Highlights Of 2021

General Discvssions & Theory/Vnderstanding
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As it’s getting to the end of the year I thought I’d start a thread like this to get a feel of what everyone’s highlights were this year, it doesn’t have to have come out this year but rather that you were introduced to / bought / heard this year. I’ll start it off with an entry for some various categories, feel free to add any other types. I’m not the best at describing sound / equipment so take these with a pinch of salt.

Headphone - ZMF Auteur - This headphone has fantastic tuning and while not the most resolving it sounds as great as it looks.

IEM - UM Mest Mk 2 - The best IEM I have heard (so far), it makes me want to continue listening to music regardless of what the song / album is. It’s an IEM that you can get lost in.

Source - Rega P1 - A very competent turntable, while I don’t have experience with much high end turntables it seems like a good base to build on. Something to start another rabbit hole :slight_smile: It would be nice to have easier mechanisms to select the motor speed or stop / play without turning on the power.

Amp - Tor Roger - The amplifier adds nice warmth and comes alive with higher impedance headphones like Sennheiser and ZMFs. It’s not the most detailed but has a nice flavor.

DAC - Deanfrips Ares II - An analytical DAC that adds a bit of stage to the music.

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Headphone - Mysphere 3.1: Man I was shooting myself in the foot by only having a 3.2 for the past few years, it scales much higher and has much better synergy with my current gear, causing it to basically be my most used headphone of the year. Just need to grab another cable lol

IEM - Oriolus Traillii: It’s such a nuanced and refined iem allowing it to be a fantastic all rounder and excel at almost everything while doing it. The stock cable definitely makes it overall as well, a real one and done package for some

Speakers - Raidho D1.1: Now this is a bit cheating since I already owned them, but due to my years of laziness I had only run them nearfield at a desk, and while they were good they never truly wowed me. This year I set them up in a proper well treated room with almost as good source gear, and they entirely transformed, likely becoming my most capable speakers I have now. Kicking myself for not trying it beforehand

Source - Antipodes K50: Basically transformed any dac that was attached to it, basically a dac upgrade in terms of difference, and also showed me other things like the difference between streamed and local playback, very notable changes with audio networking, and more insight into relocking and regenerating signals (both good and bad lol)

DAC - Lampizator Pacific: Not much to say about this besides it’s amazing, does almost everything I could want from a dac, caused me to purge the mass majority of my other dacs without much question. Still awesome after honeymoon period, although the totaldac setup and aries cerat still trades some blows lol

Amp - Angstrom Stella Headphone MK2: This was going to be the AIC 10, but after getting the 3.1s it’s stolen that spot since the myspheres became my most used headphones. It really just takes everything the 3.1 does well and multiplies it to the extreme. Also surprisingly solid with the susvara and utopia

Cable - TIE between FTA Callisto & Audience AU24 SX HP - The FTA is the perfect value for my setup while having pretty incredible synergy with the setup, the Pacific and K50 upgrades make it painfully apparent why this was worthwhile lol. The Audience is one I haven’t talked about but that power cable has made such a drastic difference on what it’s plugged into, moreso than any power cable has before (even compared to some higher end options), shame I can only afford to have a few of them cause I ain’t spending for one for each component at the desk lol.

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I managed to get brand new replacement headphones out of Kennerton, two of them. That was my highlight of the year, repairs are nice, replacements are better.

2nd biggest highlight of the years was; Truly understanding what synergy between equipment and environment means, I did not realize how much performance I was missing out on until i started playing and following the rules rather than forcing my equipment to bend to my will :crazy_face:

A shout out to the nice folks at Eddie Current, I feel very fortunate to have gotten a hold of the last of his creations. Hell of a nice piece, it’s a shame when small boutique operations fade away. 🥲

I’m going into 2022 excited about Decware and Lampizator. Both companies put out awesome products, hopefully Decware will be able to produce enough to satisfy the demand and Lampizator will stop raising its prices so I can afford a second piece…:joy:

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Forum - Sonus Apparatus: I’m relatively active on 2 other forums but I don’t feel as productive as I am compared to this one. In one forum, it can get a little too disorganized (OCD here), cluttered, and messy (more on the fun side). I can post/comment freely, but feel like the responses aren’t getting through as they end up buried most of the time. In the other forum, it can lean too technical (which I still appreciate), philosophical (annoying most of the time), and repetitive (tired of hearing all the same brands every…single…time). It makes me feel like I have to post something substantial and thought-provoking when, in the end, I just end up not posting at all. This forum, I feel, strikes a good balance. I actually enjoy this hobby more in this forum because we actually talk about various components and comment on whether it will work well on the system or not. I mean, we even have a database of cable impressions (which hasn’t seen much updates btw…lol)! That’s pretty awesome imo. Measurements and EQ profiles can be useful stuff, but I just don’t really care for them or find much use, personally. I want to enjoy the hobby, not examine it or get lost in something entirely not audio-related.

