New Members - Introduce Yourself

Hi all,

Just signed up. I've lurked around for a bit reading through threads over the years but the urge to sign up and contribute has taken over.

I am mostly into headphones and am looking for my "final" set of cans, all while I continue to search for a house to set up my 2.1 channel equipment. So far I have only had the market taunt me.

 

Hi Everybody,
Fabien here, 41 years old from Belgium. I work in IT and have started (but never ended) sound engineering studies a long time ago.
Passionate about music and cinema and all the technique around these two to enjoy them in the most emotionally engaging ways. The fun for me is to work and tweak my gear to the limits so that sound an image quality permit to live and enjoy the moment while forgetting about the technique behind it.
Not into headphones as living alone permits me to enjoy my music with nice old school Monitor Audio Silver 9i floor-standers driven by an Audio-GD Master 10 without annoying anybody.
I have been brought here by looking for my next DAC and music player/streamer. I then just received my Singxer SDA-6 Pro and am very excited to see how the Mercury from Pi2Design evolve.

 

Lurker here that finally signed up and who had lots of equipment through the years. Now I'm with PBN Montana XP speakers, Mcintosh 452 power amp, Cary slp-05 preamp, Denafrips terminator 2020 version + Hermes DDC, Allo digione signature served by a NAS and some network stuff, Etherregen and Cisco meraki switches f.x. Also have a Gustard A18+Topping a90 with Denon 5200 or Philips fidelio x2 for my computer listening.

 

Hello to everyone in this fine community, Another long time lurker here. I've been into audio/music since I was a little boy. Got my first system made up of old second hand gear from my dad's electronics repair shop in the mid 1980's. I ocasionally like to dabble in DIY audio a little, over the years I've managed to cobble together quite a few kit amps, preamps and DAC's. In my time I've owned and enjoyed speakers from KEF, Tannoy, ATC, Mission, Antony Gallo, Monitor Audio, Spendor, and some others that I can't remember atm. I was finally encouraged to join SBAF by the devlopment of the Mercury Streamer from Pi2Design, I hope to acquire one and partner it with a new DAC in the coming months.

 

When I was 8, I obsessed over different brands of tapes to use to record songs from the radio.
When I was in college, I bought my first headphone, the Grado 125, and headphone amplifier, the Headroom Total Airhead. Ignorance was bliss and I thought it couldn't get better.
When I graduated, I set up my first speaker system with the Axiom Audio M3 powered by the Cambridge Audio A500. It didn't sound very good but it was a start.

When I listen to tubes, I miss solid state. When I listen to solid state, I miss tubes.

I look forward to learning from and contributing to this community and hope to meet some of you someday.

 

Hello! Lurker here. I have been into home theater and DJing since my early 20's, 43 now. In 2017 a close friend and fellow DJ who I often worked with passed unexpectedly. I kind of stopped listening to music for a while and quit DJing as matter of coping with the resulting mental health issues from his death. The isolation of the pandemic gave me some time for reflection and I got back into music again. I spent a lot of time researching headphone setups for my new work form home environment and started chasing the HiFi dragons tail from there! Recently I started building out 2-channel equipment for a home bar/listening room. Bonus, my wife is totally on board!

Current equipment;

Home Theater:
OPPO UDP-203
XBOX Series X
Yamaha AVENTAGE RX-A2070BL
Pioneer Elite Speakers in 5.1.4 Atmos
LG CX OLED 77"

Headphone:
Topping D30Pro (usb to laptop)
Singxer SA-1
xDuoo TA-30
Audeze LCD-XC

2-channel:
Pi4 w/ Volumio
Audiolab 6000CDT
Denafrips Pontus II
Willsenton R8
KEF Q950

I look forward to learning new things here!

 

Hello there,
Have been lurking for years and decided to make an account! I am (foolishly?) getting into vinyl right now and will be focusing on that in the near future.

I've got ZMF Verite headphones and Schiit Dac/Amp gear.

I have learned a lot from this site and I hope to be of help someday with more experience.

 

Hi I am new here. I have been in audio hobby for more than 20 years. Mostly in hiend home audio. I also play with headphones, amps and IEMs. So glad that I can join you guys, read reviews and also express opinions.

Currently , in my 2 channel audio I have room server, bartok, Zesto Leto Pream, Manley Ichiban, Gryphon Diablo 300, Kharma speakers.

Head gear : dcs bartok, questyle cma600, Burson 3GT, empyrean, zmf Vc, Hd650 and several others headphones.

Thanks for allowing me into this community.

