really crappy well there's like where do you even buy furniture this crappy this fantastic I love their packing list one cheap bag got it yes it's pronounced exactly like you think this is the Valhalla tube so I'm not actually sure which tubes go where but holy cow look at that that build shoot I'm losing track of which adapters go with what this one's 16 okay that's okay everything's labeled here's the other big dog this is the jotunheim in North mythology it's the Land of the Giants so this maybe this should just be a storage shelf then so it's 5 four and five which means this is actually going to take up like a whack ton of space like almost the whole wall so I why don't we lay them out on the floor okay so that's pretty much the spacing that we need then how high do you think you could realistically go before it becomes a problem hey Taran can I bore you for a minute I love his enthusiasm you got to just prototype well I can reach higher than that well how high can you reach I can reach to here does that seem too horizontally spaced out no I'm saying if I don't compress them more we're going to be watching with uh we're going to be watching with it letter boxed I'll use I'll use video terminology I don't know what you're talking about so we don't want black see black bars right so they're still 60 high but they're less wide so it's letter boxed and has black bars Please don't use analogy yes compress them together okay great so we won't compress them so mark your 13in spot so the first thing I need to do is draw a level line yeah you can hold the level actually I can probably just use gravity no I I can't easily oh yes I can no no I can use gravity I'll use gravity no no it's fine oh wait that's not going look how bent it is no I don't have the mark you know what I'm going to hold the level level no no put the put the I need to draw a line along the ruler so ruler on the mark and then the level needs to be level it's on the Mark it's not leveled okay I'm just going to draw a light line does this even erase have we checked we shouldn't have all of these all over the table it's like level is what do you mean it's l level you are so talkative you must get it from Daddy actually we need to do we need to do the whole grid so Brandon you might as well cut for a few minutes here so day two of a task that we really thought would be finished a lot sooner than a we have to take these off cuz otherwise we're going to like we're going to see them from the bottom they're just going to have these ugly barcodes on them I don't think that's the end of the world yeah that looks stupid yeah no one's going to be like that looking at the bark well you don't have to be I mean look you will obviously see it so the way it goes together is actually pretty simple you just kind of Pop these guides in here who and you don't do that it's only stripped a little okay so uh five down 13 to go hey honey are you microwaving your shoes yeah are you going to open it but it's not ready it's not ready oh okay are you giving her a power tool no I'm not giving her a power tool I'm helping her operate a power tool can you press that button oh look you put the screw in did you put it in your mouth those are screws should I hold them in my hand would that work better yeah okay so we marked out our entire Grid in pencil we're just going to go ham and put drywall screws straight into the wall so basically three screws then we slide that onto there and look at that it's like it's professionally installed or something o I'm liking this check that out did daddy put these in his mouth yeah Daddy did put those in his mouth but you don't put those in your mouth okay she probably learned the microwaving shoes from you oh come on now she learned anything about cooking it's from you can you pass me three of those honey that's a measuring tape darling I said my helper who passes me screws screw oh that's not a screw the black ones how many is that three there's a little magnetic thing yep that's better than the mouth and the hand I I I mean for certain things are they level there we go how many of them are there uh there's 10 of the silver ones and eight of the brown ones trying to do Rena with babies is not easy it's fine I got the door I got more headphones for you okay over under over under oh actually I didn't do it that way I put the cable through here that's not how you do it well I didn't know at least it won't fall off I can do it properly now too we'll make this a p say this is how you use a velcro tie you take one part of the wire you run it through then you secure it to that spot on the wire that way it doesn't get lost perfect every time and perfect ish so the fact that we're three short means that your count was off thought you were supposed to be good at math aren't you our accountant one accounting class does not make you an accountant the fact that you hold a position called accountant at our company makes you an accountant it just doesn't make you a good one I don't call myself an accountant but you're are accountant I happen to do accounting that does not make me an accountant I was sure there was a switch in this room on the drawing remember when I asked the contractor to figure out if they drywalled over the switch well I guess they drywalled over the switch cuz I have no idea where those I knew it see there's no switch for this light there's one over there too they drive W over a light switch the original plan was to actually have it on this wall which is light purple with a light right there so if L had actually listen to me and put it where it was supposed to go maybe it wouldn't look so dark well we couldn't have put it on that wall it wasn't going to fit on that wall with the thing we went through this you agreed with me no not really I