Canjam: I’m pretty thankful I was able to attend and gain some experience in such a short amount of time. It allowed me to listen to stuff for myself and swerve past the hype.

Headphone - Focal Utopia: My first entry into TOTL stuff and my favorite hp so far. With the right chain, it can sound pretty life-like while still reminding you that you’re still listening to a recording. It’s got a “reference” sound to it and I enjoy the hell out of em.

IEM - Sennheiser IE 900: It sounded good the first few months I had it, and I thought it was a really fun IEM without the downsides. But what really surprised me was how well they scaled (especially w/ a tube amp). Big improvements all across the board and it genuinely caught me off guard. I was planning on saving up for a U12T ever since I heard it at canjam, but the IE 900 with the right pairing pretty much left me satisfied as far as IEMs go.

Cables - Danacable / Supra USB: I pretty much splurged on the hp cable, justification being I had no balanced cable for the Utopia when I purchased it. It is a very good match for the Utopia and I do not regret acquiring one. For the Supra, it was more “Oh wow, USB cables make a difference for the better. Nice!”

DAC - Holo Spring 3: Huge step-up from the RME. Although probably not my favorite product I purchased, the difference I heard in DACs was astonishingly apparent. I have minor gripes about the Spring but it’s mainly a preference thing and is, overall, a great DAC at this price. If anything, I’m glad I know what I want to look for in DACs for the next upgrade (whenever that is).

Amp - Allnic HPA-3000 GT: My 1st tube amp and it’s a pretty solid one. Neutral w/ a bit of tube sweetness added, but not overly so. Too bad not a lot of people have it (just 2 on this forum, myself included).

Learning more about acoustics: I find this topic very fascinating and have been learning a lot from Dennis at acoustic fields. I like his clear-cut approach, no compromise, and no BS way of explaining things. There’s a lot of misinformation out there and many people like to think acoustics is a very decisive topic when, in reality, it’s pretty straightforward. The bottom line is your room tells you what needs to be treated. That’s it. If you don’t treat the specific problems the room gives you, then you won’t solve the problem. No amount of carpet, curtains, egg cartons, furniture will be able to address the specific problems of the room as each wall has its own frequency it excites. Either you treat it with the right type of material, the right amount of treatment, and the correct position (TAP) or you don’t (which is understandable considering cost and peoples’ situations).

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!

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This year was interesting as I found some new gear that I love, but also found some older gear that I owned previously…2nd and 3rd time around I appreciate them much more. I made very cautious purchases this year and truly moved out of midfi hell for the most part.

DAC: Soekris 2541 - While a solid DAC at it’s asking price, it’s synergy with the Violectric V281 makes that chain greater than the sum of it’s parts.

Streamer: Shanling EM5 Entertainment Media Centre - This was my biggest shock of the year. I’m always very skeptical and cautious with most chi-fi gear. This one is a huge exception. It can work as a desktop digital transport, NAS, DAC Amp AIO, streamer, etc. I didn’t expect much from this unit for $800, but I feel that even at double the price, it would still be a good purchase. For perspective, my buddy stopped by this week to try it and ended up getting pretty mad that it sounded only slightly worse than his expensive Lumin streamer he has. He was truly shocked and said that I made a very good value purchase.

AMP: Quicksilver Headphone Amp- A lot has been said already on the QS. The most important thing I can say about it is that the performance you get for a tube amp under $1,000 is remarkable.

Headphones: Abyss Diana V2 - When I 1st got them, I was sort of meh about them. Added a Beautiful Audio Headband and the new revised pads and both of those were game changers.

Also, I repurchased a pair of Hifiman HE500. I owned a pair of these 6 or 7 years ago and liked them a lot. Fast forward to 2021 and I found a used pair for $275. With my better chains and the Hifiman Focus Pads, these headphones sound even better than when I 1st owned them.

