Welcome 

May the smilies be with you 

Welcome Ginathom!

Welcome aboard Thad!!

Welp, about time I actually put both feet in.

TL;DR: I am here because you all are the kind of assholes I like, as opposed to those other assholes.

I entered the land of "better sounding stuff" when Sam Goodie was going out of business circa 2006 and I nabbed some shure e3c for $50. In spring 2008 I wanted fullsized excitement, found headroom, and LOVED the graphs that Tyll made. A short google later I fell into head-fi and was bewildered.

I read, I registered, and really tried to fit in. I burned in my HD595. I got a different cable. I bought a sweeeet portable amp (It actually was sweet, for what it was but that isnt the point). While job hunting in fall 2008 (read: impoverished), I intentionally avoided head-fi due to budgetary concerns, and just listened to what I had. I had a LOT of time to listen and enjoyed it. That was my first inkling that I had been missing much of the forest for a discussion about just these 3 trees. I tried to post "deep meaningful analyses" of what I was hearing, but without any meaningful point of comparison, it was always regurgitated embellished bullshit, so I laid off.

I continued lurking the waters of high-end audio, but after I acquired my jh5's over black friday 2010 I was VERY CONTENT for a long time, and mostly kept my feet dry. I peeked out again circa black friday 2012 and grabbed the HE500 after great review / analysis from Tyll at InnerFidelity. I figured I would look into what kind of amp I migh--WTF TYLL IS AT IF?1, followed by WTF HEAD_FI IS A WARZONE?!?, and finally WHOTF IS NEWWAVEGUY?? After some reeling over the state of things (and NO desire to investigate further) it turned out I loved my HE500 amped just as they were, and again kept my feet dry for a while until recently. Seeing that the successor (of sorts), the HE560, is actually not a piece of overhyped shit, I bought a pair.

What helped turn the tide in my acquisition decision? This place. I stumbled here when internetsing "HE 560 measurements," and found a wealth of reasonably consistent, comparable measurements, followed by discussion and attempts to reasonably explain experiences. I saw the names and likes of many of my favorite assholes from head-fi, some of whom I found banned when I recently resurfaced. It also helps that several of my favorite assholes from the comments to Tyll's articles on IF are among the captains and quartermasters.

I don't always have a lot to contribute by way of illuminating observations or comparisons of minutae, but I want to ask questions in a place where meaningful answers can be had. More importantly I want to be able to read and participate in discussions that can become goddamn violent, but at the end everyone can sew their own wounds and shake hands. That simply doesn't exist anywhere else in this hobby right now, so a pirate's cove is where I'll stay.

Unless the Royal Fucking Navy hunts all you curs down, then I'm out of here.

Man that was long, sorry, guess I had a lot to say on the topic.