new amp/new room/new setup :D

[DrWho]

Well after living in Grand Rapids for about 4 months, I've finally obtained an amplifier to power my old 1978 Marantz 940 four way loudspeakers. I purchased a new Crown XLS 402 power amp through my company which puts out 260 watts (my speakers can handle 250).

Well my initial impressions were that it sounded very nice. After coming off a long visit to Artto's place, I'm starting to pick out distortions in things that I've not heard before (or that I've already acustomed myself to and was once able to ignore). Anyways, it still sounds nice but I'm trying to keep the volume lower so as to not tick off the roommates

The hardest thing for me right now is the noise floor. My room is on a corner of the house that faces a fairly busy street and the windows are old and don't seal very well. I've got a window air conditioner blasting in the background and my pc is very far from quiet (even with the door on my desk closed on it). The power amp has fans constantly blowing and is sitting about 2 feet from my head (it's sitting on my desk at the moment). I'd say the noise floor in my room is about 45dB.

Nevertheless, I must say that I'm very happy with the setup, but I'm fearing that I'm going to start hearing things that drive me nuts (it always takes a while to settle in with any system).

I already can hear the bass building up in the corners (which cancels it at the listening position), so I'm hoping that some curved masonite panels might help with that (i can't afford to purchase the cool bass traps at this junction in time). Also, the sound card really needs to be upgraded, but I'm going to wait a bit on that one.

The last thing I wanted to mention is that I'm not a believer in system break-in and all that, so I'm going to be listening closely to any differences from this amp over time. Though I'm not a believer, I'm still going to be open minded about it (not like I'm trying to prove anything here).