So, what did you get yourself for the holidays?


My guess is that most of us are "hard to buy for". That said, I get my own presents.

Outside of audio, this holiday season I treated myself to a 3D printer (Bambu Lab P1S), a ZWO Seestar S50 smart telescope, and I will be ordering a PiFinder for my 20" telescope next week.

In the world of audio I upgraded my Rogue Cronus Magnum II to the III. I added the home theater feature so I can put a tube pre-amp between my DAC and the amp at a later date. And since they had the amp in the shop I added a processor loop in the event my hearing would benefit from additional processing in years to come. I'm a small spender for this group and I expect this is my ultimate amp. I will upgrade other components over time, but this is making me very happy right now. Besides, my astronomy hobby is where most of my extra money goes. 

I've been playing the CR III for the past week and it is an amazing upgrade. It also helps that my backup amp was a major step down and since I hand delivered and picked up the amp I've been without the CM since October.

As far as the new amp goes, I love the triode mode and the phono pre-amp is noticeably improved. I'll test out the new headphone circuit in January, I don't use headphones often so I won't be able to weigh in on any improvement, just the end result.

So, what did you get for yourself?

 

 

 

markcasazza

Bought myself a couple of 12AX7s to try out with Christmas money.

Tung Sol ECC803s 
Tung Sol 5751 

I got myself an original Japanese pressing of Hotel California. Sounds great.

A new abode. By far my grandest Black Friday purchase ever.   More than twice the size of my present home. Enough to allow me to bring a number of old friends out of the shadows and into my new listening space. It will be fun to see what combination of room elements and components serves best in this environment. 

I also hope that all the new toys mentioned in other posts bring the kind of pleasure to their new owners that I look forward to as I welcome back a collection of pieces special to me that I have sorely missed.            Live for the music in your life!