to this weeks new members, enjoy !
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Hello everyone! Iām really excited to be participating in this forum! Iām a mastering engineer from Knoxville, TN, and Iām OBSESSED with all things audio! Looking forward to all the discussions!
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New members enjoy your weekend and happy listening! 
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Welcome to all new members. Enjoy.
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Welcome to all this weeks new members.
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Hi Everyone! New member from LA here. Excited to be here and join in what looks to be a thoroughly awesome and supportive community.
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Hi Everyone! New member from LA here. Excited to be here and join in what looks to be a thoroughly awesome and supportive community.
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Hello and welcome @Grover. I seemed to have missed you when you joined so hereās a belated warm welcome for you.
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Hi jgwtriode here (James Whiting).
Been seriously at the headphone thing for about 6 years now. Started with Serious High End Audio years ago and gradually got out of it. Lots of moving and a couple divorces have forced a more moderate approach. Built my I5 music setup initially about 5 years ago. I run Jplay femto on it, on a separate archival quality SLC SSD drive with Audiophile Optimizer, Fidelizer and Process Lasso. Used Optimizer to strip Windows 10. System is Dual Boot so Music runs entirely seperately. Run a firmware upgrade JCAT USB femto card with A Cuinas audio super cap supply to isolate it. Used to run a Uptone Regen with an LPS 1.2 and also another 1.2 on my JCAT. Kicked all that out over the last few years, finding a better way. Found a USB cable that sounded better without the Uptone and later found Cuinas which outperforms the LPS 1.2 at half the price. I believe John Kinney is out of formal business now, but he may still do the Cuinas supplies. Have since upgraded the USB twice. Went nuts recently and am running Wywires Diamond USB, had the Platinum for about 6 weeks. Run a almost completely rebuilt OPPO Sonica Sabre DAC. Was fully modded by Ric at EVS tweak shop. Remember Modwright took this thing seriously enough to do a crazy level Mod to it. Rics is not as fancy but he does more with the actual components themselves in it and he completely rebuilt the output stage. High current pure class A headphone output. It drives the hell out of my Verite Closed.
Best headphone cable ever is the Wywires Platinum. Clobers the Silver Gold neotech I have, as well as a custom Carbon Graphene one from New Zealand. The conductors are actually carbon and graphene with a copper ground. Wywires use those material to minimize noise. Litz copperā¦real litz copper done properly. Would never have believed copper could outperform silver and carbon graphene. Still stunned. I have built myself a 7 layer isolation system under my computer and an 11 layer one under my DAC/amp. Way to involved to explain. I have put about 3 years of fiddling and tweaking to get them just right. Even done some interesting isolation internally on my SSD drives. Run a mixture of Mad Scientist and Zenwave power cords. Two ZMF headphones. Auteur Blackwood with black grilles and Auteur Perf Hybrid Pads. Had Zach build me a Verite Closed B stock Leopardwood and got it about 6 weeks ago. So far I like the Auteur Solid Hybrid best. But have got my system sounding so musical I want to try the Auteur Solid Lambskin to add a bit of air and detail. I think I can probably tame any added brightness or fatigue they might cause with more tunning.
I use Mad Sci black nano discs, pucks and tubes like crazy and there isolation footers are all through my system. They donāt work on everything, but in some unique locations they do some indespensible things. Also using some Shun Mook Mpingo Discs. Again when they work they really do or often they donāt. Part of the tweaking and tuning process that makes this hobby.
Iām past the point of debating whether things can be measured or not. I trust my ears and donāt second guess what I perceive. I am not always methodical in my approach, some things are just intuitive and I always try out various suggestions I find on these forums when possible. Such as underclocking and under-volting which I have found make some noticeable if not significant differences in the sound. Biggest thing here is that I found undervolting improved the tightness and definition of low frequencies in my system. Wow, that kind of amazed me.
I have been into audio since I was 14 and into high end since college. Worked in the industry for about 8 years. Worked at a couple audio stores in Utah. Also ran tech support at Kimber Kable for a couple years and was a Sales Manger at Talon Audio for a short while. Work in the Healthcare industry now.
Kids grown and no wife so this hobby keeps me sane and motivated. Feel free to PM me about anything. Be happy to share my experience.
Just like to thank Zack and Bevin at ZMF. Alex Sventitsky at Wywires and Bob Pragnell at Mad Scientist. They have all really gone out of their way and all make amazing products.
Happy Listening to all,
Jgwtriode
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Cool writeup!
I am not too familiar with cables, but I have a Wywire Platinum on my Utopia and I have been enjoying it alot. Not sure on the sonic characteristics as I never used the stock cable with the Utopia, but am happy with it.
Glad to have you here.
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Thanks so much! Yeah the Platinum is amazing! Seious copper litz tech combined with graphene/carbon, air and cotton dielectric in teflon. 80 40 gauge seperately insulsted conductors per channel. I have talked to Alex quite a bit about. Clobbers my previous best Mad Sci custom graphene impreg carbon. Wish he made a diamond version!
Happy listening,
James
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Hi @jgwtriode youāre going to fit in great here. There are lots of tweakers amongst us. It sounds like you have a lot of experience to share too. Looking forward to hearing more from you. Great writeup by the way too.
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to this weeks new members, Enjoy !
Enjoy your weekend new members! Happy listening
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