just went along with your plan anyway changing the subject entirely we're done what do you want me to do sorry watch your head we have two more oh yeah we have two more decks so Silverstone sent us um what are these they're eo1 e and eo3 this looks like ventilation holes so I guess this probably shouldn't sit on top of it and we should really anchor that shelf to the wall before you put some more stuff on there oh sure okay fine I think this basically just has to be a storage shelf yeah yeah I don't think having everything plugged in here makes any sense if you're going to have to bring your device over here okay so it's just finishing touch's time now I just need to put this here put in a couple drywall anchors oh crap we hit a stud with a drywall anchor brilliant now we have like a gigantic gaping hole in the wall Y no tilt Perfect all right good so this is pretty much it well personally I think think I uh am going to go for the LCD 2s because I have never heard these off of a tube amp and I have already pre-selected the Valhalla 2 tube amp it's tubo you can just plug an audio Source directly into the amp mission accomplished well that's that's not about how they look Ed it's about how they sound and they sound very good by the way I can listen to Taylor Swift if I want to I'm a strong independent woman okay so let's get some other people to try it come on Dennis um okay I will do the cat's one cuz this the only one it looks different oh this was the kind see this my God this is not ready V is okay it's ready is just Why did she do it this way V I can't wait it this to just hold on just hold on has your Katy Perry ever sounded better yeah can you actually try some good headphones though this no so let's let Dennis be the judge this project success yeah I like it that's right but maybe if we can add more RG be here okay John come in this isn't a prank is it try out the headphone wall oh yes these definitely okay isn't this the worst experience ever no don't don't okay why don't you listen first and then decide what you think I feel like such a headphone slob right now is clear but that's about the most thing I can say about it it's clear actually here try the dt990 have you tried these I have 880 250 o in my desk try this so these are a little bit different yeah these are very engaging I like them the other ones I felt like you were almost losing something in the low end but these ones were a little bit more fun okay so give me a score on a scale of 10 cool project you plan to use it oh 11 absolutely yeah yeah that's right Ed Peter is going to hate okay we've got our next test subject do I just choose anything off here you choose anything you want oh what's good Willy Wonka's candy shop but all they have is headphones and you can't eat them and you don't take them home these are really fun this is cool on a scale of 1 to 10 what do you think of this project pretty cool you'll use it yeah this is really cool woo as I drop these headphones eight out of 10 only because if you go to like Best Buy or future shop or whatever they have it already plugged in and then you just push the button on which one to change too but they don't have a bunch of different sources that you can try out and experiment with true is yeah I guess so it's good I like it do you use Amazon we do we think they're great we put links to the Amazon purchase page in the descriptions of almost every video we create and you can uh check out where to buy almost anything we feature down there I mean not down there like down there below the video they also have Amazon Prime which costs $99 us annually and gives you access to a ton of cool features like Prime now which is free 2hour delivery or scheduled delivery on over 10,000 items in select areas as well as Prime video which is unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes they've got twitch Prime included now which gives you exclusive discounts on physical games and new releases and of course the classic free 2day or same day delivery to specific zip codes and more so check it out at the link in the video description so there you have it people like the project woo if you guys dislike this video you can hit that dislike button but if you liked it hit the like button get subscribed and maybe check out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description a huge shout out to Silverstone for actually producing this headphone holder that allowed us to make this whole project possible I think it looks absolutely fantastic I'm a little biased so I'll let you guys be the judge and a huge shout out to audio for providing us with all of their shitty amps and dacks for everybody to uh you know listen to on their lunch break or after hours or whatever I guess that's pretty much it get subscribedmy friends it is finally here oh that one's empty the solution to the ultimate in first world problems how to store your racks upon racks of headphones in such a way that you will be easily able to pick out exactly the one you want for exactly the genre of music that you are in the mood to listen to and we are taking it a step further so we're going to convert an ordinary corner of the office into the ultimate headphone auditioning room and I'll be doing it with the help of my wife and my infant daughter today you going to help okay so before we get started yvon's unpacking the whack ton of these ebaa 02s that we have I feel like this product deserves a little bit of History because this this is not not your everyday headphone holder I mean yes it holds headphones but it's special I had a problem I was trying to get all my headphones off my desk and up onto the wall so they could be more organized and like look really cool and not take up so much space so we announced a contest in partnership with