Hi all!
I've been lurking for a few weeks and figured I'd make an account and start to occasionally contribute.
Some introduction and my audio background:
I'm a mechanical engineer by training (BS+MS) and trade (~6 years so far), focusing on robotics through school (alas, not exactly what I'm working on now). Exposure to the E&M side of things, playing percussion since 4th grade band, plus working in technical theater throughout college got me interested in good sounding audio. Our technical director in the college theater department built speakers as a hobby and had a very nice sound reinforcement setup in both the traditional auditorium-style and black box spaces, which I had the chance to run soundboard for a few times including live mixing of a show or two with <10 mics. The large mixer boards and full 19" rack of amps, players, EQ/DSP boxes, and a patch panel was great for learning how it all worked and how to do proper gain structure to minimize noise. Running department-produced shows with proper source material from CDs and then doing student choreography dance shows with student-provided burned CDs they cut themselves and sourced from ripping low bitrate youtube videos was also ... enlightening.
In my dorm room I got a small Tapco 6-channel mixer where I could plug in my electric bass, desktop, and laptop and listen to everything with my headphones at the same time without bothering others too much. Once I got out of school and into a salary, I could then afford my own space and got to unpack my dad's old silver Kenwood receiver with the giant knob that moved the radio carriage and plug in the 1980s Wharfdale speakers that he had with it. Big improvement in enjoyment over my headphones, though I did have to cut into one of the speaker cones when years of handling/use dislodged a tiny ball of solder that started bouncing around and buzzing and had to be removed, and the volume knob potentiometer wore out and the left channel became intermittent depending on knob position. A year or two and lots of research later (and moving into a house with my now wife), I upgraded to a 5.1 system with a basic Onkyo AVR and the best price-to-performance speakers I could find at my budget (the Pioneer Andrew Jones system including floorstanding fronts).
Outside of movies and TV, all my music is though my computer and headphones nowadays (AKG K612 at home, Senn HD280 at work). I found this forum when I started to wonder about what my next upgrade step was for my listening. I'd been happily listening to my desktop's onboard DAC (based on a Realtek ALC889) through the mixer, with the only downside I noticed being a slight hiss with nothing playing if the volume was turned up to higher-than-listenable levels. Since I'm not using multiple inputs on the mixer anymore, I decided that its 25ohm output impedence was a potential downside if my next headphones are lower impedence, so I decided to swap it for a JDS Atom (based on reviews here), which I just got yesterday and like already because I know it's future-proof for anything I plug in, and there's no hiss at any volume anymore. Of course there's no sound difference, as there shouldn't be when going from something that was already in the prosumer range.
Glad I found this place and didn't waste my money on a DAC or spend too much on an amp that would have zero audible impact. I can save my money for the subjective links in the chain - more CDs and better/different headphones.
I've been lurking for a few weeks and figured I'd make an account and start to occasionally contribute.
Some introduction and my audio background:
I'm a mechanical engineer by training (BS+MS) and trade (~6 years so far), focusing on robotics through school (alas, not exactly what I'm working on now). Exposure to the E&M side of things, playing percussion since 4th grade band, plus working in technical theater throughout college got me interested in good sounding audio. Our technical director in the college theater department built speakers as a hobby and had a very nice sound reinforcement setup in both the traditional auditorium-style and black box spaces, which I had the chance to run soundboard for a few times including live mixing of a show or two with <10 mics. The large mixer boards and full 19" rack of amps, players, EQ/DSP boxes, and a patch panel was great for learning how it all worked and how to do proper gain structure to minimize noise. Running department-produced shows with proper source material from CDs and then doing student choreography dance shows with student-provided burned CDs they cut themselves and sourced from ripping low bitrate youtube videos was also ... enlightening.
In my dorm room I got a small Tapco 6-channel mixer where I could plug in my electric bass, desktop, and laptop and listen to everything with my headphones at the same time without bothering others too much. Once I got out of school and into a salary, I could then afford my own space and got to unpack my dad's old silver Kenwood receiver with the giant knob that moved the radio carriage and plug in the 1980s Wharfdale speakers that he had with it. Big improvement in enjoyment over my headphones, though I did have to cut into one of the speaker cones when years of handling/use dislodged a tiny ball of solder that started bouncing around and buzzing and had to be removed, and the volume knob potentiometer wore out and the left channel became intermittent depending on knob position. A year or two and lots of research later (and moving into a house with my now wife), I upgraded to a 5.1 system with a basic Onkyo AVR and the best price-to-performance speakers I could find at my budget (the Pioneer Andrew Jones system including floorstanding fronts).
Outside of movies and TV, all my music is though my computer and headphones nowadays (AKG K612 at home, Senn HD280 at work). I found this forum when I started to wonder about what my next upgrade step was for my listening. I'd been happily listening to my desktop's onboard DAC (based on a Realtek ALC889) through the mixer, with the only downside I noticed being a slight hiss with nothing playing if the volume was turned up to higher-than-listenable levels. Since I'm not using multiple inputs on the mixer anymore, I decided that its 25ohm output impedence was a potential downside if my next headphones are lower impedence, so I decided to swap it for a JDS Atom (based on reviews here), which I just got yesterday and like already because I know it's future-proof for anything I plug in, and there's no hiss at any volume anymore. Of course there's no sound difference, as there shouldn't be when going from something that was already in the prosumer range.
Glad I found this place and didn't waste my money on a DAC or spend too much on an amp that would have zero audible impact. I can save my money for the subjective links in the chain - more CDs and better/different headphones.