DAP: Tie between the Astell & Kern SR25 and the Shanling M6 2021. The SR25 sounded amazing, but with only 2.4 wifi, it didn’t fit for my use case. The Shanling M6 21 sounds just as good, if not slightly better at $250 less than the SR25. This year was a very good year for Shanling.

IEMs: I historically have had issues with IEMs and fit. But of the few I tried, the Moondrop Kato that my buddy owns were probably the best. Next year I hope to step up my IEM game.

Cables: Norne Drausk Lite - I’m newer to higher quality cables, so the Drausk Lite was my 1st step up from basic entry level Cables. I hope to step up my cable game next year as well.

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Shoutouts to the Burson Funk with Vivid Opamps and upgraded burson SMPS, it pairs amazingly well with the few speakers I tried: Unnamed 90’s sonys, Sony SSC5, Klipsch rf160 and rp600m and Focal Chora 826 floorstanders.

I’m biased as I have heard very few gear but for around $700 with discounts/used, I like it more than my friend’s similarly priced Sansui and Rotel power amps.

Its all good there but the headphone amp section alone I also think is quite something, I like it more than my RNHP and BHC+S for most pairings, its very wide and dynamically alive, with a superior sense of instrument separation; it has a v-shaped signature with smooth top end.

Amazing product.

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I can agree wholeheartedly on this one. The 2541 is a very versatile and enjoyable DAC.

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Damn it… :money_with_wings:

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I’ve had two significant audio experiences this year, one that I’ve written about a lot on this forum and one that I haven’t written about at all:

LB-acoustics MYSPHERE 3.1 - From getting the headphone in to demo, to fighting with figuring out the fit, to buying my own unit, this headphone was certainly was something of a journey and I’ve written about it quite a bit all over this forum, so I’m not going to get into it too much here. However, the journey was definitely worth it, this is easily the best-sounding headphone that I’ve gotten the chance to hear and it aligns with my sonic preferences so incredibly well.

Porter Robinson’s Second Sky Festival - I’ve talked a little bit about my girlfriends here and there on the forums, but this story is specifically about Evelyn, who is the music-lover of the two. (Before we even started dating, we made each other custom shared playlists that we still use to send each other songs even today.)

I had bought tickets to attend the Second Sky music festival early in the year, but because of COVID and immunocompromised people close to me, I just couldn’t justify going when the festival date came. I was ready to just be at home by myself depressed as shit on the day of the festival, but 1) the festival last-minute-announced it was going to live-stream the event and 2) Evelyn decided to come over and spend the night with me.

That evening, Evelyn and I sat side-by-side, hand-in-hand, my ears covered in a Focal Clear OG into the low-impedance output, hers in a ZMF Eikon into the high-impedance, and as we watched the livestream of Porter playing Mother, then Blossom, and finally Sweet Time, we looked at each other and we were both literally crying happy tears. I love her so much. I love her so much.

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This is a nice idea.

I had two audio highlights this year. After some saving and a bonus payment I was able to buy an RHNP and a Focal Elegia in June. Up to that point my best listening experience had been the Gustard H16 and my modded Fostex T50RP. I was hoping for some noticeable difference but I was blown away by how much more alive music sounded with those two. It was a real eye opener and completely changed what I was looking for from music listening experiences.

I also managed to separate my music from my computer using a pi 4 with a USB DDC. This has removed as good as all background noise and made the silences so much blacker no matter what I am listening with. Previously I had ground lifts and other noise breaks to prevent noise at source. Now the blacks are darker and I realised that previously it felt like all sounds were in some way dampened.

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Do we have a dedicated piaes or pi streamer thread? Although I am looking at the higher end units I think the Pi units are a great starter or stop gap solution.

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I don’t think we have one for Pi specifically. I think with the Pi 4 they have become much more interesting as the USB 3 ports are now not on the same controller as the RJ45 port. It would be interesting to compare how we all use them (or not)!

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I am real interested. Especially with the Pi2 Mercury coming out and it deems to support local m.2 storage.

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I think generally for uController based devices lower power is probably better.
One of the issues with Roon RAAT is it’s proprietary, so unless you sign an agreement with roon, you can’t develop your own player, so your stuck with linux (albeit relatively lightweight versions), and relatively powerful Pi Level devices, whey you can certainly build much lower powered device dedicated to just receiving streamed audio and I’m pretty sure that would make it easier to shield.

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Quite a bit of personal happenings in 2021, most of them good. The one brick dropped in the pond whose ripples overshadowed all others was moving from the home I’d lived in for the past 20+ years.