 

Peter from the Czech Republic here. I am a DJ, music producer & Hi-Fi enthusiast (mostly headpohones, IEMs and DAC/AMPs). I am slowly traversing from traditional headphones to IEMs as the technology makes IEMs more and more affordable. Came here to absorb some knowledge and maybe provide some of my own. I must have been a dog in my previous life, because I have extremely high frequency ceiling on my hearing ability. I can hear incredibly high frequencies others won't. Yes, I can hear those dog whistles, electrical rat traps, high-frequency coils, etc.

 

Whereas I, with HF hearing loss, can't even hear electronic-gear beeps.

I'm tempted to say lucky man! But do you feel that way? How does it affect your audio listening? Can you hear things wrong that others can't?

(Oh, and... Welcome! )

 

Pierpaolo 'pier' from Tuscany, Italy: I've been lurking since some time and I feel the need to introduce myself, first of all to say a big thank-you for the precious informations this site is sharing.

I work as an IT project manager. Passionate about music and photography since I was a child. Now I mostly stopped playing keyboard and I prefer using my headphones to enjoy the music.

Thanks again!

 

Well, in fact it is more like a curse, especially when around some high-frequency noises - those rat traps are pure torture for me for example. I cannot stay in such environment. Regarding muic experience, I can say that I don't enjoy high-pitched female vocals. Ceiline Dion track is lethal for me. I purposely avoid bright headphones and earphones to mitigate my sensitivity. I am wearing ear protection at gigs permanently when not performing - had tinnitus for three days resulting from high volume music in the past and fortunately the doctors managed to cure that away using corticosteroids.

The only benefits are that I can hear full range of high-frequency musical instruments like harp, piccolo, piano, electric guitar, etc. But I am not into orchestra movements, rock or metal, so that "advantage" is not really used.

 

Thank you very much for sharing the experience.

 

Fellow lookie-loo here, out of Cary, NC. Personally been on the headphone/speaker seesaw for years, most recently landing in the headphone realm due to kids and the inability to have a dedicated speaker room in the house. I work in clinical research, work home full time, and having the headphone setup really helps cut through the stress of the daily grind. I'm constantly looking to learn more in this hobby - with the latest journey being in optimizing the EQ for my LCD-X's, and looking to dab into the streaming world eventually.

 

Hi everyone, my name is REPRAP. Anyone know that is?
Its a self replicating machine that builds itself. Its the pandimensional offspring of Mandelbrots.

The thing I keep building is electrostatic speakers based on QUAD 57. I bought my first pair of 57s in 1975, and two years later had a stacked pair driven by Quad 2 valve amps.
I worked in TV Engineering at the ABC Sydney and learned a fair bit about recording and reproducing sound and vision.
Now retired I still am trying to improve on the electrostatics. I am up to version ten.
My main system is fully bi fed with dual DACs amps and output transformers. The nest behind my system lets me switch between analog and digital sources including Audio GD RME and Pontus. I have been tinkering with Raspberry Pi4s since Christmas. I run PCP and LMS through a SOTM reclocker to a couple of Dacs.
This lets me compare and contrast various hardware and software setups.
I am interested in understanding how and why things work.
Beyond that I like getting things to actually work!
I know that
"in theory things work the same way they do in practice.
Yet in practice, they work differently."

 

I'm the new guy and figured I'd follow the rules and post an intro here! I'm a middle aged finance guy, with 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, a spiny tailed iguana, a fat tailed gecko, a big fish tank, and a koi pond outback with 4 big koi. My hobbies are photography (a Nikon-ophile), piano and guitar, and recently got into headphones and headphone amps. I have a Schiit stack at my work from home desk (PC - Modi 3 - Loki - SYS - Asgard 3/Vali 2+). When I go into the office, I have a ifi Gryphon. I'm still learning and having fun along the way!

 

Get one of the old 70-ties (pre-)amplifiers (Sansui, Pioneer etcetera) and look for the ones with the warm and rich sound. They tend to be heavy beasts and sensitive for certain frequencies. Build a basic system around them and enjoy.

A simple reliable turn-table and nice speakers or headphones get you pretty far.

 

Hi everyone. I just signed up after putting together an
Pi2aes system with a 7 inch screen. Looking forward to learning from everyone. Currently having issues with powering up the system so I either have a build issue or perhaps there is a hardware problem.

 

Actually they emailed me about the problem this morning, but before I could respond, sent me a second email that it was an incorrectly installed cable. All set now!

 

Thanks Michael,
Totally an assemble error on my part. The best advice to determine why something is not working is to reassemble and when I did, I saw that one of the jumper cables had not been well seated. Once corrected, this thing worked like a charm. This is an amazing device. I have it set up with the 7 inch screen and have been streaming Tidal all day. Deeply engaging sonic quality! This thing was fun to put together now will give me many hours of listening pleasure.