Are you getting yourself anything nice for Xmas?

[Fran]

The title says it all - are you indulging yourself with any nice new bits over Xmas?

[hudo]

Hopefully Magnapan LRS from Kevin1 here, never had or properly listened planar speakers, that could be fun :)

Maybe will fit nicely to early christmas present to myself - Kef KC62 subwoofer, excellent discounts on black friday (not in Ireland sadly, got it from Croatia, EU so easy to buy and ship!). Very small sub, got wife approval easily. She still thinks its something cheap since its so small compared to my old RELs i had:)

[peelaaa]

Got some vinyl including Neil young's new album 'Barn' and Yann Tiersen 'Kerber'

And maybe a new turntable, I'll update on that one

[Ivor]

I think I'm ok for hardware for a while (famous last words!) but certainly the vinyl will keep coming and the post man will curse his bad back and regret not taking early retirement...

I may get my 2nd TT up and running early in 2022 - with a little help from my invaluable friends - which might justify a serious new cart.

Other than that I hope 2022 is less surreal than 2021 and we can all meet up eventually without worrying about pandemics, coughing in public and where our next gig is coming from.

Stay safe fellow geeks.

[markof]

I just got a REL T5/x sub to extend the lower range of my office Harbeth P3ESR's. It's under the desk in a near-field setup and the room placement is not a huge concern.
I'm still tuning in the crossover and volume setting but so far it's a very sweet synergy - highly recommended.

Also, updates just came out for the Auralic streamer and for Roon which have further refined the sound and could be considered a Xmas bonus.

Mark

[Diapason]

Not for Christmas, but I'm mulling over a fairly sizeable purchase in 2022 that could be considered "hifi-adjacent".

I've given up on getting a pipe organ for home for a variety of reasons, and most commercial digital organs are shite. Instead, I'm seriously considering a bespoke "Hauptwerk" digital setup with 3 manuals (i.e. keyboards), pedals and by every recommendation, "as many audio channels as you can afford". The idea is that this allows sample sets of world-class, often very famous, instruments to be loaded into some fairly serious software and played in the home. Most of the newer samples are in 24/96 (each individual pipe is sampled, more or less) and the computational demands are very serious in terms of CPU and memory, so I'm discovering that none of it is cheap. The real expense is the 3-manual and pedal console itself, so that's where most of my research is going at the moment.

Anyway, there's a lot to figure out here and no triggers will be pulled any time soon. The lead-time for the consoles is many months, and post-Brexit that will probably need to come from Holland as there are a lot of options over there. There might be a fact-finding mission when we're allowed to travel more freely again and when I feel confident of doing so. The audio component will be the last part I suspect, but I'll keep you posted.

Apart from that, I have no plans. But I've said that before.

[Saxman]

Having spent the last few years trying to get my system to where I want and have achieved it and after thousands of euros I am going to leave well alone.
I would have to spend many more Thousands to gain any any improvement and that would be subtle to say the least.
So will sit back whisky in hand and enjoy the music and. Xmas. Everybody have a good one

[Fran]

I've given up on getting a pipe organ for home for a variety of reasons,

It is wrong that I cracked a smile at this? Thats not a bit of kit, that's a fully fledged year long project!! And suitable esoteric as well.

Having spent the last few years trying to get my system to where I want and have achieved it and after thousands of euros I am going to leave well alone.

See here - this is wisdom, we'll have none of that here lol!!

I've already had my chips - I invested in a new telly, a nice LG C1 65" job that I'm very happy indeed with. A nice addition to the man cave. There was some madness with DACs and quads during the year too, and that probably isn't going to end very soon either....

Happy Christmas to all

[Georgi]

I'm on the market for a decent DAC, because I have make the mistake of selling my multibit PCM63k one.
Now I can't made my mind what I want or what I need for my new Hybrid Amp.
Any suggestions and advices would be much appreciated or if someone would lend me a good DAC for a test for few days, would be even better. 🙂

[Fran]

Georgi - if you are up for some DIY, the AD1862 from miro1360 on diyaudio is excellent. Use it with a valve output stage and you will get some of the very best of sound for smallish money.

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/thre ... st-6887009

There are a few here built if you want to listen before committing.