The Audio Setup: A Simple and Convenient Solution

For my streaming and gaming needs, I've set up a simple yet effective audio setup that has served me well for quite some time. The core of this setup is a road microphone plugged directly into an anti-USB device that mounts on the back of a monitor. This allows me to easily swivel the mic away from my desk when not in use and then bring it close to the monitor when needed. To reduce desk vibrations being picked up, I've also added a shockmount to the setup.

The quality of this audio setup is more than sufficient for my needs, and I don't plan on upgrading it anytime soon. The fact that it's so simple and convenient makes it an attractive option for those who want to improve their streaming or gaming audio without breaking the bank. With the road microphone and anti-USB device in place, I've been able to achieve good sound quality with minimal fuss.

The Monitor: A Fast 1080p Panel with Low Input Lag

One of the most frequently asked questions about my setup is what kind of monitor I use for gaming and video editing. For these purposes, I prefer a fast 1080p panel with low input lag and response times. After extensive research and testing, I've settled on the Alienware AW2518HF as my top choice. This 25-inch 1080p 240Hz TN panel is an absolute joy to game on, thanks to its high refresh rate and low latency.

One feature that's worth noting about this monitor is its G-Sync compatibility, which makes it a great option for those using NVIDIA GPUs. Additionally, the Alienware AW2518HF features a freesync variant, which eliminates screen tearing altogether. While I do use this monitor for gaming, I've also used it for video editing, and I'm happy with its performance in that regard as well.

However, one thing I did change about this monitor is the stand. The stock stand has a large footprint that overlaps my mouse padding and gets in the way of my workspace. To address this issue, I swapped out the stand for a generic Delight ASA standard stand, which was easily found on eBay for around $10. This has greatly improved the overall aesthetic of my setup and made it easier to work with.

The PC: A Custom Loop System

For those who may be familiar with my channel, my gaming and video editing system is often mistaken for a hard drive bay or external GPU enclosure. However, this is actually the entire system, which includes an Intel Core i9-9900K processor, 32GB of memory, 1.5 terabytes of SSD storage, and a 750-watt power supply.

I've invested significant time and effort into optimizing my system to keep thermals and noise levels in check. This has involved configuring the system to be relatively quiet during gaming and editing sessions, which is crucial for maintaining focus and productivity. The case I'm using, the Ghost S1 with a large top hat, provides ample space for all of this hardware while keeping the overall volume to a mere 11 liters.

Cable Management: A Simple yet Effective Solution

One area where I've been able to improve my setup is in cable management. While the desk itself comes equipped with a cable management net that clips underneath and proves effective, I've also found some creative ways to keep things tidy. For example, I use double-sided tape to hold the power adapter to the bottom of the desk, keeping it out of sight.

The only additional item on my desk is a touch lamp from Kmart, which features an RGB Wi-Fi light bulb. While this may seem like a luxury item, it actually serves a practical purpose by providing natural lighting during the day and soft illumination at night. The specific light bulb I'm using is a Lifx product, which is well-established in the market.

Background: A Minimalist Workspace

As you can see from the photos, my workspace is relatively minimalist, with only a few items on display. At the center of everything sits a small fake plant from Ikea, which adds a touch of greenery to the space. On top of that, there's a silver u-tube 100k plaque for the channel, which I'm rather proud of.

