Gear Closet

Open-back dynamic. The endgame that ended things. Warm, dimensional, organic — nothing I've heard changes the math.

Closed-back dynamic. When the house is loud and I still want the ZMF house sound.

Planar-magnetic. Dense, fast, detailed — a different flavor than the ZMFs and useful for that reason.

Open-back dynamic. Coherent from top to bottom in a way that takes a while to appreciate.

Air-motion transformer. A completely different technology — the treble is unlike anything else in this list.

Planar-magnetic. Wide stage, airy highs, a little lean — but that lean is its own kind of honest.

Planar-magnetic. The warmer sibling. Better tonality, less air. I go back and forth.

Open-back dynamic. Seventeen years on three different rigs and still in the top three. Some gear just doesn't leave.

Open-back dynamic. A little darker, a little thicker than the 600. The one guests get to try.

Single-ended tube, speaker amp. The Decware I didn't expect to love this much. Lush, alive, and built like it'll outlast me.

Single-ended tube headphone amp. Does things with the Atrium that nothing else does.

Push-pull tube headphone amp. Designed with ZMF headphones in mind and it shows.

Tube preamp/headphone amp. A Swiss Army knife that somehow doesn't compromise at anything.

Solid-state/hybrid headphone amp. The one I reach for when I want power and precision over warmth.

Portable DAC/amp dongle. The one that lives on my keychain. Embarrassingly good for its size.

R2R, ZOTL-buffered, NOS. The DAC that made me stop looking. If you know, you know. If you don't, there's a whole post about it.

Delta-sigma, tube output stage. Smooth and musical — a different philosophy from the Aero, valid in its own way.

Studio-grade delta-sigma. What I used for years before the R2R rabbit hole opened up.

Compact desktop delta-sigma. Punches well above its price. The one I recommend to people just starting out.

Fixed 35mm equivalent, 40MP. The camera that lives on the counter now. Skin tones in any light. Film simulations that are actually useful. The big cameras don't come out anymore.

The camera I always have. Computational photography has gotten good enough to embarrass me.

Full-frame DSLR. Shot thousands of weddings with this. Still technically mine. Will not be used again professionally.

Full-frame DSLR. The camera that taught me how to work in the dark. Wedding workhorse for five years.

APS-C DSLR. The crop sensor that felt like it had nothing to apologize for. Sports and action.

Six seats. Long range. The family hauler that does Big Sur without stopping. The kids have opinions about the falcon wing doors and those opinions are correct.

Trail hardtail. The one I ride before the house wakes up. Fog on the trail, nobody around.

The kids' bikes. Woom figured out that children's bikes should be light, and they're right. All four kids have graduated through them.

Desktop. Where the writing happens, the photos get processed, and Roon runs 24/7. Fast enough to stay out of the way.

65% Alice-layout mechanical keyboard. The layout took a week to adjust to. Now going back to standard feels wrong.