There are a few things you might want to know about me in order to put this site’s contents in the right perspective.
I am a very-much-part-time music and audio lover. I only have two ears, and most of all very limited time – and not even every day – to concede myself to listening to music. Call me a casual listener and that’s an overstatement already.
That’s why I want to min-max this pleasure, and since I started with this I rapidly found out that I would need to dedicate a bit of my already scarce time to quality search.
I am not affected by any “audiophile” condition: I don’t feel the need to continuously “buy more stuff” nor to “collect”. On the upside of their compulsive syndrome, audiophiles do sometimes fish a gem in the indistinguished flow of “items” they keep acquiring. I don’t have that. I look into getting another device when I can spare the money to buy that, I know I will reasonably have some time to enjoy it and I have reasons to reckon it will be better than my previous one, which is therefore going to be dismissed.
How do I identify my “suspect upgrade devices”? By reading review sites and forums of course !
The internet is literally flooded with all sorts of information about audio equipment. Much like it happens for many other environments, the key challenge is not finding data about audio devices, rather extracting information, separating it from blatant or unwanted bias, in an effective way.
Many self-proclaimed “audio review sites” are sadly pure worthless amasses of prodoct specs and pictures. Hard to believe they are not published with the main purpose of tickling manufacturers and vendors alike into providing free review units for the enjoyment of the site owner. No problem with that, but their contents quality output is really poor.
Luckily, a few reviewers are indeed very competent and sensible individuals, both capable of appreciating product features and of exporting their findings to others via their written pieces – which is not a trivial task: sound and its emotions can’t be easily described in words.
Yet, even the best publish “just technical reviews” – which is right, because that’s what they did on that particular piece of equipment: put it on for a day a week or a month, with the purpose of analysing, assessing it and report back.
The missing bit is ownership. What I too rarely read is how a given product resonates with the individual’s personality. Which part does it have, if any, in his day. How does it add (or detract!) value from the music he likes.
PersonaAudioNotes will give stories.
Considerations about quality, usability, value. Comparisons – not only amongst similar products, but vs their lack, or their apriori expectations. Personal impressions. Feelings. Impacts.
You will read me post almost exclusively about portable/mobile audio devices. That’s because my wife and I don’t share this passion or more exactly not in the same way (she does like music a lot, tbh). So instead of installing audio equipment and speakers in our house, I am keeping them into my ears: that’s why my drivers are primarily IEMs and my sources are pocket-sized devices. Mainly.
I think I covered most of it, or not… no. You do need some final data about me: I’ve been born in 1965, I’m Italian, I got a technical background and besides that anì 100% engineeristic soul, an international education and culture, I’ve been working and I still work as a sales&marketing manager in totally audio-unrelated markets, and I’m a solid atheist. All this is important not because you may want to know about me as a person, but just because the opinions of each human being are much easily decoded in our favour when we know the context he developed them in – and that’s my one 🙂