From an audio hobby perspective, it’s meant having to re-think my entire listening experience, less space, not able to listen at the same volume levels being in an apartment now and most importantly, simplification, less is more with components serving multiple duties for the sake of space saving. My streamer is also my DAC, my amp, pre amp and headphone amp are now one component and I will wind up selling every piece of equipment I had in order to facilitate the new lifestyle. High watt, solid state, is now low watt tube.

It’s been a great experience knowing that I built enough knowledge and enough of an understanding of the qualities I enjoy in my listening where starting from scratch wasn’t a daunting exercise. All rolled up into a somewhat smooth transition as I’ve been able to finance most of the purchase of the new equipment with the sale of existing gear.

Looking forward to experiences over the next 20 years in the new place!

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Focal Utopia
I finally made my return to the Focal line up this year in a big way, ever since getting rid of my Clear I had been pining for that Focal staging and dynamics and the Utopia delivers. The best dynamic driver headphone and still competes with the other summit-fi flagships even 5 years after release imo. The thing about Utopia that gets me every time i put it on is just how engaging the overall sound signature presents itself, with amazing micro dynamics and low level detail retrieval it impresses me and has me loving it when I really want to do some critical listening. While not the most natural sounding in a true to life sense it still has my confidence when it comes to hearing the recording for what it is and revealing all the little details while still having one hell of a fun dynamic listen.

Hifiman Susvara
Yeah that’s right I went for two TOTL beasts this year and the Susvara is everything that you have heard about it and more. The times that i have fallen in love with something from the very first moments are few and far between, you can ask anyone on here that i talk to semi-regularly with and they will tell you that I’m not the sort of person who just instantly falls in love and gushes over a new toy. I usually take my sweet time evaluating new pieces and making sure that I have a good understanding of the device and its sound characteristics before i do impressions or speak on the matter, but the Sus was special from the moment i first heard it and I knew i had to have it and that it would be a mainstay for my collection. Laidback tonality with effortless but engaging technicalities and some of the most organic timbre I’ve heard. These are the standouts for me but in all honesty the sus is the most complete package headphone I’ve come across so far.

Eddie Current Studio B
My first foray into high end tube amps and not the cheap kind either, although that depends on perspective. Yes DHTs in this case 300b, are very expensive tube types but The joy i get out of the Studio B is immeasurable in comparison and I truly believe this amp hits far beyond it’s $3300 price (closer to $4200 in my case when you account for my tube expenses) and that is a common statement among the people who have had a chance to own one of these retirement pieces.
The magic of 300b is something that ive heard about and only experienced for myself with this amp, it truly is something unique that is hard to nail down, just the right amount of harmonic distortion goodness with a very spacious presentation and sweet tonality with a modest dose of bass bloom is what i hear. Could this be a product of just my specific 300b tubes (EML mesh plates btw) or characteristics of all 300b or maybe just this amp? I don’t know but I love it. I pair my Utopia with it for what i consider one of the best synergies out of that headphone.

Cavalli Liquid Gold (LAu)
After grabbing the EC I knew I needed a solid state solution to compliment while also being a equally satisfying experience, which is a tall order honestly. Not to mention burning up those very expensive tubes everyday was not something i could stomach for long. That’s when I was met with the opportunity to demo a equally famous amp within the boutique audio scene. The Liquid Gold or LAu for short puts out 9w into 50ohms with the first 2.5w being pure class A into 50ohms, a beast of a amp that even after all these years commands a high price on the secondhand market when one rarely pops up. Just the description alone made it a worthy prospect to complement the studio and I was right it pairs nicely. Warm, fun, and commanding are the descriptors i use for this amp, it’s not a surprise that it leans for more of a musical sound considering Cavalli is famous for his tube designs and that sort of analog signature is definitely what the LAu accomplishes. It has great slam and authority with a warm, smooth, and fun tonality but doesn’t lean too far into these aspects that it forsakes technicalities. I pair my sus with it for more of a fun leaning less critical listening experience.

L&P P6 Pro
Oh man this one is a doozy, to think you can have desktop level dac performance in a portable player is quite a skeptical statement, but not only does the dac in this player sound closer than i’d like to admit to my desktop solution but it’s also a fully discreet r2r implementation in a digital audio player. Its exciting how far these players have come. Natural neutral tonality with a deep spacious staging and pinpoint spatial prowess. Endgame player for some time for me and there is a very good reason why this will be my daily driver with my headphone amps while i sell my desktop dac next year to upgrade, it sounds great.

