Reigniting an old passion (which only took me as far as buying a mid-fi stereo) and pressing it into high gear, I’ve had a busy 2020: - I’ve put together a system: speakers, amplifiers (tube), DAC, CD transport, cables, power elements. Every element was researched and discussed with many people. (Thanks!)
- I’ve experimented with three different high-res sources: Amazon HD, Qobuz, Tidal.
- I joined two forums (Audiogon and Audiocircle), a local club (Colorado Audio Society) and had many private exchanges with hobbyists, dealers, friends.
- I’ve started to learn room acoustics, uses of room correction software, and various possibilities such as absorbers, diffusors, and other room or system tweaks.
- I’ve started looking into issues regarding aural memory, and the psychological effects of thrilling musical experiences ("frisson", as the literature calls it), and the relationship of deep attention upon the appreciation of high quality sound.
The next step is to push a lot of these things into the background and just sink into music. |
Sold off some gear:
Tannoy Revolution xt 8 speakers
Polk Lsim 703 speakers
Hegel H 80
older NAD power amp
Bought some gear:
Tekton Enzo 2.7
Dynaudio emit m20
Musical Fidelity m3si
Audiolab 6000 CDT
Denefrips Ares 2
various power and preamp tubes for my 2 tube amps
more CD’s
DIY:
speaker cables - various experiments, braided ect.- currently enjoying Mogami coax - next up - cat 5 based cables
room treatment - bought and installed 7 absorbing panels
built decoupling platforms for the Enzo speakers
upgraded AC outlet
I’ve been listening to new (to me) artist and composers.
Creating play lists and burning CD’s from hard drive
Switching between amps and speaker combos just for fun
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ErikI believe you helped me with loading the software on the RPI and mentioned you had a squeezebox type of setup at one point. That inspired me to build my own. Now I am looking at a few software options- Logitech media, Picore, possibly Roon, to expand the capabilities. Appreciate the ability to control from phone or touchscreen. Also considering a house wide rpi solution for streaming. I realize many want a more refined streaming approach, but for me, I haven’t seen any significant weaknesses that need improvement. The Hifiberry is also quite decent at DAC capabilities. |
Breaking the audio upgrade cycle
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My audio equipment is all packed up in the original factory cartons, as we are having a new home built, with a "bonus room" over the garage for my "man cave".
I worked with the builder to adapt their "standard bonus room" to make it useful for my listening room, it's about 19' x 14.5' and has two small slopes where the front & back walls meet the ceiling. They were able to adapt the trusses to provide an additional closet (for my CDs and supplies) and were able to also provide a separate HVAC system, a more "traditional" one with extra ducting, so the sound of the unit running would be minimal, this upgrade instead of the usual "ductless" design they normally install.
Hope to be into the new house before the end of the year! |
