Question for Sean

[PhilNYC]

Sorry if this question has already been asked, but I'm sure there are a lot of folks here that would like to know. Sean, do you consider yourself an audiophile? And if so, what kind of gear do you run at home?

[sleepysurf]

GREAT question! And, perhaps more importantly, are *any* of the actual Slimserver software development team "audiophiles"? If not, we need to arrange demos for them!

[pfarrell]

PhilNYC said:
> Sorry if this question has already been asked, but I'm sure there are a
> lot of folks here that would like to know. Sean, do you consider
> yourself an audiophile? And if so, what kind of gear do you run at
> home?

I'm not Sean, but he is an engineer. Most of the engineers that I know,
and many like music and put big bucks into audio gear, don't like the term
"audiophile" because some of the stuff out there being flacked, like ink
to color the edges of a CD, or $100 blocks of wood to hold your speaker
wire in alignment, tend to cause engineers to skoff.

And don't all real audiophiles wax endlessly about how vinyl is better?


Pat
http://www.pfarrell.com

[seanadams]

Sorry if this question has already been asked, but I'm sure there are a lot of folks here that would like to know. Sean, do you consider yourself an audiophile?

Absolutely!

And if so, what kind of gear do you run at home?

Mostly I listen in my bed room to a wall-mounted B&O 9000 with SB2 on the AUX input, an Adcom amp on the line outs, and a set of Energy floor standing speakers. The speakers are pretty and match my furniture, but they sound horrible (muddy one-note bass), so they're going soon - problem is I can't find a good full-range speaker that will fit in the space I need them to, so I may end up building my own sealed sub box to go somewhere else in the room, and putting Vienna Acoustics up on the wall. Next on the list is to swap out the Adcom for a McIntosh and set the SB3 right on top of it.

In the living room I have big Infinity studio monitors which have incredibly good bass, running off a Rotel receiver for the A/V system.

In the past I've been really into car audio - fun stuff because in such a small space there's really a lot that you have to tweak to get it right. Active crossovers, passive crossovers, sub enclosure geometry, tweeter angles... tiny tweaks make a huge difference in the car.

[kjg]

$100 blocks of wood? No self respecting audiophile would use something
so cheap ;-)

Pat Farrell wrote:

>PhilNYC said:
>
>
>>Sorry if this question has already been asked, but I'm sure there are a
>>lot of folks here that would like to know. Sean, do you consider
>>yourself an audiophile? And if so, what kind of gear do you run at
>>home?
>>
>>
>
>I'm not Sean, but he is an engineer. Most of the engineers that I know,
>and many like music and put big bucks into audio gear, don't like the term
>"audiophile" because some of the stuff out there being flacked, like ink
>to color the edges of a CD, or $100 blocks of wood to hold your speaker
>wire in alignment, tend to cause engineers to skoff.
>
>And don't all real audiophiles wax endlessly about how vinyl is better?
>
>
>Pat
>http://www.pfarrell.com
>
>

[PhilNYC]

$100 blocks of wood? No self respecting audiophile would use something
so cheap ;-)

Darn, you beat me to it... ;-)

Sean, nice to hear that you are afflicted just like the rest of us. However, I noticed that you didn't discuss the cables and power conditioning used, so at the moment, you only qualify as a "newbie audiophile"... ;-)

[seanadams]

Darn, you beat me to it... ;-)

Sean, nice to hear that you are afflicted just like the rest of us. However, I noticed that you didn't discuss the cables and power conditioning used, so at the moment, you only qualify as a "newbie audiophile"... ;-)

I'm using 12 AWG romex for the speakers, CAT5 for the RCA cables, and twinax for the AC power. Can I get my membership card now?

[seanadams]

I'm using 12 AWG romex for the speakers, CAT5 for the RCA cables, and twinax for the AC power. Can I get my membership card now?

( kidding )

[CardinalFang]

( kidding )

Ah - it was a test to see if the true audiophile would spot that you had failed to mention the direction of the cable and its orientation with repect to magnetic North.

Does anyone remember the HiFi show in the UK where Linn removed all the telephones to stop the handset speakers vibrating in response to the other HiFi speakers and so muddying the sound? I do.

No, I'm not kidding.

I gave up on the more lunatic fringes of HiFi when I realised that (a) most of the practitioners never went to live concerts and (b) they were past their 20's so their hearing was on its way down the slippery slope to ear trumpets anyway!

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to refill the treacle dampers on the tonearm on my totally non-resonant and non-magnetic entirely made of styrofoam turntable and pass the ultra rare caesium/cobalt magnets over my speaker leads to re-align all the electrons. If I don't do that, they will all all over the place and quantum effects will distort the cymbals on my Ramones CD.

Hello nurse - time for my medication already?

Paul

[dwc]

And have you placed "feet" under your speaker cable such that the cables do not come into contact with the floor?

-Dan

(whose speaker cable is made out of 14g computer power cords with the ends cut off)