Rhapsodio Infinity MK2
I have gone through a plethora of totl IEMs this year but the set i am left with at the end is the Infinity. At first what was just a trade to sate my curiosity with the plan of selling or trading on wards for something else in my iem journey has become a staple and earned it’s place. The infinity offers up wide staging with pinpoint imaging and layering, spatially excellent is how I would describe it. They present sound rather intensely in a very emotional and engaging way with lots of texture and nuance to the technicalities. It’s a 5 BA but I’ll damned if I don’t think I’m listening to some exotic config half the time, which really is half true because I’ve never seen the copper coil tech anywhere else that is implemented in this set, i don’t know what hand it plays in the sound but damn is it pretty to look at. Keep in mind that right before taking ownership of the infinity I was just finishing up a multiple week demo of the Oriolus Traillii in what I could only consider a monumental and spectacular set of earphones, I had every intention of listening to the rhapsodio for a few weeks and then selling them off to fund a bird of my own… That did not happen and I consider them to be two very competitive and complimentary sets.

Note: I only have things on here that I still am left with in my possession, if i was to do a true highlight list it would be a lot of typing… I had a very busy year lol

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On behalf of the community I would like to first of all thank you for going where not many men have gone (I mean wow you are basically swimming in suuuuuper high end gear st this point) but most importantly I would love to thank you for your write ups! They are always crazy enjoyable to read tbh! Definitely awesome contributions of both information and entertainment!

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sweet thanks man, I’m happy to know someone finds joy in reading about my experiences, even though I might not be the best at describing the sound lol Also yes it seems like i have broken into the high end portion of the headphone market this year, not sure that my bank account is very happy for that revelation but I guess at least I’m not at the M0N-tier quite yet :rofl: :stuck_out_tongue:

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Hello,
My personal highlights started in December 2020 with the Lcd 2 C.
I enjoyed it the most throughout 2021.
At the beginning of the year, I bought the Feliks Euforia.
I didn’t know at the time that it would be a tube amp year for me.
After reading a lot about the tube world I almost regretted buying it.
Because the sound was not what I expected. A few weeks later everything changed after the first tube rolling hole.
I found my sound. After a late defect which was repaired without any problems, everything was good again.
But the tubes were not enough. It went a step further with the purchase of 2 capacitors from Vcap with the TFTF version and couldn’t be happier after I had to adjust the tubes again. And also got the Lcd 2 C super tuned to it.
Almost a year later I have a minimum of 5 sets of each tube type in the drawer, oh man really…

Is there any further to go? YES

In April the Singxer Su 2 came into the chain and was allowed to sniff into the I2S world which convinced me.
In the summer, I added the Dan Clark R/T closed, which broadened my horizons.
It didn’t work on the Feliks because of the distortion of low ohm planar headphones on the Otl amplifier forget it.
The Little Dot 1+ went bye-bye almost after the R/T came along, which I repaired and improved myself as a field test with capacitors and op amp with success.
But I was already further along by the time it was repaired.
The money for the deposit at White Bird Amplification was transferred long after I had roughly proposed a concept.
Which was revised again and turned out to be a beast 4 months later.

Towards the end of the year, I wondered what to expect.
The attraction of using Odam capacitors in the Feliks Euforia for 2022 would be there.
But that will have to wait.
I really like the Aeolus from Zmf and the Meze Lyric for 2022 and maybe another Dac.
We’ll see where we are next year.
Audeze has a good chance with the Lcd X, which is also appealing.
Also with the Lcd 5 which is very very far away and my wife would head me off.

I have invested moderately in cable only to the extent that it meets the requirements.
The Isotek Evo3 Iritium surprised me very well with its properties.
I have remained faithful to Tidal and Audirvana 3.5.
I didn’t want to jump on the bandwagon for the studio subscription.
Roon would have been nice, unfortunately nothing came of it because there was no Roon Core.
The last setback was the Sennheiser Hd 600 intended for the Euforia, which disappointed me sonically.

Apart from that, I can only wish Happy Listing and the purchase of lots of hardware for everyone in 2022, even for beginners who want to get started.

Another highlight for me was this page here where I was able to participate.
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for this.
And also to all those who helped me personally to make the right decisions and answered other questions. Thanks guys

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I want to add my thanks here too. Well said Deleeh.

I wish you all a very peaceful and fulfilling year ahead.

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