I've mentioned before about our mobile home in the south east of Ireland, we spend as much time there as possible during the spring and summer - weather often a deciding factor as it's quite old, with no heating and pretty bad insulation. We are upgrading it this year, which is very exciting but we have such amazing memories over the last 8 years - our kids were only 6 and 9 when we first bought this one, but actually 3 and 6 when we took over the spot from my grandmother who had her mobile there since the late 80s, and I spent many summer weeks there as a child too.
Anyway, we had to clear it out yesterday and we had all our favourite songs from over the years playing, which led to tears at some point in the day from us all! We took countless photos and videos but this one is my favourite - as we shut the door for the last time, we had a look in the window from the deck to the living room/kitchen area - a humble affair but we've loved it and it was as much as we could afford at the time... we were talking about imagining ourselves in there at various points over the years - music, DVDs, games, cards, meals, etc etc and how strange it felt to say goodbye, even though we are very excited about the new mobile arriving tomorrow. My daughter intended to take a photo of inside from outside, but as she took it, she commented on our reflection in the window how it's like us fading out of the mobile, a fitting final family shot.
My daughter intended to take a photo of inside from outside, but as she took it, she commented on our reflection in the window how it's like us fading out of the mobile, a fitting final family shot.
Love this, imagining the kids when they were younger running around excited. We are soon selling the house I raised my children in, bringing forward so many memories, my Wife and I as newlyweds spending our first night there, the place seeming so big, to how it felt last year so crowded and so small. The visits to that home of family and friends some of them now only with us in spirit.
Reminded me of this shot from 2015 in Dublin at the Guinness museum, was less than adequate light combined with exposure issues, though it has a similar feeling to me. This is my Wife and my three children. Not as awesome of a story as your daughter’s capture.
Love this, imagining the kids when they were younger running around excited. We are soon selling the house I raised my children in, bringing forward so many memories, my Wife and I as newlyweds spending our first night there, the place seeming so big, to how it felt last year so crowded and so small. The visits to that home of family and friends some of them now only with us in spirit.
Reminded me of this shot from 2015 in Dublin at the Guinness museum, was less than adequate light combined with exposure issues, though it has a similar feeling to me. This is my Wife and my three children. Not as awesome of a story as your daughter’s capture.
It's such an emotional connection to a place over a period of time - so easy to have a flood of memories from over the years... especially having watched children grow from young and dependant, to pretty much independent teenagers. We even found various pictures they drew, plus old books and toys etc. We were sent a video clip a short while ago of the mobile being lifted off our site, unfortunately we couldn't be there to watch ourselves but certainly triggered another wave of emotion!
Best of luck with the sale of your house and preparations for the next chapter. Great photo too!
I'm down for it haha
I try to be as active as I could. It's such a fun forum to be on. And I'm addicted to browsing the classifieds even though I'm so broke...
LMAO tell me about it...though the classifies have been barren lately and I'm not really all that interested in anything lately anyway. There's an OG Solaris for just over $600 right now and I should really snap it up just out of principle and because I'd love to hear one again after all this time and what I"ve been through since hearing one last...but I can't be bothered honestly.
While I do love The Z1R's Bass and Treble... The more present mids coming from the SK and those gorgeous lacquered faceplates just shout "Marry Me" to my aesthetically forward brain.
I'm with you...the SK would make a better all rounder IEM for me for that reason. I appreciate the Z1R's greatness but its FR is not really ideal for me beyond merely a special teams sort of IEM.
Not to say the Z1R's weren't pretty, it's just a different type of elegance. But yeah, I agree with having them complement each other though. That's why I've never fully erased the Z1R in my sig since I'm still on a hunt to get one back. I love both of these IEMs. The Z1R is the sole reason my passion for the hobby ignited once again. After being away from the hobby for 4 years since I got the Layla way back in 2015, nothing seemed to attract my ears(and my eyes) as much as the Z1R did. I've tried the S-EM9 and Grace (this was pretty close tho lol) from Earsonics, Noble's Khan, LX and Valky from EE (I'm not gonna include the Wraith, since that did tug my heartstrings but the price scared me away at the time since it was even more expensive than the Layla when I bought it new/I could actually put the KSE1500 on this category too since both these IEMs impressed me hard but the fact that they cost so much and the KSE needing the energizer would make my transit commutes quite a bit harder), Meze's Rai Penta, Audeze's LCD-i4 (while I was pretty impressed, the form factor just didn't do it for me since I use my IEMs during transit, it would've been just an in the house kinda IEM if so I'd rather have an open-back headphone system instead). None of those really did it for me. After getting the Z1R, I decided to open my account back and finally join in the talks lol
I've been a lurker since 2008, but I felt my "know-how" was still quite a bit lacking at the time when I was very much more into full-sized cans and speakers to actually join the conversations.
