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What is your daily job ? ... any hobbies ?

solderdude

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I am curious about what 'audio science review' members do for a living (or are retired) and if they have hobbies other than audio.

I'll kick of.

Daily job: is designing, building (manufacture), FAT and service electronics for railway measurement systems.
Used to work in audio/video repairs, installs, service untill about 20 years ago.
Worked for the Dutch importer for Technics/Panasonic and later for JVC and after that for a high-end AV shop.

hobbies: did photography for many years , audio (headphones mostly these days), filling maintaining a website, designing electronics for others and myself also used to ride motorcycle now and then.

had a technical education and continue to learn every day.
 
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Thomas savage

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Day job ; drywall contractor ( on the tools for 23 years) .

I don’t really consider myself as having ‘ hobbies’ I do enjoy a variety of things outside work many of which seem interconnected by certain themes that themselves could be considered my core interests but I won’t bore you all with that , non involve me spending a lot of time in my garage trying to straighten out a bit of wood or obsessing about train engines and spending a disproportionate amount of time standing on a bridge with a flask of tea and a notebook and pencil.

Had no effective formal education in my formative years, barley able to read or write on leaving school I did do a year studying microcomputer and associated technologies at College ( did not have the grades to get on the course but they allowed me to take a few aptitude tests that revealed my potential suitability best they had seen apparently ha ha. ) . Unfortunately I’d just not really learnt how to learn ( something you all will take for granted) and did not have the self confidence and belief to get though the struggle so quit to start my journey in drywall.

In my work life I’m considered simply incredible, my application and ability in my field beyond anything anyone has ever seen before and to many simply unbelievable let alone replicatable ( not a official word apparently lol) but then it’s just spreading shit on a wall so nothing to get excited about lol .

I don’t really rely on any of the above in terms of ‘defining ‘ myself so I’m not sure how useful or relevant it is to any of you but make of it what you will.

Something relevant, Why i took the job of moderator ( as it’s a kinda job I guess ) ..,
A. I felt a emotional affinity with amir , he appeared fair minded and stuck up for guys vs bullies and i generally liked him so offered my help and my thoughts to him before this place got started. I also weirdly felt very protective towards him, he’d done a lot of fighting and I felt he deserved someone to fight for him back. Bloody weird thinking about it lol

B. I thought it would help my writing and be a point of personal development, I was illiterate before I started posting on WBF 4 years ago as a few here will attest to lol .

C. I thought I could do it, generally that’s rare for me but I grew up around conflict and I’m a natural peacemaker. I have to be useful, know I’m useful not just delude myself to that belief. As long as I think I’m useful y'all are stuck with me.

D. Crafting something like this, being in the wheel house from the start was and still is a privilege so thanks to you all for allowing me to carry on and generally being respectful towards me.

A additional thing you don’t know about me, it takes me fucking ages to write even simple paragraphs , often having to re-read them several times over so discharging my moderator duties here takes more effort,care and time on my behalf than probably any other guy doing comparable works.

That’s a lot more than the OP but with me you will often get a lot more than you bargained for, just ask poor old amir.
 

maverickronin

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I'm a jack-of-all-trades at a small IT firm. Mostly I'm the last line of defense on the help desk. When thing are quiet I work on automation and scripting with a dash of programming and web development thrown in.

Besides audio equipment I have a couple other money sinks.

I have a slightly excessive custom PC build with an OCed 6900K, 64GB of RAM, and 8 drive RAID6 among other things. GPU is 'only' a GTX 970. I play plenty of games but have next to no interest in 99% of AAA releases so it's plenty fast enough. I usually prefer action platformers, RPGs, shumps, RPGs, visual novels, puzzle games, and the occasional fighter.

In the last couple years I've gotten into fountain pens and inks pretty hard. I like to take notes on everything and I can't stand attempting to on a phone or tablet. Changing ink color every couple days fun too. Plus, in that world people will mostly admit it's basically just 'jewelry' anyway.

I also have a pet bird, ひかる (Hikaru), a Jenday conure. Here she is perching on a Woo Audio headphone stand.

cYrkcZg.jpg
 

andreasmaaan

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Nice idea @solderdude :)

These days I’m a part-time musician/DJ/producer, and I organise an online mix series and run ambient/techno events in Berlin, where I’ve lived for about 5 years. Also play a bit of synth in post-punky kinda band. I used to be a lawyer in my hometown of Melbourne (Aus) and I now work freelance for law firms here, doing English language legal drafting and training etc. I also do custom PA speakers on the side and am currently setting up a business to put a small range of my designs to market, so I hope this will eventually account for a larger part of my time/income...

In a position for the first time where I’m genuinely enjoying most of the work I do (other than the copious amounts of admin involved in having a number of separate businesses...)
 
