Its been A while since I purchased anything audio related. I finally moved to a bigger house a few months ago which means i got a bigger listening space (setup post coming soon), so I pulled my omegas off the desk setup and into the new room. That left me with the need for some speakers for the desk for light music listening and gaming.
Decided on a pair of Kef LSX II wireless that I found on USAM for a great price. It ticks all the boxes for me since I needed something compact that is powered and is roon ready that’s a full package since all of my main source gear is now in the new listening room.
Plus I started out with Kef Q100 way back in the day when I was first getting into the hobby. So its kind of like going back to my roots
I Really wanted the abyss joal instead but a friend made a huge sale, I was not interested before because the headband was too clampy but this one has the large headband it still feels and looks weird compared to the bulky lcd 2, 3, 4
Happy Birthday @dB_Cooper and congratulations on your new custom pale sky blue, DeVore Fidelity O/96 speakers! My goodness, these are absolutely gorgeous, what an incredible find! Wow dude, I can’t believe you pulled the trigger on these so unexpectedly in a wild moment of birthday passion
It’s a good thing I live reasonably close to the seller, my transport and assistance fee is more than reasonable, I think… see you at CAF buddy, till then I’ll take REAL GOOD care of these for you. Hehehehe
The first thing to say is that I am never going back to TWS. I have had SoundCore Liberty Pro IIs for a number a year’s now. They still sound great and the battery life is still excellent. However, they have intermittent pairing issues with my phone (likely due to Android updates, rather than the TWS). This irritates me but my ever present frustration that has crept in over the past few years is the European volume cap that most TWS here suffer from.
I almost exclusively wear these in the gym, and the odd spot of road running. The music at the gym is loud and terrible. I need my TWS to be adequately loud so I can’t hear that awful music over my own awful music. I have bought lots of TWS over the past year; normie brands, audiophile offers, etc., and they have either sounded terrible, had frequent connection issues or had a volume cap.
I stayed away from such IEM Bluetooth adapters because I thought they’d be too bulky to train/run with and work loose. They are not. I can plug in any IEM with a 2 pin connection and get it plenty loud. These drive all the sub £100 IEMs that I’d want to use well, and sound great - far superior to all of the TWS I have tried over the past year.
If you have been in a similar situation to me, save yourself the hassle and get these. £100 on AliX (sale price) - bargain.
Next up, a streamer. When I made the decision to buy a Cyan 2, I started to think about oversampling. As I understand it, Cyan 2 can go from good to great when fed with high sample rate data. This got me thinking about my transports. I use Android-based DAPs. I understand that, depending on the brand, they can run a USB exclusive mode that spits out bit perfect data and doesn’t force the audio to get through the Android 48 kHz sausage machine. Again device dependant, this can be overcome but with other limitations.
I started to worry that the DAPs weren’t necessarily adequate to produce oversampled data, even if I can defeat Android’s limitations. As I understand it, one of the benefits of upstream oversampling is that a PC/Roon device can provide more horsepower than whatever DAC you may be using and features better filters, etc.. So, I now am in a position where my Cyan 2 is reliant on the quality of upstream data - thus, my cheap and cheerful Hiby R4 and Fiio M21, in my mind aren’t as capable as I’d like.
I started to retread old ground and again look at the Bluesound Node Nano. It was a great sounding device but doesn’t have the I/O I want for my current chain. I happened upon a few videos and Head-Fi threads about the N100. In short, apparently it sounds incredible but it’s 50/50 whether it’ll function in your use case. I decided to gamble.
These little suckers pack a helluva punch, especially for the secondhand price I got em for. Perfect little active desk speaker and just what I needed, small form factor with no hassle integration with roon and my PC (via usb c) and a useful app with actually good DSP options.
Making me want to look in to the LS50/60 metas now lol
I got another ATH woody, the ATH-W3000ANV. I am really in love with how it was packaged and the way it looks. I can’t wait to hear these beauties on my setup!
Yep, it’s much more gorgeous in person. The wood cups are very reflective so I only took pictures in the dark to not reflect myself on it. I really love the color on the wood. It have this deep dark red that makes this headphone so alluring. The wood is Hokkaido Asada cherry per the manual.
Had this turntable for a month now, because having none turns out to be an issue when albums one wants are more expensive on CD or download than on vinyl.
what an incredible find! 
Wow dude, I can’t believe you pulled the trigger on these so unexpectedly in a wild moment of birthday passion 
see you at CAF buddy, till then I’ll take REAL GOOD care of these for you. Hehehehe 
