Hi folks!

[Furio]

Happy to join, folks.

You gave me moments of hilarious entertainment during a difficult August holiday.
All this fun and some hints I found here and there deserve my attention, and the little payment.
This is a nice place.
Where music lovers discuss freely, and there is no guru trying to impose false, sure statements.
I found myself uncomfortable in some italian hifi forum, where there are people so sure of their golden ears, never a doubt, suggesting incredible combinations and ways to improve the quality of your domestic sound.

I am not so expert in English to find the right word, probably "bullshit".
Italian is much better, we have a huge warehouse of trivial words to define stupid things.

To give you a small hint about who I am, I graduated as Electronic Engineer in a well known italian University (Politecnico di Torino)
I am proud of that also if I am not an engineer at all, I can play that role, but not too seriously.
I am probably better defined with the words "not professional musician", as I play keyboards in some rock groups, covers of classic rock mainly.
I am a synthesizer freak, fond of all analog knobs and plugs.

I get a decent living from a job as sales manager in a big chemical firm (far away from my background and my passion), but they pay me enough to buy keyboards and sustain my life, so not bad at all.

I am sure we will have fun, more about me in another message.

 

[Furio]

Some of my devices and my musical history, useful to represent me a bit.

My parents gave me a huge gift when I was a kid: an AKAI system called here in Italy "Modulo 20".
Those 70's vertical racks with amplifier, tape deck, turnplate and tuner, from one brand.
Amplifier model was AM-2200
It was a good system for a young boy, loudspeakers were terrible (I got that very early), but the full bunch is still working in my mountain little flat.
So, maximum respect to that set of devices and their japanese engineers.
Low cost, high use.

I played my first electronic organ (a sensational Farfisa Matador) together with PinkFloyd and Genesis cassettes on that Akai system for years.
My mom for Christmas in 1974 bought for me a Korg MS20: wonderful monophonic synthesizer.
I still play that beast, high quality and high emotion content (depicted in my avatar, I looooove it!)
Many keyobards changed but MS-20 is still there (now on a Yamaha Clavinova digital piano).

Then when I grew up I sold my first CPU (Commodore 64) to buy a NAD 3130 and then I bought a Philips CD player, model CD150.
Intention was to purchase the famous NAD 3120, but it was just out of catalog, new model was not so good as his predecessor.
I never loved that amplifier, too harsh and brittle in my ears, and CD player maybe was even worse.

I found a decent thing with an italian valve integrated amplifier lent by a university mate: Unison Triode 20
Then I started to play with drivers to build my own DIY speakers. Never stopped until today.

I remember that I have been figthing with infamous treble response for years, during my teen-ager epoca.
Now I know that NAD and Phlips things were both responsible for that disaster, but I changed a lot of tweeters to find the right match.
This is why I find the nowadays fans of NOS 16 bit R2R DA converters as totally irresponsible.
I hated that sound, and part of that thing I am still thinking was due to bad antialias filter, or resistor bad linearity.

After I got a job and went to Milan to build a career I bought same Unison thing and built a two way bookshelf woith Peerless KP65 woofer and Dynaudio AF28 tweeter.
That was a good match, I used it for years, together with a Sony SACD, model DVP-NS900v.
So I tasted a lot of SACD, multichannel or stereo.
That was far better sound than my first CD system.
So in my mind, new bistream or sigma-delta techniques, are much better ranked as carriers of good sound.
Prejudices maybe, but we build our knowledge with prejudices.
The wise man is clever when he finds a prejudice as it is, and he is able to cancel it.

I am happy to discover, reading here, that some multibit fan company is producing rubbish...

Anyway, after some little changes now I am placed this way:
Turntable: Thorens TD145 mkII; arm: Grace; pick-up Fidelity Research FR1 mkII
Pre-pre (battery operated) and valve pre-phono (both built by one friend)
Digital Source: Oppo BDP-105
Preamplifier: monotriod (built by same friend).
Final amp: Hypex NC400 based (built by same friend)
HT amplifier: Denon AVR-3808
Loudspeaker: built by same friend with Audax woofer, Peerless mid and Dynaudio tweeter.
Synology NAS DS415play where my library of 4500 CDs stays safe

Future changes, not urgent.
Buy a used, balanced pre-amp (maybe Primare or Classè or Bryston): I have a balanced source and a balanced power amp, I need full balanced path.
Build an i7 audio PC to use Roon (maybe fanless),
Buy a DAC to avoid limitations of Oppo (it is first series, it cannot play SACD files from USB),
Design a new loudpseaker, too much time has passed with current release...

I am sure I will find here some good suggestions, first one already came (I just ordered Topping DX7s from Massdrop)

Long life to chinese democratic devices: in Europe we have lower salaries than in USA, we need good and cheap devices.
Class D and DACs help a lot!