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Welcome New Members to ASR, introduce yourself here.

mathomas

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Have lurked for a while but just joined today. I have really enjoyed seeing how various equipment of varying cost, sophistication, and reputation fare under the microscope of testing.

I’ve been into audio since I was dirt poor kid with pieced together half-assed hand-me-down systems and speakers I “built” with washing machine boxes and car stereo speakers (yes, really). I endlessly pored over catalogs and magazines and had a folder of glossy promo materials I kept in a binder (I was the same with photography: poor but passionate). The mags of those days focused pretty heavily on measurements, so I consider measurements very important, at least as the “table stakes” for consideration as a quality component.

One of the first things I did when I got my first real job (as a software engineer) in the 80s was to buy a “real“ set of hifi front-end components on store credit from a nice shop in Detroit area. I got a Yamaha A-510 Integrated (I think that was the model) and a B&O turntable. Was one of the most exciting days of my life, though I had to limp with hand-me-down speakers a while longer.

Since those days I’ve been in and out of the game to different degrees of craziness. Though my financial means have changed a LOT, I still tend to look for things that seem to be on the knee of the price/performance curve and find myself at turns offended by, then drawn to, high-end gear. I listen both because I love music, AND I love sound Itself. For example, I listen to certain jazz recordings (and generally ECM as a label) just because the cymbals sound so good.

I continue to be mostly an objectivist in favor of blind testing, and find hard-core subjectivists a bit hard to take depending upon the position they are espousing. I’m not religious, and I find a lot of subjectivism edging into religiosity, so it’s off-putting. I was so glad to find this site!
 

TheBatsEar

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JSmith

JSmith

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JSmith
 

TheBatsEar

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carvin

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Hi All,

New old guy. Came here via Amir's videos. Like many others, long time lurker.

Got into hifi in the 70's with Heathkit, Marantz, Dual & BIC speakers. Dad had an old Stromberg Carlson all-in-one LP, amp & speaker.
First concert was Zeppelin 1977. Played guitar in local metal band. After that ended, I discovered the music that Miles made during his electric & fusion period and I became an instrumental jazz convert.
 
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TheBatsEar

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After that ended, I discovered the music that Miles made during his electric & fusion period and I became a instrumental jazz convert.

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This is what i imagine instrumental jazz converts look like, burdened by existential pains ...

Welcome :cool:
 

Astoneroad

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I've been binging on Will Durant's 11 volumes of "The Story of Civilization" for several years. (Volumes 3, 5 & 7 are personal favorites) One of the recurring threads through the fabric of humanity in the last 3000 +/- years is the confrontation between science and "belief"... somehow I ended up at ASR... lol. It's like when I first heard the Grateful Dead in 1970... a veil was lifted and it was like night and day.... wait a minute... that was my experience with my first $1k power cord too. Anyways... Amir is doing our hi fi community a huge service by lifting the veil on the flood of misinformation that has always been sold to the masses since the dawn of man. Anybody wanna buy a $1k power cord... it's a genuine relic... so help me...

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Astoneroad

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View attachment 192799
This is what i imagine instrumental jazz converts look like, burdened by existential pains ...

Welcome :cool:
Well... for the "existential pains" part of the persona... this kitty definitely needs a beret (and perhaps a copy of Camus tucked beneath its leg. :cool:

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Vacceo

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I realized I haven´t said hello to you all in a more structured way!

I arrived at this forum looking for serious reviews on the components I intend to replace on my system, which is esentially the whole thing. So far I have been using a second (or forth...) hand set of KEF IQ´s, a Denon AVR 2608 and a collection of around 7000 records between vynil and CD. This is, I think, the right place to get my noise to sound, well, noisy, but not with distortion not already present.

By trade I´m the almost polar opposite of the engineer you can usually find around here. I teach history, art and geography, write research of social anthropology and cultural theory. When i type or read (a lot of hours), there is always music running. Most of what I listen is also the direct opposite of "audiophile" music, so I guess that makes me an "audiophobe"? :cool:

I listen to Death and Black Metal along with touches of Industrial, here and there. I still have a soft spot for the big rock names like Pink Floyd or King Crimson, though, so I guess post rock also comes naturally.
 

TheBatsEar

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I realized I haven´t said hello to you all in a more structured way!
Cheers mate :cool:

I arrived at this forum looking for serious reviews on the components I intend to replace on my system, which is esentially the whole thing. So far I have been using a second (or forth...) hand set of KEF IQ´s, a Denon AVR 2608 and a collection of around 7000 records between vynil and CD. This is, I think, the right place to get my noise to sound, well, noisy, but not with distortion not already present.
Yes, i think it is.
Impressive numbers btw. I also collect, but most of it on harddisk. My physical collection is now less than 1000 CDs and maybe 300 LPs.

