What have you been working on in 2020?


New system? Getting into DIY? New bands?

I’d love to know what you’ve been doing that is audio-related this year. Dare I hope some of you have gotten soldering guns? Heat guns? Cables or caps?
For me, I’ve gotten into Roon and the Pi 4. Finally set up my combined 2-ch/HT set up with a new HT processor, and done a little blogging on Roon and subwoofers.  Last night I took my Pi 4 apart and added tiny little heat sinks to the RAM, USB and Ethernet chips.
erik_squires
...the only power cords noted here should be spelled 'chords'....;)

"Good times, bad times, I know I've had my share...." *humming into the netherspace...*
Like lots of others I rekindled one of my oldest but dormant loves this year:
--got a cheap turntable (shout out to my buddy, Chris, for pushing me): this began it all in January
--realized my AVA dynamo pas III pre-amp phono stage was gone, got AVA vision Q, February (thank you, Frank)
--got a PS Audio P3 and a Monarchy 22B DAC from by brother (thank you, Eric!), February
--put in dedicated circuit, line, and PS Audio plug (myself), March
--Isoacoustic Gaias under my Abbys, March
--cones and carbon fiber pucks under everything else, except Isoacoutics under sources, March
--My old stereo 70 blew (still figuring out if I can fix and upgrade it); researched/stressed out about a new amp, picked a trade-in LTA ZOTL 10 (so happy! Mark was terrific), April
--made some isolation plinths out of marble and out of solid mahogany (that I found in the house when I moved in 20 years ago), May
--replaced AUs with 1961 Amperex 6085s (Brent Jesse) and ATs with 1962 Amperex 7062s (Andy at Vintage Audio): again much research/stress, but worth it, June
--Full HFT/FEQ treatment (thank you, Peter from Cable Co!), July
--replaced 30 year-old cables with SR Foundation (ditto, Peter), July
--ordered Audiokinesis Swarm (learned lots from Duke on this forum)
--ordered Townsend super tweeters 
 
Everything mentioned made a very noticeable improvement in SQ. Everyone was super generous with their knowledge and very helpful along the way. Except for Van Alstine, others turned me on to everything above, many on this forum.

Thank you (still plenty to do).
I am playing with multichannel + Roon.
Erik, can a Pi endpoint do multichannel USB output?
Hoping to turn a pile of cherry wood planks of 1/2" and 1/4" that I milled and joined into something resembling quadratic diffusers before 2021. It’s only taken 6 months (as my eyes roll at how much work it was that I wasn’t prepared for)!

Got inside my amplifier after blowing bad money on "budget pre amplifier solutions" to attach my sub - costly and wasteful mistakes. I know now, do it right or just don’t.

Finally got my sub attached, using an interconnect geometry from an Audiogon user (sorry I can’t recall his name) who posted a page on helical ground coil spiraling round twisted pair interconnects. Anyway it worked a treat inside my amp. Purchased a Jensen summing transformer and connected my single double opposed firing sub - and smugly thought this is great.
Only to have Adiogon users espousing the superior merits of a DBA bass array, so yeah guys - thanks for the extra work I’m going to have to do (heheheh) to implement one, because I can’t just ignore you all. (seriously thanks for sharing).

Thanks Agon - I do appreciate the sharing, and entertainment.
Erik, can a Pi endpoint do multichannel USB output?

@mktmkt

I have no idea, suggest you find the Roku forums and ask there.