A Canadian Double-Double, by way of Japan* By Steve Graham *For non-Canadians: this is a coffee with double sugar and double cream, typically from our nation-wide coffee and donut chain. Does DIY have a place in mainstream audiophilia? Hard core DIY, we’re talking soldering irons and drill presses, will likely never be statistically significant. But does even mild DIY have any place at all? I would argue it does, though I’m going to stretch the definition a bit. I contend that anyone involved in perfectionist audio is a DIY’er at heart. Anyone that buys a component, and I’m not talking about a Bose (shudder) Wave Radio here, is a DIY’er. If you need to connect one component to another and read a manual to get it going, you’re a DIY’er. If you need to set the tracking force on a tonearm, you’re a DIY’er. If you need to set phono cartridge loading or fiddle with grounding to eliminate hum, you’re a DIY’er. If you do more than just plop your speakers on a shelf and connect them up with lamp cord from the hardware store, you guessed it, you’re a DIY’er. We’ll come back to this subject later [...]
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