Overall, my new setup has been well-received by my audience, and I'll be featuring it prominently in future videos. By using this simple yet effective audio setup, fast 1080p monitor, custom loop system, and minimalist workspace, I've created an environment that's both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what is going on guys so I recently just finished my new desk setup and I wanted to try things a little bit differently this time I wanted to go for a bit more of a minimal cleaner approach and also a bit of a darker theme too so I do use this and up both for gaming and more importantly video editing but the only thing that changes there is the monitor we'll talk more about that in just a minute I do get asked quite a lot about what keyboard mouse and monitor I'm using so today we are taking a quick look at all the parts here for the new setup so I have put quite a lot of thought and planning into this setup but the concept is relatively simple everything on the desk should serve a purpose and should match the setup in terms of color scheme so let's start with the desk this one's from Ikea it's called the Edison it's 160 by 80 centimetres but it does come in a smaller one 20 by 60 if you prefer something a bit smaller the tabletop is a dent particle board material that's pretty strong and it's got a nice smooth dark wood finish I really like the industrial looking heavy-duty frame that supports the desk and they are height adjustable as well but only manually you can get an electrically adjustable version but it's about twice the cost but if you really want your setup to double as a standing desk you should definitely check that one out as well overall really sturdy desk has zero wobble when typing and enough space for everything that I need to put on it for some additional storage I'm using the IKEA Alex draw unit this helps store a few bits and pieces some tools and my laptop stuff that would otherwise be clutter and mess scattered around my desk alright now let's talk about the chair and commonly people I would go for those gaming racist our chairs that I'm not a huge fan of all you see people spend a ton of money on those Herman Miller chairs and let's be honest not a lot of us have that much cash to spend on a chair so the one that I've got here is also from Ikea it's called the aleph gel I've been using this one for a little over a year now and it's by far the most comfortable chair that I've ever used it's a pretty upright chair I feel like it really encourages a nice neutral posture whereas other chairs that I've used in the past just allow me to slouch and recline a little bit too this one of course does recline too but it's just a bit firmer which I do prefer the padding is also really nice dense and strong not soft and cushiony which I find degrades pretty quickly over time doesn't really last that long and of course we had to go with the black and gray to match the rest of the setup okay now let's move on to the gear that he's actually on the desk and let's start with the keyboard this one is a bit of a custom 60% keyboard build the PCB and case are from the N pro 2 I wasn't a big fan of the switches that came with this keyboard though which were the Gator on Browns so I swapped these out to the T Leo's veto switches from 0 PC and I also lived those ones up before a bit of a smoother feel I did a full video on this keyboard showing how you can do something similar quite easily and if you don't want to solder like I did for the N pro 2 you can grab a keyboard with hot swappable switches which are becoming a lot more common I honestly feel like if you really want a premium feeling keyboard you should really start exploring some of the exotic switch options out there and also consider lubricating the stems and the housing of the switch too because off the shelf gate Ron and Cherry MX switches really feel average in comparison to this the key caps that I've got on there are the DSA blacks that I bought from KP Republic and overall these do feel really nice to type on they don't get greasy but I just can't recommend them they've worn out pretty quickly even just a couple months used here and most of them are crooked so I might swap these out to something else in the future alright now let's talk about one of my favorite parts of this setup since this is a gaming setup and that's the mouse now I've had the opportunity to test a ton of gaming mice over the last year or so and this one in particular I haven't spoken about at all but it's what I've been using for the last couple of months this is the end game gear XM one it's a 70 gram medium sized gaming mouse and is by far the best shaped gaming mouse that I've ever used I use a claw grip when gaming and the shape of this Mouse really encourages that position without feeling too awkward if you are looking to buy this mouse though there's a couple of things that you'll need to know firstly the stock cable that comes with this mouse is absolutely trash it's a thick heavy rubber cable that feels really bad to game with the solution there is just to install a paracord cable as a replacement and with the lighter cable this Mouse basic feels as good as wireless when used with a bungee the second thing that you'll want to replace are the mouse feet the stock ones are just a bit too thin in my opinion I'll link these thicker aftermarket ones down below now the mouse bungee that I'm using is the raiser bungee v2 mostly because of the clean of black design but so far this is actually looking like one of the best-built mouse bungees