I Bought a Receiver!

[TLS Guy]

As the tittle says I have bought a receiver! It is a Denon AVR-2313CI.

I bought it used on eBay for $175.00. I assume it is 2012/13 vintage. It is for a small bedroom which we now use as a small sitting room, and kids play room in our Quad 4 Eagan condo town home. The grandchildren have asked for a room for gaming. As you can see it is a very small room.

The screen is the 2005 Fujitsu Plasma that was the original screen in the studio at Benedict. That screen gives a marvelous picture and is just a screen.

The unit has FM radio, a Chromecaster, and a Sony DVD player that we discovered in the unpack after the remodel. I had forgotten we had it!

The speakers are full rangers, using the 4" Jordan Watts Modular speaker. I listened to the Mozart Grand Partita on Sunday night on the BPO Digital Concert Hall. This work is for a wind ensemble and a double bass. It is a great favorite of mine. These little speakers have astonishing bass. The bassoons, bass clarinets and string bass were reproduced faithfully along with everything else.

So we now have a couple of systems there as well so my wife and I can watch or listen to something different.

I will need to get a more potent speaker system before the grand children game, that will be a future project. The sub will need to be very small.

This is the main system there.

These speakers have built in subs and are powered by a Quad 909 and one and a half Quad 405s. Center is JW module in a small sealed enclosure.

This is all part of a recent remodel of this town home. We installed an Ikea kitchen. My son in law worked with me for five days to assemble and hang the cabinets. I did plumbing and electrics, and had a Ukrainian immigrant tiler do the back splash. The stove was replaced about four years ago, we kept the dishwasher, as it is an old Maytag and fine. The fridge and microwave are new.

We added some lighting in the main living room, installed new carpet and painted throughout.

If anyone is contemplating an Ikea kitchen, I would be happy to post a review of the pros and cons, and the experience of this project.

I have also been very busy saving my 1958 John Deere 420 tractor from the salvage yard. This was an interesting project involving a redesign and rebuild of the hydraulic steering valve. This was an interesting project I will post in the steam vent.

 

[afterlife2]

Looking good there TLS! Nice and neat. Did you return those Senns headphones you recently bought?

 

[its phillip]

I would like to hear about your experience with the IKEA cabinetry

 

[markw]

My God! The sun rose in the west this morning and I missed it!

 

[TLS Guy]

Looking good there TLS! Nice and neat. Did you return those Senns headphones you recently bought?

I kept the Sens and just love them. They are keepers for sure.

 

[Alex2507]

My God! The sun rose in the west this morning and I missed it!

Rec'rs are like mopeds. They're fun to play with but you don't want your friends to see you. Fat chicks are like that too.

 

[TLS Guy]

I would like to hear about your experience with the IKEA cabinetry

I thought on this forum of tinkerers someone would be interested in that topic.

The first issue is that you have to plan carefully and will get little help from Ikea staff. Fortunately my daughter is an Architect, but no longer works as such. There is no money in it! She is very good at kitchens.

Now the cabinets are particle board, but the fasteners and hardware are second to none. All holes were drilled perfectly. No hardware was missing and none failed in the cabinetry. The paint finish is of a very high standard. Be aware they have no touch up paint available at Ikea.

All the inventory was delivered on time and complete with a very reasonable delivery price. I thought the Ikea cost for installation was excessive, so we did not use that.

My son in law and I started to demo the old kitchen at 8:30 Monday morning. He and I assembled the cabinets and hung as we went. The rail system works very well. You must keep everything very level, or the counter top company will walk away.

I had to redo the plumbing. The original plumbers did very untidy work that was a mess. So I did it neat and tidy, and installed a water line for the fridge, as the old one had no water/ice dispenser.

By Thursday morning we had the installation ready for the counter top guy to do his measurements. He was very complimentary as to the accuracy of our leveling.

By Friday noon we had progressed as far as we could until the counter tops were installed.

Now there are a number of issues with non custom cabinets, that you need to consider before going ahead with a project like this. Obviously there are not an infinite number of cabinets and combinations and every kitchen is different.

