Your perfect 6CD stack

[JD001]

Originally Posted by Vracer111

Yall don't rip your CD collection to FLAC files and mainly keep the CD for archive/backup?

But even though I have my entire collection ripped to FLAC and available on every device I have, I still listen to CD albums from time to time, especially the first time through...



I do try to get the CD if possible, but with Bandcamp you are able to get artist releases via FLAC and have the downloads available through your collection if something happens to the album/tracks you downloaded.

Half my collection is physical CD's the other half FLAC downloads from Bandcamp...the streaming quality is pretty good too:

https://maryspender.bandcamp.com/track/i-am-not-yours-2

https://protodome.bandcamp.com/track/moonbound-snes

https://luckychops.bandcamp.com/track/these-tears

https://radicaldreamland.bandcamp.co...of-the-unknown

Please explain your hi-fi system? What's the kit with the valves? Headphone amps, preamps, phono amps or something else?

[Vracer111]

Laptop or Oppo BDP-93 multimedia player (repurposed from my HT system for CD/DVD-A/BD-A) -> RME ADI-2 DAC -> Schiit Loki tone control -> Garage 1217 Project Ember headphone amp (with MAZDA 12AU7WA tube/valve in that picture) -> headphones. Prefer headphones over speakers, don't have a good enough room for speakers. The Garage 1217 Project Ember can be used as a preamp or tube/valve buffer as well. RME ADI-2 DAC + Schiit Loki gives 11 bands of hardware EQ available for any source used.

My headphones consist of 4 pairs of modded Koss Porta Pro Xs (Yaxi pads, Parts Express headband, custom headstrap/pad), a modded Fostex TH-X00 Purpleheart (driver housing damping and Jmoney lambskin pads with custom attenuators), and both a stock & modded (headphile custom zebrawood cups and Yaxi Alcantara/leather earpads) pair of Sennheiser HD58Xs.

Use to have a whole bunch more headphones, but through getting to know what I liked sound signature wise I was able to let go of them and condense down to these few. Still kind of miss the STAX L300 Limiteds, but didn't quite enjoy them like all of my current ones - I much more value euphonic connection to music over the absolute technical ability of a headphone.

Though STAX are definitely a top tier headphone in technical ability (and I owned a few different ones and have listened to most of the model lineup), I found myself more dissecting music into pieces rather than just listening and enjoying it as a whole. Plus with electrostats, you have a whole expensive setup (how expensive up to you - can go from $1.5k STAX stock L series based setup all the way to Sennheiser's $55k HE1 Orpheus...) dedicated to it since they operate on completely different principle versus dynamic or magnetic planar headphones. The setup I had for my various estats was a custom rack based rig consisting of a Sanus 15 PU rack and Furman M-8x AR Voltage Regulator powering the following: laptop, Oppo BDP-93, or Xbox One -> RME ADI-2 DAC -> NAD C275BEE stereo amp -> Mjolnir Audio modded STAX SRD-7 estat transformer -> estats

It looked like this.