Phil's Superpower of Enthusiasm

Headphones, goldens, whiskey, and wine.

I’m experimenting with Amazon Affiliate status in an attempt to defray some of the costs of headphone reviews; Amazon links may be affiliate links (depending on whether or not I’ve figured out how to use them correctly). Please feel free to buy elsewhere; this is just one way to recoup the costs of this hobby.

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  • [MSRP $799. Purchased for $799 + tax on Amazon in January 2025.]  [Tl;dr: These are my new favorite headphones, period. They’re not objective-focused; their tune is warm (and buttery, and magic), but if that’s something you’re interested in, I cannot recommend these strongly enough. They’re so good out of the box, in fact, that I’m…

  • [Non-RX MSRP $316 in shiny black with green lenses, I paid … substantially more for prescription in shiny black.]     [Tl;dr: I’m genuinely surprised by how much I like these. Are they great, audiophile-grade headphones? Nope. But that’s not their use case, and not what they’re designed for. For what they’re designed for, they’re…

  •   This was a strange year in music for me. I actually didn’t listen to that much “new” music in 2024, having spent a lot of time going back to older artists that I loved. It was also a year where a few of my favorites were the result of going to live shows with…

  • This is a companion to my post the other day about my philosophy for building a stereo system, aka hi fi rack. I’ve broken it into tiers ranging from $500 to around $3,000. You can certainly spend way more than that on a stereo, but if you’re going to invest that kind of money you…

  • I got asked the other day by a coworker about how I go about building an audio system, and I realized that while I’ve been working on this for more than a year, that I never actually posted it. So here it is. A tier list is coming soon.   [Caveat 1: go talk to…

  •   I got a new pair of shoes a few weeks ago. They’re Merrell Nova 3 Trail Shoes* and I love them. They’re super comfy and rainbow colored. Last week someone asked me why I, a cis-het white dude, bought rainbow running shoes. The glib answer is that these happened to be on sale at…

  • [MSRP $500] [Tl;dr: great pair of stand mount speakers. No particular complaints or suggestions, but may benefit from an amp with a fair amount of power, or in a smaller room/in near-field.]                                             Scores: Cost-agnostic: 9 out of 10 Denalis Cost-sensitive: 9 out of 10…

  •  There’s been some super weird discourse the last few weeks about electric vehicles (EVs) on Threads, particularly with regards to charging vs. filling up a gas tank, time-wise. I love EVs. I love my EV, in particular. It’s my daily driver, and has been for almost two years at this point (bought it in June…

  • Hawaii: 11/10 Denalis. It’s been an incredible trip, all around. I woke up this morning excited to go home (and, honestly, mostly excited to see Denali again), but not tired of being here or wishing I was already home. This tells me that I calibrated this trip right–long enough to really get to enjoy the…

  • This is just a place to throw down some thoughts on the places I visit on my month-long stay on the Big Island. Some notes on my scale: 10/10 Denalis: among the best I’ve ever had. I will plan entire days (or entire trips) around going to this place and doing the thing there. [very…