So there will be gaps, and the need for spacers. Often this is no problem. If you look here you will see a spacer to the side of this small cabinet above the fridge.

There is one the other side of the cabinet and it looks fine.

Now we had a bigger problem.

Because of the window location and width of the kitchen, we had a problem on this corner, with the need for a small spacer on the left and a much larger one on the right.

When we cut and installed spacer panels it looked awful.

So I had to go and purchase a couple of doors we could cut down and construct a miter joint.

Even under the best of circumstances there will be tiny gaps on the edge. With a lot of difficulty I managed to find some coper's white filler and worked it down the seam.

Now the lack of Ikea touch up paint was a problem. Apparently the Ikea paints are hard to match. I found out after an Internet search that Home Depot have the closest match. When I went to home depot they were familiar with the issue. Their paint is a good match, but the gloss is different. However after putting masking tape either side of the seam and painting it with a fine hair brush it looked pretty good. Enough to keep my wife from complaining anyway.
This is a close up.

Just a note about those outlets. The previous kitchen did not have a tiled back splash. You can not move electric boxes forward. In order to stop fire getting into the walls, code requires you use inserts and long screws. Installing these is a bit of a fiddle, but doable.

I changed the covers to stainless steel and changed the receptacles to grey. These items are not obtainable from the big box stores, you need to go to a good electrical supply company and plead competence, so you don't have to get an electrician.

Now the final thing about Ikea cabinets. They are not standard depth. They are significantly deeper. So they hold more contents. I suspect this is because of smaller kitchens outside North America. Now this led to a problem installing the over stove microwave. If installed in standard fashion then the air vents would be covered and the door not open. So you have to fabricate a spacer between the wall and the back of the microwave.

The only issue with this, is that the microwave is rather far forward and tends to be in your face while cooking at the stove.

Now the plumbing. This is a problem. When at the plumbing supply company, I noted a number of people coming in for fixes to Ikea plumbing, like non standard drains etc.

So after the Quartz counter tops were installed about 10 days later, we installed the Ikea farm sink which is a lovely unit.

The faucet that goes with it is utter and complete junk! I think you all no by now how fond I am of junk. For a start the nut and or the brass rod that fixes the faucet to the sink was out of spec and would not tighten. In addition it was a flimsy POS made in Turkey.

So I went to my plumbing supply outfit, and "Said forgive me I have sinned and bought Ilea plumbing." Anyhow I got a beautiful, heavy and sturdy one made in America.

When I went to return the Ikea faucet I found the made in America faucet was $10 cheaper than the Turkish POS.

I installed the garbage disposer which I had replaced in the old kitchen not long ago and hitched up the water and waste pipes.

The recent immigrant from the Ukraine, Vlad, came and duly installed the Italian marble back splash, and then I did the electrics and it was done after completing that part.

The Ikea electrics is awkward and not the best either. I chose the hard wired option, as I did not want wall warts and wires under the cabinets.

Now the Ikea system has transformer units with 24 volt LED lights and light units and corner pieces that plug in daisy chain fashion. They are controlled form a remote radio switch that can be installed in a convenient location. There are two levels dimmed and bright.

Now these units can only be powered from the left. Now the source of power is above the stove. So the right string is powered by a short length of Romex. The left string need a long length of Romex strung though the cabinets. They really do need left and right handed units.

The next issue with the lights is that the interconnects are pin type and not sprung spade. The connection is very touch and go. So very small changes in position cause no connection or connection. So you have to find the position that makes contact and carefully hold in place while you fix the unit to the cabinet. This was a big pain. In addition the provided screws were far too short, so I had to go and get longer ones. The caps that cover the screw holes are also not very clever and prone to fall out. This is not only a nuisance, but a choking hazard for kids.

In the end though, the kitchen is very functional. We have entertained there and I can cook complex meals without a problem. It is a big improvement over the old kitchen.

So these Ikea kitchens are not perfect and there are definite areas where Ikea have room for improvement.

I think the value for money is pretty good. The total cost of the Ikea part of the kitchen was $6,800 near enough. That is significantly less than a custom kitchen, but you have to work hard and use some ingenuity for the savings.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Finally came out of the closet, huh? Better late than never.

