New Members - Introduce Yourself

hello! most of my life ive been a speakers person. but spent formative time w headphones during high school to listen to music at night in the house. recently got back into hps for similar reasons - night listening to not bother wife. and find hps intimacy and focus to be addictive. here mostly to seek info at this point as i dont have a lot of knowledge to share yet.

moved from chicago to indiana dunes. listen to an eclectic scope of music: jazz, fusion, psych, rock, electronic and trip hop. on mostly physical formats. glad to be here!

 

Really? Kinda odd. Could this be a 'fight club' kinda thing with alternate personality's posting?

I'd at least steal a friend account and 'sell' off my audio collection immediately for zelle or f&f payments. @evanft , will you be posting any For Sale listings ?

 

I only take payment in Apple gift cards.

 

checking my profile, i don't see posting here. odd. i remember doing so years ago, but it may have been wiped as part of a rollback.

anyway, hello been lurking since changstar: reading and taking in and learning more, while experiencing when i can. i'm mostly into IEMs due to my work situation (i travel a lot, and offices are noisy) and the home situation (can't annoy the wife)

settled on mostly CA IEMs - OG Andro, Ara, Solaris - paired with a ZX2, or MW200. thank you SBAF for figuring out these pairings, i'd have been stuck buying and reselling if it weren't for this.

 

And we're back.

 

Hello, new member and stumbled in due to the ZDT Jr. thread.

Have a couple Schiit stacks, a ZDT Jr, and a bunch of headphones which are mostly 300ohm dynamic "DIYs".

 

Hi,

I became a member in 2021, but I’m a frequent visitor of this website for even longer. Probably since Massdrop released the 6XX. For me SBAF is a great resource for gear that I’m interested in (especially if I’m not able to audition it).

Some of the gear I currently own and enjoy listening to:

Bluesound Node 2
Denafrips Ares II, Chord Mojo 2
Feliks Elise, THX AAA 789
Focal Clear, Meze 109 Pro, Sennheiser 6XX

Also pulled the trigger on the Mjolnir 3.

 

Hello everyone.

The forum indicated that I needed to make an introduction. I found this forum and have enjoyed lurking for a bit.

I have been a longtime audio enthusiast, starting the hobby at 16 with my Magnepan SMGa speakers and a Luxman Integrated. It has been my pleasure to enjoy larger Magnepan speakers, Moving to electrostatics (Aerius i), and eventually the CLS IIZ with two smaller subs. I had a stint with tubes and Klipsch horn speakers that was fun. It was all really enjoyable. I got into vinyl in my late teens/early 20s - not that I thought it sounded better, but I could buy an album for a few bucks and it was a great way to expand my music collection.

I took a break for about 15 years from 2 channel as I was moving around for work and building a family. During that time I have learned to enjoy headphones and digital audio. (I had my first CMOY amp confiscated by the TSA as it was an "improvised electronic device") Headphones are where I currently do my most focused listening, with other areas of the house for other purposes.

My current headphone setup is all digital, USB fed from a RopieeXL streamer into a Topping E50, fed balanced into a THX 789 and singled ended into a Eufonika H4 tube headphone amp. I then use the single ended pre-out of the Eufonika into the THK 789 to allow three different modes: 1) fully solid state, 2) fully OTL tube, and 3) Tube pre into SS. I use Roon on an M1 Mac Mini connected to a 5 drive USB-C raid array (all my old CD rips and concerts FLACs) + Qobuz & Tidal.

While I eagerly anticipate my AMF Aeolus, I am currently enjoying my 2021 LCD-X, HD6XX, HE4XX, HE-R9. My portable setup is a Fiio BTR5 with 7Hz Timeless, which gets the job done well while being small. I have become a big fan of headphone EQ. Not only to correct the headphones, but to also to partially correct for my personal audiogram.

Other rooms in the house are less high end, but still are part of the experience. Basement home theater - mostly for family movies. Upstairs we use a JBL L75MS speaker (soundbar?) with a REL T/5X connected to a TV via HDMI, Roon via ethernet, and a Project Turntable to spin the old and new vinyl.

That's it, and pleasure to interact with you guys.

 

Hi folks. Intro post time!

I got into hi fi listening in high school in the early 2000s, through friends who were dabbling in building their own basic headphone amps. First decent bit of gear I ever bought were Grado SR80 headphones and it's been a journey ever since . Was a headphone guy for years but now mostly listening through a home speaker setup.

I have plenty of studio recording experience and engineering background so I tend to think about what I want from the world of hi fi quite differently than most "audiophiles." As a much wiser man than me once said "if it sounds good it is good" and I'll leave it at that. There are things that studio world takes for granted that baffle audiophile world, and vice versa. I tend to prefer "studio quality" to "audiophile quality" - snake oil mind tricks don't work on me. Just lots of power, clarity, headroom and visceral texture are what I like. If studio engineers spent as much time arguing about magic unicorn cables and isolation feet as audiophiles do, the music industry would cease to exist...

