upperholme
22-06-2016, 20:08
My name's Graham and I hail from Slaithwaite, a mill village in the South Pennines south west of Huddersfield.
I'm getting back into listening to music following some years away from it, partly due to family, work, and for a few years, living off-grid in rural Catalonia. Having returned to the UK, I've recovered my old turntable - a Pro-Ject Debut II bought probably 15-20 years ago - form my sister's house, along with my vinyl collection and a few hundred CDs.
I'm focussed on trying to develop and refine a low cost system that lets me get the best out of my music without spending lots of money, partly because i don't have lots of spare cash, and partly because I don't see the sense in investing a lot into audio kit. The turntable, which was never heavily used (unlike the old Garrard deck I had as a student), and although it's showing its age a bit cosmetically, still seems able to produce a pretty decent sound, fitted with an Ortofon OM5 cartridge. From ebay I've secured a Denon DCD820 for about thirty quid. These two are plugged in to a Schiit Mani phono stage and a Schiit Modi 2 Uber DAC respectively. I also run my Mac into the DAC with a Schiit/Straight Wire USB cable. The whole system is in my smallish home office, so I'm currently using a pair of Gale mini monitors driven by an old Cambridge A1 Mk3 Special Edition amp. The amp seems way better than my equally aged Yamaha AV30, and make the rather unimpressive speakers sound much tighter and cleaner. I also use a Bravo audio Ocean valve headphone amp to drive a super-cheap pair of AKG K44s.
When I have a moment I'll probably swap out the speakers for a pair of Mission bookshelf speakers (can't remember the model number right now) that are currently in the kitchen hooked up to the Yamaha amp, a nice little Yamaha CD player and a Sony tuner (both bought off ebay for less than £25 - the tuner was 99p plus delivery).
I'm interested in setting up a little Linux box to play my digital files, currently reading up on Volumio and Audiophile Linux, and considering either a Raspberry Pi based solution or repurposing an old HP Mini laptop.
I have pretty broad tastes in music, a lot of African and Middle Eastern music, jazz, some classical, rock, dub, electronica, etc., etc.
Best wishes
Graham
I'm getting back into listening to music following some years away from it, partly due to family, work, and for a few years, living off-grid in rural Catalonia. Having returned to the UK, I've recovered my old turntable - a Pro-Ject Debut II bought probably 15-20 years ago - form my sister's house, along with my vinyl collection and a few hundred CDs.
I'm focussed on trying to develop and refine a low cost system that lets me get the best out of my music without spending lots of money, partly because i don't have lots of spare cash, and partly because I don't see the sense in investing a lot into audio kit. The turntable, which was never heavily used (unlike the old Garrard deck I had as a student), and although it's showing its age a bit cosmetically, still seems able to produce a pretty decent sound, fitted with an Ortofon OM5 cartridge. From ebay I've secured a Denon DCD820 for about thirty quid. These two are plugged in to a Schiit Mani phono stage and a Schiit Modi 2 Uber DAC respectively. I also run my Mac into the DAC with a Schiit/Straight Wire USB cable. The whole system is in my smallish home office, so I'm currently using a pair of Gale mini monitors driven by an old Cambridge A1 Mk3 Special Edition amp. The amp seems way better than my equally aged Yamaha AV30, and make the rather unimpressive speakers sound much tighter and cleaner. I also use a Bravo audio Ocean valve headphone amp to drive a super-cheap pair of AKG K44s.
When I have a moment I'll probably swap out the speakers for a pair of Mission bookshelf speakers (can't remember the model number right now) that are currently in the kitchen hooked up to the Yamaha amp, a nice little Yamaha CD player and a Sony tuner (both bought off ebay for less than £25 - the tuner was 99p plus delivery).
I'm interested in setting up a little Linux box to play my digital files, currently reading up on Volumio and Audiophile Linux, and considering either a Raspberry Pi based solution or repurposing an old HP Mini laptop.
I have pretty broad tastes in music, a lot of African and Middle Eastern music, jazz, some classical, rock, dub, electronica, etc., etc.
Best wishes
Graham