Steve Livingston is StereoMan. Steve provides installation, maintenance and repair of all types of home and car stereo and home theater equipment. Steve has over thirty-five years of experience in electronics repair including more than twenty years in consumer audio and video, providing knowledgeable and careful service at reasonable cost. Steve can also help you obtain good quality audio and video components at competitive prices. And for your convenience, StereoMan makes house calls throughout the Western North Carolina area!

• On Site Service
• Home Theater Services
• Amplifier and Receiver Services
• CD Player and Turntable Services
• Car Stereo Services
• Computer Services
• First Quality Used Equipment

What kind of experience does StereoMan have? Trained for electronics in the U.S. Navy, Steve’s electronics career includes ten years in two-way radio, five years in Common Carrier radio (the precursor to cellphones), and one year as electronics technician in a textile mill.

Steve started repairing stereo equipment in 1986, working as an independent contractor for Gibbs Radio Company, Asheville’s oldest audio and video service center. Throughout the 90s and beyond, he continued his independent work, for Audio Service Company, Blue Ridge Electronics, and Mac’s Swannanoa TV, as well as developing a personal clientele for StereoMan.

Steve began working on CD players shortly after they became commercially available. He has repaired thousands of stereo components, installed hundreds of car stereos and home theater systems, and maintains a few commercial Public Address systems as well. He has provided new and used audio and video equipment to scores of satisfied customers.

Why does Stereoman do this work? Steve delights in the mental challenges as well as the craft of repair and installation work, and the pleasure of working in a situation that requires him to listen to music constantly. He derives great satisfaction from knowing that his work is providing lasting enjoyment to his clientele. And just as importantly, Steve takes his environmental stewardship very seriously, making every effort to keep perfectly good equipment out of the landfill.

Hubble Photo Of the Week: NGC 3603

Just 20,000 light years across the Milky Way lies the galaxy’s densest cluster of masssive stars, and its most expansive cloud of gas. Read all about it here.

20,000 light-years away, near the outer edge of the Sagittarius arm of our own Milky Way galaxy, lies what is believed to be the densest cluster of massive stars in the entire galaxy, surrounded by the Milky Way’s most expansive cloud of interstellar gas.

NGC 3603 was first discovered by Sir John Herschel in 1834. It is known to harbor a blue supergiant star called Sher 25 that astronomers believe is on the brink of exploding as a supernova.

Most of the bright stars in the image are hot blue stars whose ultraviolet radiation and violent winds have blown out an enormous cavity in the gas and dust enveloping the cluster. The largest individual stars are about 115 solar masses. The swirling gases comprise about 400,000 solar masses. Lurking within this vast cloud are a few Bok globules, dark clouds of dense dust and gas with about 10-50 solar masses. They resemble insect cocoons and are undergoing gravitational collapse on their way to forming new stars. Bok globules appear to be some of the coldest objects in the Universe.

This month, StereoMan is offering big discounts on select in-wall and indoor/outdoor speakers. For more information click here.

Hubble Photo Of the Week: V838 Monocerotis

The strangest sphere of interstellar matter so far observed by humans, still baffles astronomers to this day. Learn more about V838 Monocerotis.

A remarkable galactic event took place on January 6, 2002, one that had never been observed before. Deep in the constellation Monoceros — the Unicorn — a previously unknown star suddenly brightened, just like a nova. Nothing unusual about that, except that instead of gradually dimming out as a nova would, it faded somewhat and then brightened again two months later. And again, in April, a third burst of light, even more brilliant, a million times brighter than our own sun. At the same time, the star expanded to a diameter equal to the diameter of Jupiter’s orbit.

If this had been a nova, the star would have contracted in size, expelling matter and energy in one tremendous burst. But the light patterns from V838 defied any simple explanation, and in fact astronomers are still uncertain as to the cause.

Despite appearances, the amazing progression of photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope does not depict matter being blown away from an exploding object. Instead, what we are observing are the reflections of infrared light on clouds of dust particles that happened to surround V838 at the time of the event. In the final Hubble photo shown below, the remarkable sphere of dust has largely dissipated, leaving a remnant very similar to what one would expect of a nova, but the giant red star is still clearly visible in the midst of it.

click the picture

Hubble Photo of the Week: Whirlpool Galaxy

With its two magnificent spiral arms and blazing colors of myriad stars being born, the Whirlpool Galaxy is one of the most photographed objects in the known universe. Why does it look like this? Find out more by clicking here.

Discovered over 200 years ago by Charles Messier, the Whirlpool Galaxy is probably the most observed and most photographed of all distant galaxies. And no wonder! Oriented almost perfectly oblique to our perception, its two clearly defined spiral arms are so elegant that galaxies of this type came to be called “grand design” spiral galaxies.

The remarkable structure and frantic star-birthing activity in the Whirlpool Galaxy are due to two powerful gravitational forces. One is a Black Hole in the center of the galaxy, whose presence has been inferred by observation of stellar matter emitting its last dying gasp as it hurtles over the “event horizon” — the point at which the force of the Black Hole is so powerful that light waves are stretched to infinite length, creating a sort of Doppler Effect. The second is a smaller galaxy that passed right through the Whirlpool, perhaps half a billion years ago, stirring up the interstellar dust with wave after wave of gravitational shock.

The star birthing areas can be clearly seen as bright blue areas in this spectacular Hubble photo, taken in 2005.