I never had really great health care insurance until I got on Medicare (Plan A, B, D, G). I don’t pay anymore for Medicare/Supplemental premiums than I did for employee contributions and copays for private, for-profit managed care when I worked, and it is so much less hassle and frustration to get care. There is no out-of-network B.S. either, which is important for me when I am on road trips to cycle in the mountains 1000 miles away from home.
I had a $50k ENT surgical procedure last fall and paid $0 out of pocket for it.
Best of luck! I retired in 2022, now age 70. I changed from a component system to a Naim Uniti Star all-in-one and I love it. Powering Goldenear Reference speakers, easy peasy. Retirement allows you to sit and listen most anytime you want, works for me. I bought a 2021 Tacoma new and plan to keep it a long time. Enjoy!!
The Waxwing is a new item made by parksaudio which I think every one who likes HiFi will like especially when they have the time in their retirement space to enjoy music.
Possibly not just for vinyl lovers as it seems to have a line-in (designed for output of a maybe higher end phono stage), but could potentially be used for other sources to adjust the ‘sound’. Maybe it acts as a fancy tone control with analogue sources if you don’t need pop/click/surface noise reduction?
Can’t see it appealing to purists to be honest, though would be interested to hear it working.
Wouldn’t fancy ordering to UK with import duties likely to be added (you may have an advantage there!) but interesting to know about the product I suppose.
I honestly just don’t see what it brings to the table that’s compelling, unless you want to digitize records with a simple phono-stage (does it support LOMC?). Isn’t it just a basic phono-stage with an ADC for making needle drops? That has little to do with being a purist or not. I mean, I wouldn’t call someone uninterested in making needle drops a purist. I’d call them another person who doesn’t care for that use case.
I honestly don’t know much about it apart from a quick search. Just speculating if it has line-in then it could be used for non vinyl sources.
By ‘purists’ I simply mean many if not most audiophiles who would not be keen on an item in the input chain altering the sound from the source in any way before it reached the pre-amp section - who knows though it may work well in certain situations but I don’t think fiddling in an app to change settings would be that relaxing for me.
As you say presumably there’s an ADC in there somewhere and I assume some kind of basic microcomputer which can adjust sound characteristics in software in near real-time with minimal latency unless this is somehow achieved through through hardware with adjustable strength settings. I think I read you can only specify analogue or digital out not both at the same time.
If the poster who mentioned it enjoys it then that’s great if they get some added value from it. I’m assuming they’re not affiliated with the item commercially in any way, though their equipment list is perhaps a bit generic shall we say (maybe doesn’t want to specify (nothing wrong with that) or just ‘placeholder’ text).
I was mostly taking issue with the generalization from the poster who mentioned when they said, “I think every one who likes HiFi will like especially when they have the time in their retirement space to enjoy music.”
That’s the part I don’t get. Why? And from what I can tell, what changes about retirement that makes it more compelling (not that I think it is in the first place).
There are certainly several online reviews out there which I won’t link to as we’re going off-topic so will leave others to have a peek if they’re curious.
Maybe the poster should discuss separately in Hi-Fi Corner assuming they haven’t done so before and that it wouldn’t contravene forum rules.
I’m just a person who lives life to the full & enjoy finding out how often others like to understand that not everyone can be on the top stage where Audiophiles are but just to understand everyone wants to know from the bottom where hifi starts & that’s what is good for everyone involved.
I will be sending a detailed update on my impending retirement. I will add a few choice details about cable dressing and stand hygienc=e, and if i find time i will also add some surprise comments on my auto repair situation, miles on the vehicle, oil change questions and more, so stay tuned!
Nothing makes “ this thing” worth while ?? It was just something I thought would be a good subject to get going to give people something new to chat about & not to cause any conflict .
But again sorry if it has cause a problem to some people.