Most of what I listen is also the direct opposite of "audiophile" music, so I guess that makes me an "audiophobe"? :cool:
Music is good when the music is good, even if the recording is flawed.
IMHO you can't destroy a good tune with a bad recording.
But your stuff isn't bad. Share a pic of your living room/listening space, we have a thread for that somewhere.

I listen to Death and Black Metal along with touches of Industrial, here and there. I still have a soft spot for the big rock names like Pink Floyd or King Crimson, though, so I guess post rock also comes naturally.
This bat likes your style!
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Vacceo

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Speaking of bats and phobia, this is what I have currently playing:


If there was a reason I couldn´t trust the Guttembergs, Robinsons, or Franciscos del Pozo (I´m located in Spain, the guy is a reviewer from here with a decent audience) of the interwebs, is because not a single one of them listens to anything remotely close to what I typically do.

When some time ago I was able to listen to Sodom´s classic Nuclear Winter in a pair of Magnepans, I though it sounded like absolute garbage. With no real blasting drums nor Onkel Tom´s voice sounding right I realized most reviewers were simply used to sounds that they liked even if they listened to them in a bathroom.

Some elements of sound are quite hard to communicate, but with numbers and technical explanations, at least I will know if a subwoofer will be able to really play Pitchshifter´s Industrial on the whole recorded spectrum of sounds.
 

TheBatsEar

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Speaking of bats and phobia, this is what I have currently playing:

This is some serius stuff, my man. Started a bit like old school gothic, which i like, then metal on fast forward, then some grunting. It's like opera, WTF are you singing about? Where are the lyrics, please?

Could be my cup of tea, except for the grunting. :)

If there was a reason I couldn´t trust the Guttembergs, Robinsons, or Franciscos del Pozo (I´m located in Spain, the guy is a reviewer from here with a decent audience) of the interwebs, is because not a single one of them listens to anything remotely close to what I typically do.
I think they do listen to strange stuff, but they give the public what they think will hit the broadest market.

For example, there is a Dude called Techmoan. British middle class, aging man, a few kilos overweight, greying. He likes to listen to hard core ganster rap, which i find is hilarious.

I listen to dark wave and gothic, industrial, sometimes real morbid stuff, sometimes New Wave that comes in questionable quality, but that doesn't matter, because i keep it to myself.

If asked by my peers, i say i listen to Sara K, Rebecca Pigeon, Charlie Mingus and get the recognition i so desperately crave.;)

When some time ago I was able to listen to Sodom´s classic Nuclear Winter in a pair of Magnepans, I though it sounded like absolute garbage.
My experience is that everything coming from Magnepans sounds like garbage.

Some elements of sound are quite hard to communicate, but with numbers and technical explanations, at least I will know if a subwoofer will be able to really play Pitchshifter´s Industrial on the whole recorded spectrum of sounds.
That's the way to go, me thinks.

Anyway, this is what i was listening to just now. A song about politicians and their fight to the top, imagine it was written with Putin in mind.
It's far from Audiophile reference music:
 
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Vacceo

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Cryptopsy is one of the best (IMHO)
Death Metal bands from Canada. The drummer, Flo Mounier, is an absolute beast of musician, able to play the kind of twisted jazz Mitch Harris did in Painkiller combined with the speed of a jet fighter.

They have had a nice number of singers throughout the years, the one you get on None So Vile is Dan Greening AKA Lord Worm, perhaps one of the best growlers in the genre. They have had another monsters like Mike DiSalvo over the years. If you like morbid and twisted, you´ll love Lord Worm´s ones found in their first records. Phobophile´s lyrics are quite gruesome, so are Cold Hate, Warm Blood and White Worms (both found in Whisper Supremacy). I´ll leave to you to look for them, I think that by defining phobophilia as the atraction to terror combined with the kind of sound, should give a general idea of what is inside.

This is the kind of music that really, really shines when played on a good system. The technical skills of the musicians, combined with the fairly clean production sounds insane on good gears like Genelecs (I got an acquintance with a record studio that uses them).

The other leg of the trip to this welcoming house is in the fact that during the lock down I discovered that hooking up the pc to an AVR that plays the sounds from Doom Eternal at non-reasonable volumes is a gazillon times better than punny pc speakers or headphones.

Damn, the chainsaw or those "rip and tear" sound insane on old KEF´s, so I cannot imagine on more modern KEF´s (or other manufacturer, that is what I am trying to decide).
 

Ricardus

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Greetings. I am a musician and home stereo lover (I freakin REFUSE to use the word "Audiophile"). I also build gear and work in studios as a recording engineer.

I've been watching Amir's videos on youtube for a lone time, but didn't join the forum til the other day.

I have some strong opinions on music reproduction and music recording, and have taken great interest in his discussions with Paul from PS Audio, because I have been watching Paul's studio build videos with great amusement. That's all I'll say about Paul!

Lots to see here.
 
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