that you can buy at the moment for those who aren't familiar with Mouse bungees they basically just prevent the cable from slamming around and dragging on your desk now since I play with a low wish sensitivity for gaming I do prefer a larger mouse pad and the one that I've got here is the Logitech G 640 it's nice and big so I never have to worry about running out of room and the glide on this pad is really really nice the mouse practically floats now originally the borders on the pad were blue so I just cold them in with a black marker to match the rest of the setup now my audio setup is actually super simple but it's also super effective starting with the headphones these are the Philips Fidelia X 2's which I've had for about two and a half years now good quality has held up quite well has a few scuffs and pain is feeling a little bit but overall these have gone through a beating and still look quite good they are a warm sounding headphone quite bass emphasized so for gaming these are absolutely awesome the padding is super soft and comfortable and what I love about these headphones is that they do not require an amp to be fully powered unfortunately they do collect a lot of dust on the pads though so just keep that in mind I've got this plugged directly into the road anti USB microphone I've got that mounted inside the road PSM one shockmount to reduce desk vibrations being picked up and that's then mounted on the psa1 swivel arm so when I'm working or doing some testing I can just swivel that behind the monitor and keep it out of the way but when I'm streaming or just gaming with some friends I can swivel it to the left of the monitor and get the mic nice and close honestly this audio setup is so simple and convenient that I don't plan on upgrading from it any time soon and the quality is definitely acceptable for what I use it for all right now the monitor is something that I get asked about quite a lot and since I played mostly competitive at first-person shooters I like to stick to a fast 1080p panel with the lowest input lag and respond times that I can get so the gaming monitor of choice is the Alienware aw two five one eight HF it's a twenty five inch 1080p 240 Hertz TN panel that is an absolute treat to game with this model is actually the freesync variant that it is g-sync compatible as well so if you're going to use it with an NVIDIA GPU you won't have to worry about any screen tearing one thing I have changed on this monitor though is the stand the stand that comes with this monitor has a really large footprint it actually overlaps my mouse padding gets in the way of my mouse so I swapped that out to a generic delve ASA standard that I found on eBay for about ten dollars overall I think this looks a lot cleaner and the smaller footprint is definitely preferred seeing as I also use this set up for video editing though I often swap to a larger more color accurate panel for that and at the moment that is the super ultra wide forty nine inch from Dell the you 49:19 DW I've done a full review on this one so definitely check that out if you are interested overall this thing is an absolute dream to edit with okay next up the PC so for those who don't follow the channel at first glance this might look like a hard drive bay or external GPU enclosure but this is actually my entire gaming and video editing system and it's not modest either installed in there is an I $9.99 hundred K and r-tx 28 ETI 32 gigabytes of memory 1.5 terabytes of the SSD storage and a 750 watt power supply I recently installed a custom loop in there to keep the thermals and noise levels in check I put a ton of work into this system and I'm super happy with the finished result more importantly I've configured the system to be relatively quiet while gaming and editing the case I'm using here is the ghost s1 with a large top hat it's able to fit all of this hardware in just 11 liters of volume if you are interested in insanely small high performance pcs you should definitely hit that subscribe button if you haven't already now one thing that I absolutely love about this new setup is all the natural lighting that is coming from the right side of the desk during the day and even in the afternoon now I'm still getting a ton of light coming through that window so that means I don't have to rely on lamps and artificial lighting do you have one lamp that I use at night though it's a touch lamp that I got from Kmart and inside there is an RGB Wi-Fi light bulb the specific one is from lifx these are pretty well established at this point so I won't talk about them too much but basically you can change the color and brightness with an app on your phone and also program it to do certain things throughout different times of the day now in terms of cable management I feel like I did ok here the desk actually comes with a cable management net that clips underneath and that turns out to be super effective other than that just some double-sided tape to hold the power adapter to the bottom of the desk now in terms of extra stuff on the desk there's not much else that sits on top of it just a little fake plant from Ikea and also the silver u-tube 100k plaque for the channel so that pretty much covers everything about the new set up you guys will be seeing a lot of this new set up in background shots like this and also in just b-roll shots for example that's one reason why I wanted to keep it so clean and minimal if you guys are interested in any of the parts discussed today I will leave them linked all down below in the description so