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
Sold off some gear:

Tannoy Revolution xt 8 speakers
Polk Lsim 703 speakers
Hegel H 80
older NAD power amp

Bought some gear:

Tekton Enzo 2.7
Dynaudio emit m20
Musical Fidelity m3si
Audiolab 6000 CDT
Denefrips Ares 2
various power and preamp tubes for my 2 tube amps
more CD’s

DIY:
speaker cables - various experiments, braided ect.- currently enjoying Mogami coax - next up - cat 5 based cables
room treatment - bought and installed 7 absorbing panels
built decoupling platforms for the Enzo speakers
upgraded AC outlet

I’ve been listening to new (to me) artist and composers.
Creating play lists and burning CD’s from hard drive
Switching between amps and speaker combos just for fun




ErikI believe you helped me with loading the software on the RPI and mentioned you had a squeezebox type of setup at one point. That inspired me to build my own. Now I am looking at a few software options- Logitech media, Picore, possibly Roon, to expand the capabilities. Appreciate the ability to control from phone or touchscreen. Also considering a house wide rpi solution for streaming. I realize many want a more refined streaming approach, but for me, I haven’t seen any significant weaknesses that need improvement. The Hifiberry is also quite decent at DAC capabilities.
My audio equipment is all packed up in the original factory cartons, as we are having a new home built, with a "bonus room" over the garage for my "man cave".

I worked with the builder to adapt their "standard bonus room" to make it useful for my listening room, it's about 19' x 14.5' and has two small slopes where the front & back walls meet the ceiling.  They were able to adapt the trusses to provide an additional closet (for my CDs and supplies) and were able to also provide a separate HVAC system, a more "traditional" one with extra ducting, so the sound of the unit running would be minimal, this upgrade instead of the usual "ductless" design they normally install.

Hope to be into the new house before the end of the year!
Building "listening room" for my three garage systems. Hope to have it done by October 1st. Then it is DAC time for my reference system. But first got to understand digital land and make a plan. 
Joe