Silverstone where members of our community submitted their 3D model designs my mini Factory printed for us free of charge those guys are super cool all of the top designs and then sent them to us to evaluate in person which ones we thought was best so Matthew Vidal ended up having the best balance between something that looked really clean and professional and something that could actually be manufactured so the way it mounts is you kind of throw it on the wall a little something like that you throw this on a little something like that okay I'm doing this wrong why don't we just why don't we just get started then iby power and msi's new lineup of gaming laptops feature Intel's 7th generation core i7 processors check them out at the link below so the idea is that whatever cell phone or computer or whatever device someone brings in here they would be able to plug it in to the amp and back of their choice and plug in the headphones of their choice for the most custom possible listening experience so wow this thing is really crappy well there's like where do you even buy furniture this crappy this fantastic I love their packing list one cheap bag got it yes it's pronounced exactly like you think this is the Valhalla tube so I'm not actually sure which tubes go where but holy cow look at that that build shoot I'm losing track of which adapters go with what this one's 16 okay that's okay everything's labeled here's the other big dog this is the jotunheim in North mythology it's the Land of the Giants so this maybe this should just be a storage shelf then so it's 5 four and five which means this is actually going to take up like a whack ton of space like almost the whole wall so I why don't we lay them out on the floor okay so that's pretty much the spacing that we need then how high do you think you could realistically go before it becomes a problem hey Taran can I bore you for a minute I love his enthusiasm you got to just prototype well I can reach higher than that well how high can you reach I can reach to here does that seem too horizontally spaced out no I'm saying if I don't compress them more we're going to be watching with uh we're going to be watching with it letter boxed I'll use I'll use video terminology I don't know what you're talking about so we don't want black see black bars right so they're still 60 high but they're less wide so it's letter boxed and has black bars Please don't use analogy yes compress them together okay great so we won't compress them so mark your 13in spot so the first thing I need to do is draw a level line yeah you can hold the level actually I can probably just use gravity no I I can't easily oh yes I can no no I can use gravity I'll use gravity no no it's fine oh wait that's not going look how bent it is no I don't have the mark you know what I'm going to hold the level level no no put the put the I need to draw a line along the ruler so ruler on the mark and then the level needs to be level it's on the Mark it's not leveled okay I'm just going to draw a light line does this even erase have we checked we shouldn't have all of these all over the table it's like level is what do you mean it's l level you are so talkative you must get it from Daddy actually we need to do we need to do the whole grid so Brandon you might as well cut for a few minutes here so day two of a task that we really thought would be finished a lot sooner than a we have to take these off cuz otherwise we're going to like we're going to see them from the bottom they're just going to have these ugly barcodes on them I don't think that's the end of the world yeah that looks stupid yeah no one's going to be like that looking at the bark well you don't have to be I mean look you will obviously see it so the way it goes together is actually pretty simple you just kind of Pop these guides in here who and you don't do that it's only stripped a little okay so uh five down 13 to go hey honey are you microwaving your shoes yeah are you going to open it but it's not ready it's not ready oh okay are you giving her a power tool no I'm not giving her a power tool I'm helping her operate a power tool can you press that button oh look you put the screw in did you put it in your mouth those are screws should I hold them in my hand would that work better yeah okay so we marked out our entire Grid in pencil we're just going to go ham and put drywall screws straight into the wall so basically three screws then we slide that onto there and look at that it's like it's professionally installed or something o I'm liking this check that out did daddy put these in his mouth yeah Daddy did put those in his mouth but you don't put those in your mouth okay she probably learned the microwaving shoes from you oh come on now she learned anything about cooking it's from you can you pass me three of those honey that's a measuring tape darling I said my helper who passes me screws screw oh that's not a screw the black ones how many is that three there's a little magnetic thing yep that's better than the mouth and the hand I I I mean for certain things are they level there we go how many of them are there uh there's 10 of the silver ones and eight of the brown ones trying to do Rena with babies is not easy it's fine I got the door I got more headphones for you okay over under over under oh actually I didn't do it that way I put the cable through here that's not how you do it well I didn't know at least it won't fall off I can do it properly now too we'll make this a p say this is how you use a velcro tie you take one part of the wire you run it through then you secure it to that spot on the wire that way it doesn't get lost perfect every time and perfect ish so the fact that we're three short means that your count was off thought you were supposed to