I'd like to say that I sit and listen through whole albums - but reality is I'll usually stick with a "side" at most, before moving on. But with streaming (or PC / music server), I find it much harder to fight the urge to jump around - and when the jumping around gets too crazy, I stop enjoying...

@Aspirant Audiophile I use vinyl with Stax. It's absolutely wonderful (009 / DIY T2). It's just that I spend the vast majority of listening time in front of speakers these days (Tannoys). You'll want a really good phono stage. Consider that with a typical MC cartridge, you're looking at up to...

I like the Fluance tables at price points $500 and below. You don't need an after-market PC for a turntable, and you DEFINITELY don't want a fat stiff microphonic power cable anywhere near it. That only becomes OK when you have very substantial separate motor pods (e.g. VPI), which does not...

I think the L700's bass output has tendency to be a little tubby (by electrostatic standards), and this is perhaps not always the best pairing with the OG DIY T2's increased bass output. But I actually loved the L700 out of BHSE and Kerry's T2 - proving how subjective this topic is. I've...

Well speaking of Mikhail, I remembered I have these ancient circa-2006 pics:

Beautiful example of this wonderful headphone. Serial # 054. Amazing wood grain - some of the best cups I've seen. Mint condition, very low hours - not even fully burned in. This has the stock 4-pin XLR cable. It sounds awesome! This was to be my reserve pair. But alas, I have once again...

Why would I sell my favorite headphone amplifier on earth? Because I currently own TWO of these amps, and that's extravagant even by my standards. Why do I own two? Well, my first T2 (also commissioned from George Parris, circa 2018) took a little tumble onto the ground courtesy of USA / Canada...

Same. I've spent a lot of time and money playing with high end interconnects, power cords, isolation devices, power conditioners, etc etc. These days, my attitude leans ever closer to "to hell with them!", though I still have a lot of this stuff. They can seem to have a "large" impact on first...

Newer generations like you guys are much better about this. In the early head-fi days, over 20 years ago, I bought Grado SR-225 from an older fellow named Lou Tucci. He was quite a character on these forums! And quite a smoker. His SR-225 reeked of cigarettes, and the white driver cloth was...

The VAST majority of audiophiles these days are smoke free in their domiciles. I haven't bought any used gear with the "ashtray" smell in years. But it sure is a bummer when that happens!

I know the DIY T2 has "upside down" XLR's, but I seem to recall this being pretty prevalent in general for the "DIY" genre of estat amps. Pretty sure it's this way too on my KGSShv and hev90-balanced builds. This orientation works great if you're coming from a balanced source in the shelf...

Have you guys ever tried a 12BH7 sub in place of 12AU7 / ECC82? Like E80CC it draws double the heater current, but its mu / gain is much closer to 12AU7 and in practice it acts like a more powerful, dynamic 12AU7. With speaker amps I found it a particularly potent sub where you have a sad little...

Nor should you feel the need! That Aries & Graham is a great rig. Once you have a solid deck like that, I feel that 90 - 95% of your resultant sound comes down to the following: Cartridge & phono stage choice. These are by far the biggest influence on sound. They need to be a good match to each...

Trying something new-to-me in the office (#2) system. A previously used VPI Avenger Reference. Love it! The Clearaudio Innovation Compact sounded good, but its magnetic bearing was NOT a good fit for this room. I can play louder with the VPI. Even more so now that I swapped the amp to NAD M22...

Great setup! Wow. Does your original FR cue assembly still work well? Mine was gone - no more damping. I replaced it with the Audio Silente replacement part. MUCH better, and much safer again for my Blue Lace :)...