I've heard playback from classic analog console systems and high quality outboard gear that would make "measurement people" die a painful but beautiful death, and I've been in mastering studios where every single milliampere and sample and degree and decibel has been obsessed over for perfect measured performance, and they're both absolutely awesome to experience.

I am neither an ultra high end or budget warrior. Currently have a pair of B+W 802s fed by a NAIT 5si amplifier and Benchmark DAC1 handling digital conversion. I have a smallish record collection that I play on a vintage Thorens TD160, recently upgraded with a Grado Opus cartridge and Schiit Mani 2 stage.

On the headphone side I have a Ray Samuels HR-2 which I will probably keep forever. No current headphones in my collection, though, other than some cheap wireless ones for around town!

I use TIDAL and I've just started delving into Roon, which has been great, and I'm really interested in what's been happening in DAC world in the almost fifteen years since I bought my DAC1 as a graduation present when I finished university.

My biggest blind spot is tube gear, I've never owned a hi fi component with tubes in it.

Anyway nice to meet you all.

 

Welcome. I like your handle - is it a reference to The Hip, or a pro audio reference (or both)? Whereabouts in Canada are you from (I’m from Nova Scotia). Cheers!

 

Haha it's both! I'm from Vancouver. Never been to NS but would love to come check it out!

 

Hello all,

Glad to have the opportunity to be a part of SBAF - I'm a budding enthusiast looking to get deeper into the rabbit hole.

I've loved music my whole life but never truly got into HiFI until I tried a pair of HD600s with some tubes at my cousin-in-law's place.

Now my favorite past-time is to come home from work and mellow down with my current setup. Have a Topping E30 DAC and a DarkVoice 336SE OTL tube amp with a pair of gifted HD560s.

I listen to a lot of the classics (Beatles, Oasis, etc.) mixed in with some modern music. Looking to get into more high-end gear like ZMFs and HD800s.

Also did not realize I should've came up with a cool username like everyone else here.

Anyways, thanks for reading. Happy holidays to you!

 

Still cooler than mine. Welcome.

 

Hello, been lurking and reading for a while, thought I'd make an account. I read all the big HiFi web forums but most don't look like a compelling home-base, Registering here because SBAF seems a fair bit more close knit which is attractive.

On the topic of measurements, I think most of the attitudes I've seen on SBAF comes closest to my personal philosophy about measurements. I'm an electron microscopist with a terminal degree in my field, so I understand well that measurements are indirect, and only as good as their correlation with what property you are actually trying to determine (and the correlation is never perfect). I also firmly believe in Goodhart's law (or the general interpretation of it). Perhaps I could sum this up as "if the best measuring equipment makes me feel less happy when I listen to music on it, I don't want it". I like tinkering with electronics and can follow most conversations and read some schematics, but I'm very much an amateur/hobbyist. I am, however, extremely well versed in Fourier space/signal processing, thanks to that being the main thrust of my profession.

I listen to a lot of blues, blues rock, psych rock, ibiza pop, and getting into some folk lately. My "favorite" bands oscillate quite a bit but the Black Keys and Gary Clark Jr. come up a lot. On the pop side Morcheeba and Zero 7 are big hits for me. Lesser known in psych rock would Kundalini Genie, and for ibiza pop I've been enjoying Elder Island who I don't think have reached real mainstream success yet.

Currently listening on 6XXs, E-MU Teaks, and LCD-2s, for near-field I have some Fluance SX6, and in my living room, Wharfedale Diamon 12.4s. I dabble in guitar and piano, but am really truly awful at both.

 

Hello friends - if that is not too presumptuous.

I found this forum whilst scouring the web for reviews of the Drop x Beyerdynamic DT177X headphones that rang true in terms of philosophical approach and methodology. This followed a fruitless and frustrating period trying to find wireless headphones that suited my preferences - none did that I can afford. Thus here I am, feeling grateful to @purr1n and @CEE TEE for their threads and posts, enjoying the sound and shamelessly copying the latter's wireless mod.

Being a bit of a neo-luddite; unsatisfied with many manufacturer's attitudes to repairability and the algorithmic cul-de-sacs music streaming services send you down, I find myself converted back to primarily wired headphones and earphones, supporting artists more directly via Bandcamp and so on, and restoring a trusty old Lenco L75 record player.

So thank you SBAF for existing and I hope I can contribute... something!

 

Yours always sounded like onomatopoeia for a gut punch

 

The Forbidden Name hahaha

 

Rejoining as my old account disappeared. Looking forward to connecting!

 

Long time lurker introducing myself. I've been into music and audio all of my life, mostly 2 channel. Many years of grad school and then a job in academia has meant I've been on the cheaper side of things. Systems have evolved from JBLs in the 80s, Vandersteens in the 90s, Gallos in the early 2000s, to the current Spatial Audio speakers, most of the systems being driven by small ARC tube amps. Had a daughter 8 years ago and switched my listening over to headphones. SBAF has been invaluable for making that transition. Purchased a pair of SR1A right at the beginning of covid, which is, undoubtedly, my best audio purchase ever. Hoping to get on the CA-1A loaner tour!