But hey, here I am now, almost 3 years being back on the forums with a Headphoneus Supremus badge. Quite an accomplishment in my books haha
Cooler survey: There are many folks here who joined Head Fi at various points spanning the last 20 years or so. For those inclined set your mind back to when you joined and give a brief synopsis of the state of the hobby at that time and what your aims and passions were within it.
For me: I joined in January 2019 (I'm a pup compared to many of you here) and my intent was to find a nice pair of noise cancelling bluetooth headphones. Once I settled on the Senny PXC550 I thought I take a look at "maybe a nice pair of IEMs". I hit up Headphone Bar, fell in love with CFA's Atlas & Solaris and started lurking the portable forums here. At that time HBB was shilling the hell out of the BGPV DM6, the Andromeda was the apple of many eyes, the Solaris thread here was a former hotbed of drama, the IER Z1R was nowhere to be found in North America, Noble, VE, EE and 64 were the elite of the elite brands and the most expensive IEMs at the time were around the $3K mark.
Initial “out-of-the-box” sound thoughts… I understand why people go crazy for L&P’s R2R. It just sounds so real. Even with the electronic stuff I listen to, vocals sound incredibly natural and analogue. The tonal balance is spot on. Hard to say if it’s “warm” or “analytical” leaning because it sounds so well balanced between both. Listening now with jewel and It’s obvious that mids are the star of the show, but man, the bass hits super hard and deep and the treble sounds fantastic too. Super impressed with the sound.
Cooler survey: There are many folks here who joined Head Fi at various points spanning the last 20 years or so. For those inclined set your mind back to when you joined and give a brief synopsis of the state of the hobby at that time and what your aims and passions were within it.
All I'll say is that when I joined in April 2017, I was convinced I'd just found the best headphone on the planet (as my brother sniggeringly reminded me a few days ago). I'm very grateful to have moved on since then...
I originally joined in 2011, can't remember why exactly but likely to do with working in the industry at the time. I didn't actually post till 2018, when considering an upgrade from the Fiio X3 to Sony ZX300. I couldn't remember my password when I tried to login again in 2020, and no longer had access to my email address associated with that account... hence the new 'Scuba Devils'. Here's the old me
Cooler survey: There are many folks here who joined Head Fi at various points spanning the last 20 years or so. For those inclined set your mind back to when you joined and give a brief synopsis of the state of the hobby at that time and what your aims and passions were within it.
I'm an even younger pup... I joined Head-Fi back in November of 2020. I was searching for a pair of open back overears to compliment my Sony WH-1000XM3s which I relegated to travel use only. I landed on the HIFIMAN HE-400i 2020 along with a Schiit Magni Heresy + Modi 3 stack. I also snagged a pair of BLON BL-03s to use at the office. Done deal. I had my out and about / travel headphones, my at home open backs and my office IEMs. I thought my bases were plenty covered and that was a deep as I wanted to go in the personal audio world.
I distinctly remember browsing some of the Audeze, Focal and ZMF threads at the time and thinking to myself, "who in their right mind is buying this stuff?!" And then I found out about the EE Odin and 64 Audio IEMs and was aghast when I saw the pricing. "These people are nuts!"
I'm an even younger pup... I joined Head-Fi back in November of 2020. I was searching for a pair of open back overears to compliment my Sony WH-1000XM3s which I relegated to travel use only. I landed on the HIFIMAN HE-400i 2020 along with a Schiit Magni Heresy + Modi 3 stack. I also snagged a pair of BLON BL-03s to use at the office. Done deal. I had my out and about / travel headphones, my at home open backs and my office IEMs. I thought my bases were plenty covered and that was a deep as I wanted to go in the personal audio world.
