I put together my first system in 1980 (JVC R-S5 receiver, Technics TT, Aiwa tape deck, Polk Monitor 7s). Built Hafler DH-101 and DH-200 kits, etc. This system is my first foray into tubes.
I recently moved from California to NC, and am moving to Lisbon, Portugal later this year. For this reason, every piece of equipment is either: 230V and operated with a step up transformer temporarily while in the USA; switchable / autosensing for 115/230V; configurable via jumpers; or easily altered via re-soldering the dual voltage power transformers. Also, many of the interconnects are the wrong length as used in NC, as they were bought for the Lisbon place. So you'll see lots of bunched up cable. The current room is not acoustically treated, as it's a combo listening area / storage for things not even unpacked in NC, and being a temporary stop, it's not worth spending time / money on.
I dropped most physical media in favor of streaming (more choices in less space). I have found the most "analog" sound from my digital sources to be Roon to HQPlayer to the Holo Red USB to a Denafrips Iris (the I2S on this sounds a little better than the Holo's I2S) into the Pontus II DAC, followed by the Black Ice FOZ SS-X. The FOZ SS-X also will allow some sound tweaking to overcome some speaker placement constraints in Lisbon. It's a complicated chain, but taking anything out changes the sound for the worse.
The Loki Max has revolutionized low-level listening for me.
To me, the Epicons really sing when bi-amped, which is why I have two stereo power amps used in vertical bi-amp mode. The K231 crosses over very close to the LF/HF specs on the Epicons, and I do not have (at least according to REW and to my ears) any weird artifacts in the speaker response at the crossover point reported by some. The sound is full and holographic, with (depending on recording, of course) a wide and deep soundstage; the speakers completely disappear.
Streaming via Qobuz through Roon, on to HQPlayer for upsampling / noise shaping. Roon and HQP live on an ubuntu linux box; Synology NAS for ripped file storage.
