Okay sports fans, time for another update, this time it’s audio related.
I’ve talked a lot about my home theater but not so much about my desktop system in my home office. I’ve talked about it elsewhere, mostly in the forum I created for 
budget minded people looking for good audio and home theater gear at reasonable prices, namely BudgetAVTalk. I created BudgetAVTalk a couple of years ago just as the economy was starting to fizzle. I think of it has heartburn before the full cardiac arrest.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Budgets were being tightened but audio and home theater enthusiasts were still looking for new systems or maybe some changes to existing systems. There are a ton of audio and home theater forums but most of them cater to people who are looking to spend big bucks. At the time, and even now, I wasn’t aware of any that focused exclusively on bang for the buck, reasonably priced equipment. So BudgetAVTalk was born.
I don’t know if it really wasn’t such a good idea or maybe I just didn’t market it enough (technically I didn’t market it all, but that’s another story) but it really hasn’t caught on. I’ve thought about it and come to this conclusion. People who spend time on the Internet frequenting audio forums, are not looking to spend time talking about budget equipment. Their eyes are bigger then that. Even if they have small budgets, they dream about big time systems and want to chat with people that have big time systems and find out what they stated with, thinking they might emulate them. I think a vast majority of budget minded shoppers don’t think of searching for and posting on audio forums.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that what I thought was an under represented segment of the population was, in fact, not a segment at all 
. None the less, I keep the forum open.
Anyway, back to my update. My home office system consists of a pair of AV123 ELT525M monitors connected to a NuForce Icon, connected, via USB to my laptop. I’ve written elsewhere about how I store and serve music, click here to learn more about that. Note, AV123 doesn’t make the ELT525′s anymore. The link above is to a B Stock selection which may not be live for long. I sure do digress…Oh yeah, the update. The NuForce Icon died. I opened a ticket with NuForce, explained the circumstances and they said that, despite the Icon being almost two years old, if I provide proof of purchase they would send me a new internal board. I sent them my Amazon confirmation email and they sent me a new board, simple as that. They also included a prepaid shipping label to return my board. So I have to give credit to NuForce for their customer service and support. I received and installed the board, and have been enjoying music in my home office once again.
You can read a bit more about my home office setup here on my BudgetAVTalk site. I monitor the site so feel free to post your thoughts or ask questions and I’ll be happy to discuss. I’ve updated it to include discussions about plug technology since while it’s computer, not audio related, it’s budget minded and ideal for serving audio and video.
Seems like lots of things are breaking lately. My NuForce, Pogoplug, van, roof, my grill, had a flat tire on my bike this morning and my elbow hurts, oh, and I found out earlier we have ants and they are carrying off the cat food.
Enough for now. Tomorrow my new grill arrives as does my replacement Pogoplug. Maybe even more exciting, my next batch of k-cups arrive on Monday. I really need to tell you about CoffeeWiz.com where I’ve been buying my k-cups. Until I do (and assuming I do), please check them out, they have a great selection at even better prices.
