Once obsessed DIY addict who lazied into computer/headphones, wanting to get back!

[Detosx]

Hello from Scotland!

My Hi-Fi has been in mothballs for maybe a decade, now, approximately. I got into the habit of headphones and active speakers plugged into the back of my computers and iPod Touch. So, I feel like a bit of an imposter, here, but for reasons that I will touch on, here, I want to get back into Hi-Fi.

I started out building my own turntables, or rather I started with a Trio KB1033B, stripped the poor thing down and rebuilt it, rewiring cartridge headshells, being completely blown away how much of a difference small changes could make, something that I had dismissed before, rewiring tonearms, the Trio one, a Rega RB250, experimenting with my grandfather's old Garrard 401, despite a lot of ridicule from the Hi-Fi stores when I would lug the giant in to compare. On the 401 sat a blue-green 'Platter Matter', though I regretted not buying 'Le Mat', which to my ears sounded better. I used a rubber device meant for holding reel-to-reel tapes onto vertical reel-to-reel players, as a record clamp. I fitted the Garrard with a Rega RB300 tonearm. I rewired KEF Coda loudspeakers, made my own loudspeaker stands. Etc. I had fun with cartridges from Nagaoka(sp?) and ADC. I tweaked cassette decks. Oh, tape hiss. Oh, wow and flutter. Oh, philips screwdriver and adjusting the head to tape alignment for cassettes recorded on different equipment.

I found CDs initially disappointing, though I worked in a store that sold them, albeit I worked in the stockroom and so wasn't outright lying to people to try and sell product. Thankfully the CD players improved over time, in many ways. Good times, really. I stuck with a basic JVC amplifier because I was on a tight budget. I just now took my old Monitor Audio R352 loudspeakers out of mothballs and need a new amplifier, having given the JVC amplifier away to charity, having though I would just stick with computer and headphones. Oops. I have an old Rega Planar 3 turntable, which I used just because it had a small footprint than the Garrard. I am very pitch sensitive, so being able to adjust the pitch on the Garrard was thrilling, when my grandfather gave it to me, with a mono valve amplifier with a wonderful warm 'acoustic' tone.

Then, a couple years back, I bought some Beyer Dynamic DT990 and AKG 702 headphones in a sale - realising full well that my old GA-Z77MX-D3H-TH motherboard wouldn't power them, at 600ohms. What to do. What to buy. The headphones are still in their boxes. I am still on a tight budget. I have thought about upgrading my computer, getting a motherboard with the new ALC 1220 codec and built in - and apparently 'audiophile' - headphone amp but... it would be nice to have a decent amplifier, with a headphone input! I take it it's still the case that receivers don't sound nearly as good as a dedicated Hi-FI amp, or at least that's what I seem to be reading.

So, hello! It has been a while, I am rusty and probably got some of those model numbers wrong but... thoughts welcome.