feel free to check those out as always a huge thanks for watching consider subscribing down below if you haven't already and I will see you all in the next onehey what is going on guys so I recently just finished my new desk setup and I wanted to try things a little bit differently this time I wanted to go for a bit more of a minimal cleaner approach and also a bit of a darker theme too so I do use this and up both for gaming and more importantly video editing but the only thing that changes there is the monitor we'll talk more about that in just a minute I do get asked quite a lot about what keyboard mouse and monitor I'm using so today we are taking a quick look at all the parts here for the new setup so I have put quite a lot of thought and planning into this setup but the concept is relatively simple everything on the desk should serve a purpose and should match the setup in terms of color scheme so let's start with the desk this one's from Ikea it's called the Edison it's 160 by 80 centimetres but it does come in a smaller one 20 by 60 if you prefer something a bit smaller the tabletop is a dent particle board material that's pretty strong and it's got a nice smooth dark wood finish I really like the industrial looking heavy-duty frame that supports the desk and they are height adjustable as well but only manually you can get an electrically adjustable version but it's about twice the cost but if you really want your setup to double as a standing desk you should definitely check that one out as well overall really sturdy desk has zero wobble when typing and enough space for everything that I need to put on it for some additional storage I'm using the IKEA Alex draw unit this helps store a few bits and pieces some tools and my laptop stuff that would otherwise be clutter and mess scattered around my desk alright now let's talk about the chair and commonly people I would go for those gaming racist our chairs that I'm not a huge fan of all you see people spend a ton of money on those Herman Miller chairs and let's be honest not a lot of us have that much cash to spend on a chair so the one that I've got here is also from Ikea it's called the aleph gel I've been using this one for a little over a year now and it's by far the most comfortable chair that I've ever used it's a pretty upright chair I feel like it really encourages a nice neutral posture whereas other chairs that I've used in the past just allow me to slouch and recline a little bit too this one of course does recline too but it's just a bit firmer which I do prefer the padding is also really nice dense and strong not soft and cushiony which I find degrades pretty quickly over time doesn't really last that long and of course we had to go with the black and gray to match the rest of the setup okay now let's move on to the gear that he's actually on the desk and let's start with the keyboard this one is a bit of a custom 60% keyboard build the PCB and case are from the N pro 2 I wasn't a big fan of the switches that came with this keyboard though which were the Gator on Browns so I swapped these out to the T Leo's veto switches from 0 PC and I also lived those ones up before a bit of a smoother feel I did a full video on this keyboard showing how you can do something similar quite easily and if you don't want to solder like I did for the N pro 2 you can grab a keyboard with hot swappable switches which are becoming a lot more common I honestly feel like if you really want a premium feeling keyboard you should really start exploring some of the exotic switch options out there and also consider lubricating the stems and the housing of the switch too because off the shelf gate Ron and Cherry MX switches really feel average in comparison to this the key caps that I've got on there are the DSA blacks that I bought from KP Republic and overall these do feel really nice to type on they don't get greasy but I just can't recommend them they've worn out pretty quickly even just a couple months used here and most of them are crooked so I might swap these out to something else in the future alright now let's talk about one of my favorite parts of this setup since this is a gaming setup and that's the mouse now I've had the opportunity to test a ton of gaming mice over the last year or so and this one in particular I haven't spoken about at all but it's what I've been using for the last couple of months this is the end game gear XM one it's a 70 gram medium sized gaming mouse and is by far the best shaped gaming mouse that I've ever used I use a claw grip when gaming and the shape of this Mouse really encourages that position without feeling too awkward if you are looking to buy this mouse though there's a couple of things that you'll need to know firstly the stock cable that comes with this mouse is absolutely trash it's a thick heavy rubber cable that feels really bad to game with the solution there is just to install a paracord cable as a replacement and with the lighter cable this Mouse basic feels as good as wireless when used with a bungee the second thing that you'll want to replace are the mouse feet the stock ones are just a bit too thin in my opinion I'll link these thicker aftermarket ones down below now the mouse bungee that I'm using is the raiser bungee v2 mostly because of the clean of black design but so far this is actually looking like one of the best-built mouse bungees that you can buy at the moment for those who aren't familiar with Mouse bungees they basically just prevent the cable from slamming around and dragging on your