be good at math aren't you our accountant one accounting class does not make you an accountant the fact that you hold a position called accountant at our company makes you an accountant it just doesn't make you a good one I don't call myself an accountant but you're are accountant I happen to do accounting that does not make me an accountant I was sure there was a switch in this room on the drawing remember when I asked the contractor to figure out if they drywalled over the switch well I guess they drywalled over the switch cuz I have no idea where those I knew it see there's no switch for this light there's one over there too they drive W over a light switch the original plan was to actually have it on this wall which is light purple with a light right there so if L had actually listen to me and put it where it was supposed to go maybe it wouldn't look so dark well we couldn't have put it on that wall it wasn't going to fit on that wall with the thing we went through this you agreed with me no not really I just went along with your plan anyway changing the subject entirely we're done what do you want me to do sorry watch your head we have two more oh yeah we have two more decks so Silverstone sent us um what are these they're eo1 e and eo3 this looks like ventilation holes so I guess this probably shouldn't sit on top of it and we should really anchor that shelf to the wall before you put some more stuff on there oh sure okay fine I think this basically just has to be a storage shelf yeah yeah I don't think having everything plugged in here makes any sense if you're going to have to bring your device over here okay so it's just finishing touch's time now I just need to put this here put in a couple drywall anchors oh crap we hit a stud with a drywall anchor brilliant now we have like a gigantic gaping hole in the wall Y no tilt Perfect all right good so this is pretty much it well personally I think think I uh am going to go for the LCD 2s because I have never heard these off of a tube amp and I have already pre-selected the Valhalla 2 tube amp it's tubo you can just plug an audio Source directly into the amp mission accomplished well that's that's not about how they look Ed it's about how they sound and they sound very good by the way I can listen to Taylor Swift if I want to I'm a strong independent woman okay so let's get some other people to try it come on Dennis um okay I will do the cat's one cuz this the only one it looks different oh this was the kind see this my God this is not ready V is okay it's ready is just Why did she do it this way V I can't wait it this to just hold on just hold on has your Katy Perry ever sounded better yeah can you actually try some good headphones though this no so let's let Dennis be the judge this project success yeah I like it that's right but maybe if we can add more RG be here okay John come in this isn't a prank is it try out the headphone wall oh yes these definitely okay isn't this the worst experience ever no don't don't okay why don't you listen first and then decide what you think I feel like such a headphone slob right now is clear but that's about the most thing I can say about it it's clear actually here try the dt990 have you tried these I have 880 250 o in my desk try this so these are a little bit different yeah these are very engaging I like them the other ones I felt like you were almost losing something in the low end but these ones were a little bit more fun okay so give me a score on a scale of 10 cool project you plan to use it oh 11 absolutely yeah yeah that's right Ed Peter is going to hate okay we've got our next test subject do I just choose anything off here you choose anything you want oh what's good Willy Wonka's candy shop but all they have is headphones and you can't eat them and you don't take them home these are really fun this is cool on a scale of 1 to 10 what do you think of this project pretty cool you'll use it yeah this is really cool woo as I drop these headphones eight out of 10 only because if you go to like Best Buy or future shop or whatever they have it already plugged in and then you just push the button on which one to change too but they don't have a bunch of different sources that you can try out and experiment with true is yeah I guess so it's good I like it do you use Amazon we do we think they're great we put links to the Amazon purchase page in the descriptions of almost every video we create and you can uh check out where to buy almost anything we feature down there I mean not down there like down there below the video they also have Amazon Prime which costs $99 us annually and gives you access to a ton of cool features like Prime now which is free 2hour delivery or scheduled delivery on over 10,000 items in select areas as well as Prime video which is unlimited streaming of movies and TV episodes they've got twitch Prime included now which gives you exclusive discounts on physical games and new releases and of course the classic free 2day or same day delivery to specific zip codes and more so check it out at the link in the video description so there you have it people like the project woo if you guys dislike this video you can hit that dislike button but if you liked it hit the like button get subscribed and maybe check out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description a huge shout out to Silverstone for actually producing this headphone holder that allowed us to make this whole project possible I think it looks absolutely fantastic I'm a little biased so I'll let you guys be the judge and a huge shout out to audio for providing us with all of their shitty amps and dacks for everybody to uh you know listen to on their lunch break or after hours or whatever I guess that's pretty much it get subscribed\n"