Like many people have been saying for a long time, AVR can sound awesome. And they usually save you a lot of money that you can use for something else in life.

 

[highfigh]

I thought on this forum of tinkerers someone would be interested in that topic.

The first issue is that you have to plan carefully and will get little help from Ikea staff. Fortunately my daughter is an Architect, but no longer works as such. There is no money in it! She is very good at kitchens.

Now the cabinets are particle board, but the fasteners and hardware are second to none. All holes were drilled perfectly. No hardware was missing and none failed in the cabinetry. The paint finish is of a very high standard. Be aware they have no touch up paint available at Ikea.

My son in law and I started to demo the old kitchen at 8:30 Monday morning. He and I assembled the cabinets and hung as we went. The rail system works very well. You must keep everything very level, or the counter top company will walk away.

I had to redo the plumbing. The original plumbers did very untidy work that was a mess. So I did it neat and tidy, and installed a water line for the fridge, as the old one had no water/ice dispenser.

Now there are a number of issues with non custom cabinets, that you need to consider before going ahead with a project like this. Obviously there are not an infinite number of cabinets and combinations and every kitchen is different.

So there will be gaps, and the need for spacers. Often this is no problem. If you look here you will see a spacer to the side of this small cabinet above the fridge.

There is one the other side of the cabinet and it looks fine.

Now we had a bigger problem.

Because of the window location and width of the kitchen, we had a problem on this corner, with the need for a small spacer on the left and a much larger one on the right.

When we cut and installed spacer panels it looked awful.

So I had to go and purchase a couple of doors we could cut down and construct a miter joint.

Even under the best of circumstances there will be tiny gaps on the edge. With a lot of difficulty I managed to find some coper's white filler and worked it down the seam.

Now the lack of Ikea touch up paint was a problem. Apparently the Ikea paints are hard to match. I found out after an Internet search that Home Depot have the closest match. When I went to home depot they were familiar with the issue. Their paint is a good match, but the gloss is different. However after putting masking tape either side of the seam and painting it with a fine hair brush it looked pretty good. Enough to keep my wife from complaining anyway.
This is a close up.

Just a note about those outlets. The previous kitchen did not have a tiled back splash. You can not move electric boxes forward. In order to stop fire getting into the walls, code requires you use inserts and long screws. Installing these is a bit of a fiddle, but doable.

I changed the covers to stainless steel and changed the receptacles to grey. These items are not obtainable from the big box stores, you need to go to a good electrical supply company and plead competence, so you don't have to get an electrician.

Now the final thing about Ikea cabinets. They are not standard depth. They are significantly deeper. So they hold more contents. I suspect this is because of smaller kitchens outside North America. Now this led to a problem installing the over stove microwave. If installed in standard fashion then the air vents would be covered and the door not open. So you have to fabricate a spacer between the wall and the back of the microwave.

The only issue with this, is that the microwave is rather far forward and tends to be in your face while cooking at the stove.

The recent immigrant from the Ukraine, Vlad, came and duly installed the Italian marble back splash, and then I did the electrics and it was done after completing that part.

I think the value for money is pretty good. The total cost of the Ikea part of the kitchen was $6,800 near enough. That is significantly less than a custom kitchen, but you have to work hard and use some ingenuity for the savings.

I studied architecture in the mid-70s and stopped when I basically lost interest, partially due to the fact that at the time, I was making more selling stereo equipment. It's possible to make decent money, but not usually as a residential architect- I have friends who are/were architects and they all work/ed on commercial/industrial/educational/government projects. One was a Sr Project Architect and he worked on airports, hydro-electric dams, nuclear power plant upgrades, buildings for the FBI/CIA/CENT-COM and huge maintenance facilities for Boeing customers (in the area of 3 million ft², usually in India and the UAE).

I would bet that this house was built before 1970 and maybe, in the '50s. The fact that cabinets which are now considered "standard sizes" don't fit tells me the original were built on-site, to fit the soffit. Personally, I think 12" deep upper cabinets are useless- a standard dinner plate can't be laid flat on the shelves and anyone who has a 'complete' assortment of kitchen items needs more cabinet boxes to store everything, rather than being able to use a few extra inches of depth.

