Products you added to your system in 2021 that made most impact to your music enjoyment

first post and a confession, not sure if I’m an audiophile, but I am a musician and for me, listening to music is like a sacrament.  The point for me prob isn’t accuracy or fidelity as much as it is about it being transported into place, time, state, etc.

I had a very rudimentary setup with a pretty awful pioneer consumer receiver (Sx-303R) and pioneer floor standers (CS-M551s), streaming from Apple TV and Lg Tv optical out, however I mainly listened to vinyl on a fluance rt81 and Pro-Ject pre.  The whole point of this Craigslist find was to see if my family could handle living with an audio setup, esp the floorstanders in the living room.  Good news, they even liked the pioneer setup!  It was passable for me, but now that the use case was established, time to spend some $$.

my new rig began with replacing the crap receiver with a Peachtree nova 150.  It was like those old pioneers came to life.  Everyone (and not a one an “audiophile”) who had heard the old amp was astonished by he improvements made with the Nova 150.  Wife approved!  This was easily the biggest improving factor this year.

not to be outdone, the Zu Omen Dirty Weekends I ordered last March *finally* came in on 12/6 and I’m blown away.  The clarity and surprisingly, the bass output, is exceptional.  Even running lossless from my iPad I feel like I am front row of a club show when I listen to Andrew Bird’s “MFWY,” and like I’m in the room with Bruce when listening to Nebraska on vinyl.  John Stirrat’s bass slap on “Jesus etc.” was something I had never noticed before, and I promise I’ve listened to that record hundreds of times. Nick Cave’s “Ghosteen” moved me to tears.  This is why we do this, right?

I have the new bluenode streamer coming in on Monday to make life easier for everyone in the house to enjoy the rig.  I’ve heard some don’t love the dac, but if my iPad sounds this good into my peachtree…

I can see upgrades down the line, like an orchard audio Dac, or a Technics SL 1500, but for the foreseeable future, I’m off the treadmill, enjoying the pleasure of listening to my favorites “again for the first time.”

I hope your holiday is filled with peace, contemplation, and bangin’ good music.

Vaya con Dios,

Dir. G. Cole

1. Paper under the router
2. Paper under the switch
3. Paper under the streamer
4. Paper under the DAC

And before you make fun of it, put two plates on top of each other and listen to the noise. Then put one piece of paper on a plate and then the other one on top and it's almost silent. The damping of paper is enormous!

Need to finalize with amps and speakers..

An Audioflow 4-way wifi speaker selector switch. Loving the differences in speakers now that it's convenient to swap. Between Odyssey Lorelei w kismet upgrades, engineering standard Revel M20's, Audio Nirvana 8" alnico FR's. Happy happy happy.

A new room.

From KEF LS50's to KEF Reference 1

From Emotiva USP-1 pre-amp & Carver M-1.5t power amp to Luxman L-505uX Mark2.

From a hard surfaced, wood floor office to a plush dedicated listening room.

Heaven!