desk now since I play with a low wish sensitivity for gaming I do prefer a larger mouse pad and the one that I've got here is the Logitech G 640 it's nice and big so I never have to worry about running out of room and the glide on this pad is really really nice the mouse practically floats now originally the borders on the pad were blue so I just cold them in with a black marker to match the rest of the setup now my audio setup is actually super simple but it's also super effective starting with the headphones these are the Philips Fidelia X 2's which I've had for about two and a half years now good quality has held up quite well has a few scuffs and pain is feeling a little bit but overall these have gone through a beating and still look quite good they are a warm sounding headphone quite bass emphasized so for gaming these are absolutely awesome the padding is super soft and comfortable and what I love about these headphones is that they do not require an amp to be fully powered unfortunately they do collect a lot of dust on the pads though so just keep that in mind I've got this plugged directly into the road anti USB microphone I've got that mounted inside the road PSM one shockmount to reduce desk vibrations being picked up and that's then mounted on the psa1 swivel arm so when I'm working or doing some testing I can just swivel that behind the monitor and keep it out of the way but when I'm streaming or just gaming with some friends I can swivel it to the left of the monitor and get the mic nice and close honestly this audio setup is so simple and convenient that I don't plan on upgrading from it any time soon and the quality is definitely acceptable for what I use it for all right now the monitor is something that I get asked about quite a lot and since I played mostly competitive at first-person shooters I like to stick to a fast 1080p panel with the lowest input lag and respond times that I can get so the gaming monitor of choice is the Alienware aw two five one eight HF it's a twenty five inch 1080p 240 Hertz TN panel that is an absolute treat to game with this model is actually the freesync variant that it is g-sync compatible as well so if you're going to use it with an NVIDIA GPU you won't have to worry about any screen tearing one thing I have changed on this monitor though is the stand the stand that comes with this monitor has a really large footprint it actually overlaps my mouse padding gets in the way of my mouse so I swapped that out to a generic delve ASA standard that I found on eBay for about ten dollars overall I think this looks a lot cleaner and the smaller footprint is definitely preferred seeing as I also use this set up for video editing though I often swap to a larger more color accurate panel for that and at the moment that is the super ultra wide forty nine inch from Dell the you 49:19 DW I've done a full review on this one so definitely check that out if you are interested overall this thing is an absolute dream to edit with okay next up the PC so for those who don't follow the channel at first glance this might look like a hard drive bay or external GPU enclosure but this is actually my entire gaming and video editing system and it's not modest either installed in there is an I $9.99 hundred K and r-tx 28 ETI 32 gigabytes of memory 1.5 terabytes of the SSD storage and a 750 watt power supply I recently installed a custom loop in there to keep the thermals and noise levels in check I put a ton of work into this system and I'm super happy with the finished result more importantly I've configured the system to be relatively quiet while gaming and editing the case I'm using here is the ghost s1 with a large top hat it's able to fit all of this hardware in just 11 liters of volume if you are interested in insanely small high performance pcs you should definitely hit that subscribe button if you haven't already now one thing that I absolutely love about this new setup is all the natural lighting that is coming from the right side of the desk during the day and even in the afternoon now I'm still getting a ton of light coming through that window so that means I don't have to rely on lamps and artificial lighting do you have one lamp that I use at night though it's a touch lamp that I got from Kmart and inside there is an RGB Wi-Fi light bulb the specific one is from lifx these are pretty well established at this point so I won't talk about them too much but basically you can change the color and brightness with an app on your phone and also program it to do certain things throughout different times of the day now in terms of cable management I feel like I did ok here the desk actually comes with a cable management net that clips underneath and that turns out to be super effective other than that just some double-sided tape to hold the power adapter to the bottom of the desk now in terms of extra stuff on the desk there's not much else that sits on top of it just a little fake plant from Ikea and also the silver u-tube 100k plaque for the channel so that pretty much covers everything about the new set up you guys will be seeing a lot of this new set up in background shots like this and also in just b-roll shots for example that's one reason why I wanted to keep it so clean and minimal if you guys are interested in any of the parts discussed today I will leave them linked all down below in the description so feel free to check those out as always a huge thanks for watching consider subscribing down below if you haven't already and I will see you all in the next one\n"