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stunta

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I am a software engineer (been at it for 15+ years). Without giving away too much, I am guessing most of you have used something I have worked on at some point. The last few years I was focusing on an AI feature as an architect, lead and developer. Now I am in an infrastructure team (by choice) worrying about resource consumption across datacenters - its quite different; exciting at times and at other times it tempts me to retire and run away somewhere and become a monk. Contrary to the stereotype, I am not at all nerdy; I am not a coding guru either - I just like to design things properly and the rest kinda falls in place. Overall its okay because it lets me enjoy my other interests (not hobbies really) like traveling the world, trying to compensate for lack of photography skills with high-end camera gear (still failing at it), splurging on hifi, food, etc. I have a keen interest in financial investments and when I am not on ASR, I am usually on one some financial blog or email list.

Speaking of ASR, I've completely stopped visiting other hifi forums (unless linked to by ASR members) after finding ASR. I am not technical at all in this field, but I am smart enough to know who is, so I am mostly here absorbing all that I can. I am very grateful to folks on here for sharing.
 

oivavoi

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Me, I'm far from having any technical background at all! I'm a social scientist, doing my PhD at the moment and working as a researcher at a research institute in Norway.

What brought me to hifi and audio was actually not a technical interest in itself, but rather music. Music is my big hobby and passion in life. I've been a passionate listener to classical, rock and jazz since my early teens. I also sing in a semi-professional classical choir, play a lot on the piano and compose music from time to time (nothing recorded yet... but hopefully in the future). I became annoyed that recorded music never sounded like the real thing, and started exploring the world of high fidelity. I guess I spend time at ASR because I can't shake my scientific and analytical approach to things, even when it comes to audio and music.

Otherwise, I enjoy reading literature (Murakami as we speak), and hiking/trekking in nature (I am a Norwegian after all). No cats, dogs or kids yet, but a beautiful and lovely soon to be wife. That's it I guess.
 

Sal1950

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Day job is spending my Social Security payments now that I'm retired.
After my military service I spent 40 years as a mechanic/machinist in the automotive and motorcycle industry. Biggest passion was building high performance engines of various types.
Motorcycling was my number 1 pastime on both HD cruisers and custom sport-bikes, Ducati, etc. Now physical problems have mostly caused me to retire from that side of life also. :(
My other lifelong passion is firearms and various types of sport shooting. Enjoy doing minor custom gunsmithing work on handguns, focused mainly on target trigger work.
Three types of beautiful music in this life, that performed on musical instruments, that made by high compression V-Twin and V-8 engines, and that made by a max loaded, short barreled, magnum handgun. :)
 

mansr

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Three types of beautiful music in this life, that performed on musical instruments, that made by high compression V-Twin and V-8 engines, and that made by a max loaded, short barreled, magnum handgun.
Guess you like this then:
Can't find one performed as a drive-by on a bike.
 

Sal1950

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stunta

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My other lifelong passion is firearms and various types of sport shooting

What is it about guns that makes it your passion? I have only fired a weapon (some hand gun) at a shooting range once and its pretty scary.
 

stunta

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He's a redneck. ;-)
That maybe so, but I am genuinely curious. If music leads to someone becoming an audiophile, what leads someone to like guns? I hope its not violence :)
 

Wombat

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That maybe so, but I am genuinely curious. If music leads to someone becoming an audiophile, what leads someone to like guns? I hope its not violence :)

A Hopalong Cassidy cowboy suit in boyhood? :rolleyes:
 

BillH

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Day job - I help run a group of scientists and engineers in the chemical, microsystem and nanoscale technology group at MIT-LL. My background is solid state physics and photonics. I got into physics because I wanted to design speakers when i was a kid. I was into hifi especially after hearing some Fried studio monitors at a shop on Newbury street play a Sheffield disc in Boston - the soundstage blew me away.
Hobbies: I used to take my DAT around to shows in Boston and record anything and everything. I have a few hundred live tapes. Played a lot of ultimate and tennis. I have a ski family - I snowboard (carver). I also garden.
 

Guermantes

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My work is forensic audio, so I spend most of the day trying to extract intelligible speech from the noise floors of poor recordings.

Hobbies are classical guitar, listening to/writing music (I freelanced as a film composer and sound designer for a while), haiku, books (Italo Calvino, Marcel Proust, Tolkien, Gilles Deleuze), photography, auteur films (especially Ozu and Tarkovsky). But most of my spare time is spent with my little man.
 

hvbias

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What is it about guns that makes it your passion? I have only fired a weapon (some hand gun) at a shooting range once and its pretty scary.

You are no Charlie Kelly then :)


 
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