I distinctly remember browsing some of the Auduze, Focal and ZMF threads at the time and thinking to myself, "who in their right mind is buying this stuff?!" And then I found out about the EE Odin and 64 Audio IEMs and was aghast when I saw the pricing. "These people are nuts!"
I joined again in November 2020 - the 18th, I see you were the 23rd so only 5 days between us! This time around it was Sony again, ZX507 - I spent an entire Saturday reading the dedicated thread before making a decision. Likewise, I saw mention of earphones etc that were up around $1,000, and thought it was crazy.
I joined back in 2009. I joined because I was going digital. Bought an iPod Classic (160GB) and started ripping all my CD's. Followed by buying lossless online. Started with some buds, a pair of Bose headphones and a speaker dock.
Started to really get into headphones in 2015. Started with buying B&W P5's and a pair of ATH-M50X's.
Followed by seven years of escalating lust and SO much money spent!
The upside is that right now I am pretty content. Of course never say never, as I have a used pair of Grado Hemp's on their way.
I joined again in November 2020 - the 18th, I see you were the 23rd so only 5 days between us! This time around it was Sony again, ZX507 - I spent an entire Saturday reading the dedicated thread before making a decision. Likewise, I saw mention of earphones etc that were up around $1,000, and thought it was crazy.
Funny how much our perspectives and attachment to a hobby can change in a relatively short period of time! I've always had an affinity for music but, as is true for most hobbies, I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went when it came to the gear.
Cooler survey: There are many folks here who joined Head Fi at various points spanning the last 20 years or so. For those inclined set your mind back to when you joined and give a brief synopsis of the state of the hobby at that time and what your aims and passions were within it.
I joined all the way back in 2005. At the time I was going through a bit of "hermit" phase post high school, was quite recluse and spent a lot of time online. I had always loved music and was subscribed to several high-end audio publications, and used to have a stereo system to get my audio fix. When I moved to a new place, I didn't have the space or right type of room for speakers and ended up going into personal audio.
Back then it was all about headphones. IEM's weren't particularly popular (in terms of mainstream at least), typically reserved for recording or performing artists. The benchmark was the HD650. DAPs were few and far between other than simple MP3 players like the trusty Sandisk Sansa range, and headphone amps were also quite niche. At the time I got into the hobby, Headroom was the formidable name in the conversation. There were other players too though were usually on the higher end of the spectrum servicing a smaller part of the market, like HeadAmp, Ray Samuels, Antique Sound Lab, and Single Power. And anything expensive was usually tube based. Cables played a minor role, especially in headphones, as most came with cables hardwired so any change required one to send the can to someone to mod in order to install a new cable.
If I had to state a theme it was diversity of intent. There was actually quite a lot of choice across all types of gear, but not that much overlap. Transducers, sources, and amps all operated within their own bubble and stood out from the crowd for a particular aspect of their tuning and their sound. The variations were all over the show. Comparing this to today, where I find there is differentiation coming from material, driver configs, and so forth but there are groups / camps of certain sound styles that components tend to gravitate toward. I see this as a sense of maturity, as opposed to the hippie formative years back then when it was all about experimentation and trial and error.
My aims and passions were to understand the variations of sound and doing my own experimentation. At any point in time I'd have 7-8 headphones, 2-3 sources and 4-5 amps. I eventually narrowed it down and simplified the setup.
It was only a few years ago that I got into IEMs, starting with the 64 Audio U4-SE. After a few steps up the ladder, the U12t was the "Eureka" moment of what high end IEMs were capable of, and it's been a slippery slope since then. And in the same was I streamlined on the headphone side, I've done the same on the portable audio side, ultimately preferring a simple setup that ticks the boxes rather than collecting or having a double digit number of components and / or combinations to choose from.
Cooler survey: There are many folks here who joined Head Fi at various points spanning the last 20 years or so. For those inclined set your mind back to when you joined and give a brief synopsis of the state of the hobby at that time and what your aims and passions were within it.
