hifi

first up is this system with Vimberg speakers, Metronome DAC/streamer, Vinnie Rossi hybrid tube/solid-state amps and preamp. $120k+ USD total.

pretty meh, nothing special. had some weird colouration, tonality didn’t sound right to me. honestly if I were an outsider to the industry and walked in, I’d never guess this was worth the same $$ as a really nice car.

Fitness

All the folks posting about how much they exercise got me excited to hit the gym. Today's workout: 

Installing a woodchip path.

First up was a grape hoe warmup. About 1.5 hours of methodically chopping the grass out for the path really gets the shoulders and core warmed up.

It's a really good day for me on Farcaster when I get to read both a hifi thread from @matthewb AND a backyard-project thread from @trigs. 

My favorite way to learn is to just listen to smart people talk about what they enjoy, and take notes.

Farcaster-native research: https://paragraph.xyz/@matthewb | prev. Juicebox, Nouns, RAW DAO | casting about coffee, hi-fi, and other rabbit holes

It's a really good day for me on Farcaster when I get to read both a hifi thread from @matthewb AND a backyard-project thread from @trigs. 

My favorite way to learn is to just listen to smart people talk about what they enjoy, and take notes.

https://warpcast.com/matthewb/0xa96ababc
https://warpcast.com/trigs/0x07aa3b1d

some detail shots and additional notes from the show, starting with the Acora room.

didn’t get any photos of the stone speakers (sorry) but you can see the Audio Research gear and VPI turntable a bit easier here. it was dark as hell though.

Audio Research is a U.S. company founded in 1970 in Minnesota known for making high power tube amps and preamps that lean more analytical, less romantic and “tubey.” almost like a mix of solid state and tube attributes.

in general you can think of tube vs. solid state as romantic vs. technical or lush vs. detailed, but of course it’s more complex than these reductive descriptors. many feel that tubes sound more like real music, whereas others prefer the precision of solid state.

some people love Audio Research’s approach (“tube sound with the detail of solid state!”) whereas others find that it sounds bleached (not saturated enough) i.e. without the characteristic warmth of tube gear.

as always, your mileage will vary.

Writer, senior editor, music nerd, GenX eldergoth, monastery-bootstrapper. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson https://tinyurl.com/Black-Stone-Wordsmith

There's a part 2 also? 😍 Thank you. Will read it shortly!

also here’s pt. 2 for the big nerds:

https://warpcast.com/matthewb/0x94894aeb

very happy that I could make your day better, Danica! 💜

I don’t always muster up the time to write these chunky threads but it brings me joy to know they make others days better.

Proving that the real alpha is the people and threads we read along the way 😎🤌