For paint matching, if the need should arise and HD can't come close enough, try calling a Benjamin Moore paint store. The ACE Hardware store owners in this area bought a former Benjamin Moore paint store that was having a hard time finding a home and they can match just about any color or sheen and put it in an aerosol can or the usual cans, for brushing.

Nice looking kitchen.

That Denon is the same model I was using before I bought the Parasound. I like being able to control it with a computer or iPhone when I'm not in the same area and don't want to carry a remote.

 

[TLS Guy]

I studied architecture in the mid-70s and stopped when I basically lost interest, partially due to the fact that at the time, I was making more selling stereo equipment. It's possible to make decent money, but not usually as a residential architect- I have friends who are/were architects and they all work/ed on commercial/industrial/educational/government projects. One was a Sr Project Architect and he worked on airports, hydro-electric dams, nuclear power plant upgrades, buildings for the FBI/CIA/CENT-COM and huge maintenance facilities for Boeing customers (in the area of 3 million ft², usually in India and the UAE).

I would bet that this house was built before 1970 and maybe, in the '50s. The fact that cabinets which are now considered "standard sizes" don't fit tells me the original were built on-site, to fit the soffit. Personally, I think 12" deep upper cabinets are useless- a standard dinner plate can't be laid flat on the shelves and anyone who has a 'complete' assortment of kitchen items needs more cabinet boxes to store everything, rather than being able to use a few extra inches of depth.

For paint matching, if the need should arise and HD can't come close enough, try calling a Benjamin Moore paint store. The ACE Hardware store owners in this area bought a former Benjamin Moore paint store that was having a hard time finding a home and they can match just about any color or sheen and put it in an aerosol can or the usual cans, for brushing.

Nice looking kitchen.

That Denon is the same model I was using before I bought the Parasound. I like being able to control it with a computer or iPhone when I'm not in the same area and don't want to carry a remote.

Those condos were built in 1993. We are the second owners and bought the place eight years ago this month.

Ikea cabinets are deeper. The biggest issue this caused was with the over stove microwave. This meant that the mounting bracket could not be mounted on the wall like the previous one. A spacer had to be fashioned.

I have to say though in a small kitchen like that we like the extra cabinet space.

These are the standard American cabinet specs.

1. Distance between countertop and upper cabinets: 18 inches
2. Upper cabinet depth: 12 inches
3. Lower cabinet depth: 24 inches
4. Countertop overhang: ¾ to 1 inch
5. Countertop height: 36 inches
6. Kickspace: 4 inches high, 3 inches deep

The upper Ikea cabinets are 15" deep which is not standard. The previous cabinets were the standard 12" deep.

 

[TLS Guy]

Finally came out of the closet, huh? Better late than never.

Like many people have been saying for a long time, AVR can sound awesome. And they usually save you a lot of money that you can use for something else in life.

This system does sound good. However this is a very easy load. One voice coil of 8 ohms on each front channel. The drivers are high sensitivity and there are NO crossover components. That is the easiest load you could think of.

 

[highfigh]

Those condos were built in 1993. We are the second owners and bought the place eight years ago this month.

Ikea cabinets are deeper. The biggest issue this caused was with the over stove microwave. This meant that the mounting bracket could not be mounted on the wall like the previous one. A spacer had to be fashioned.

I have to say though in a small kitchen like that we like the extra cabinet space.

These are the standard American cabinet specs.

1. Distance between countertop and upper cabinets: 18 inches
2. Upper cabinet depth: 12 inches
3. Lower cabinet depth: 24 inches
4. Countertop overhang: ¾ to 1 inch
5. Countertop height: 36 inches
6. Kickspace: 4 inches high, 3 inches deep

The upper Ikea cabinets are 15" deep which is not standard. The previous cabinets were the standard 12" deep.

When I remodeled, I built my own cabinets- the uppers are 15" deep, 15" above the counter. I didn't go all the way to the ceiling- I'm 6'-2" and can't reach the back of the top shelves at this height- making them higher didn't seem sensible.