Music

by popular request (okay just @ted and @nicholas) here is an overview of our hi-fi setup:

* but first, why?
listening to music can be either a passive activity, like background music while cooking or commuting, or an activity that demands your full attention. if the latter, then the quality of your experience is shaped by the ability of your system to reproduce music. this means everything from source (streaming, CD, vinyl, reel-to-reel tape) → amplification → volume control (preamp) → speakers and all of the cables in between.

maybe this all sounds dumb (who cares about cables???) but until you have a once-in-a-lifetime experience listening to a really great system, you won't know what you're missing from your favourite music. not just technical qualities like detail or extension, but emotion, texture, and meaning. hi-fi is a great real-world example of plato's cave, because once you've heard what you're missing... you can't unhear it.

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this was excellent! 

makes me want to get these speakers :)

Technowatermelon. Elder Millenial. Building Farcaster. 

nf.td/varun

thank you for reading @v!

anything in particular you want to learn more about re: hi-fi? gonna make some more content this month.

building /juicebox | product marketing & growth | prev. NounsDAO, RAW DAO | learning to code

Best setup for < $1000 and <$5000 and why

* hi-fi and jigsaw puzzles
I love giving hi-fi reccos but it is inherently difficult because we all hear differently and have different definitions of what sounds "right." as a result, there is a not insignificant amount of work that you need to do—listening to many, many speakers—before investing serious money.

at some point I'll write a much longer post about what you need to understand about yourself, your listening habits, your listening space, and your sonic preferences before investing in speakers. the decision process is quite personal: it's a jigsaw puzzle that nobody can solve on your behalf.

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wrote some thoughts on a $5k budget here: https://warpcast.com/matthewb/0xfbdfe0c3

good to know though, this is helpful! if you have other requests, lemme know and I’ll consider.

Once you’re into this as a hobby, set up is just a set up. Go cheap and used if you have to and then upgrade each component as you can. (I still use old stainless sell amps from the 70s, because they were awesome) I dont think it’s possible to buy the perfect setup out of the gate unless you are willing to drop serious cash from the start and get a pro to set it up. (That’s not fun).