Also a relative newbie, the whole journey into IEMs started in 2018. I started this because the kids kept turning my music off, I had speakers in the house, in the yard, and in the shop. For a few years the kids just turned my tunes down, than at one point they starting turning them off.
It was an old school DIY installation with two receivers in the living room and all eight sets of speakers hard wired to an impedance matching switch box. I would be working in the shop or sitting in the yard and all of a sudden no music.
I first tried a set of headphones but I got pinned to the sofa. Than I thought what about in ears after a year of using blue tooth in ears playing music from my phone, I thought why not try something better since music was so important to me and those blue tooth in ears did not sound anywhere near as good as the speakers did.
My first call in 2019 was to Musicteck for a recommendation and my first conversation with Andrew, I had a modest budget to start with as I truly had no idea. I grew to respect Andrew quite a lot and on one of my subsequent visits, after my many questions about how things sound, he suggested I join HeadFi, so I did, October 2020.
Life changing this has all been for me.
I originally joined in 2011, can't remember why exactly but likely to do with working in the industry at the time. I didn't actually post till 2018, when considering an upgrade from the Fiio X3 to Sony ZX300. I couldn't remember my password when I tried to login again in 2020, and no longer had access to my email address associated with that account... hence the new 'Scuba Devils'. Here's the old me
Nice the Fiio X1 and later the X3ii along with the Sure SE215 were what planted the seeds for me long before I joined Head Fi. I remember the Fiio stuff was so refreshing because it finally liberated me from iTunes and iPods.
I distinctly remember browsing some of the Audeze, Focal and ZMF threads at the time and thinking to myself, "who in their right mind is buying this stuff?!" And then I found out about the EE Odin and 64 Audio IEMs and was aghast when I saw the pricing. "These people are nuts!"
When I joined in 2019 the "high end" stuff was about $3 - $3.5K with the only real outlier at that time being the Erlkonig, which was considered the pinnacle of luxury. I never even encountered anyone who heard it until a couple years later when the Traillii hit the scene. Now, for good or ill, such prices are more normalized.
I joined all the way back in 2005. At the time I was going through a bit of "hermit" phase post high school, was quite recluse and spent a lot of time online. I had always loved music and was subscribed to several high-end audio publications, and used to have a stereo system to get my audio fix. When I moved to a new place, I didn't have the space or right type of room for speakers and ended up going into personal audio.
Back then it was all about headphones. IEM's weren't particularly popular (in terms of mainstream at least), typically reserved for recording or performing artists. The benchmark was the HD650. DAPs were few and far between other than simple MP3 players like the trusty Sandisk Sansa range, and headphone amps were also quite niche. At the time I got into the hobby, Headroom was the formidable name in the conversation. There were other players too though were usually on the higher end of the spectrum servicing a smaller part of the market, like HeadAmp, Ray Samuels, Antique Sound Lab, and Single Power. And anything expensive was usually tube based. Cables played a minor role, especially in headphones, as most came with cables hardwired so any change required one to send the can to someone to mod in order to install a new cable.
If I had to state a theme it was diversity of intent. There was actually quite a lot of choice across all types of gear, but not that much overlap. Transducers, sources, and amps all operated within their own bubble and stood out from the crowd for a particular aspect of their tuning and their sound. The variations were all over the show. Comparing this to today, where I find there is differentiation coming from material, driver configs, and so forth but there are groups / camps of certain sound styles that components tend to gravitate toward. I see this as a sense of maturity, as opposed to the hippie formative years back then when it was all about experimentation and trial and error.
My aims and passions were to understand the variations of sound and doing my own experimentation. At any point in time I'd have 7-8 headphones, 2-3 sources and 4-5 amps. I eventually narrowed it down and simplified the setup.
It was only a few years ago that I got into IEMs, starting with the 64 Audio U4-SE. After a few steps up the ladder, the U12t was the "Eureka" moment of what high end IEMs were capable of, and it's been a slippery slope since then. And in the same was I streamlined on the headphone side, I've done the same on the portable audio side, ultimately preferring a simple setup that ticks the boxes rather than collecting or having a double digit number of components and / or combinations to choose from.
Thanks for sharing! Yes there is something quite amazing about that first experience with a truly great IEM where you get a sense of what you've been missing and what is possible.
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