Hey y'all, new AudioCircle member here. Thought I'd introduce myself and share a bit of my audiophile journey.
It started in high-school when I received a pair of Sennheiser over-ear headphones for my birthday. I'd always loved music, but those headphones really opened me up to the difference good equipment can make. In college, swept up in record store culture, I bought by first turntable, a cheap Audio Technica LP140. When my audiophile uncle heard I was into vinyl, he introduced me to his high-end system. All told his equipment must have been pushing $10K or more, but it sounded beautiful. Through him, I got really great deals on my first decent setup: A Rega Planar 3 turntable, a Blue Circle Audio BC27pi phonostage, and a Sansui AU-D9 integrated amp. This, paired with an okay set of Infinity bookshelf speakers, has served me well for the better part of the last decade.
Over those years, my interests have shifted more from vinyl towards film. I'm currently in the process of working out what I believe (perhaps naively) to be my endgame home theater and audio system. While I can certainly tell a difference in quality between a low/medium and high-end system, I can't justify the difference a cost-no-object system makes to my ears above a high-end one.
The weakest link in my set up is the speakers, and they're first on the list to be replaced. Never one to shy away from DIY, I bought the X-Statik kit from GR-Research. I'll be updating my build progress on those over in the GR-Research circle over the next month if any of you want to check it out. After that, a new AVR that is as capable handling my vinyl as the Sansui. Perhaps that's a tall order, but I'm hoping I can find some answers to that in the AudioCircle community. Once I have that, I'll be getting a matching center channel and sub for my X-Statiks. Maybe someday I'll hop on the surround train, but my current listening/watching space doesn't permit that.
Anyway, nice to meet you all. Happy listening!
