"Possessions are usually diminished by possession." - Friedrich Nietzsche
This page will contain a list of things I use daily. I know that most of these things are quite expensive but I value quality and use them daily; I would say its worth the cost (for the most part). Not everything was bought new or at MSRP, I utilize r/HardwareSwap, r/buildapcsales and similar subreddits regularly.
The main use for my workspace is for performance in competitive Counter-Strike 2 and to complete my computer science degree. At my software engineering internship, you could easily get away with just using a laptop, as we can remote into our on-site servers. However, I've recently been utilizing local LLMs on my hardware with my overkill system.
Check out the software I use here, and more info about the site here.
I've been an advocate for SFF (Small Form Factor) computers ever since the Loque Ghost S1 came out in 2018. 3 Years later during my sophmore year in college I was finally able to purchase one! At the time my computer was fully aircooled with the Noctua NH-L12 Ghost S1 Edition and traveled with me from my dorm to my home. Ease of portability was and still is important to me, but the thermals suffered heavily.
Once I started my first internship, I had the money to upgrade to a higher-end system, specifically the one listed above. Now everything wasn't purchased all at once, as my computer is the epitome of the Ship of Theseus, but I intend on staying with this case for a while. The Formd T1 maintains the clean look of the Ghost S1 but comes in at ~1 liter larger. That might not sound like much, but this extra liter allows so much more freedom. With this case I'm able to perfectly fit a 240mm AIO and a full-size GPU, albeit very tightly.
I plan on upgrading to an AMD System soon, read why here. (Update: I switched!)
I love Thinkpads. I like the form follows function approach of their designers and focus on quality by their engineers. Simple but elegant, fast and reliable. The philosophies followed by their creators and users are all important to me.
ThinkPad. For those who do.
Every once in a while I do feel jealousy over Apple Silicon Macbooks, as they are the fastest mobile chips on the market; but completely breaks the philosophies I would like to follow. Closed ecosystem, form over function, anti right-to-repair. If one day Apple allows Linux/GNU to be run on their hardware I might switch over, but for now I'm very satisfied.
To be honest my first experience with these headphones was not a pleasant one, despite being told about the insane treble spike. However, I eventually learned to love them with time and tweaking. EQ quickly solved most of my issues with the tuning and allowed the headphones to properly sing. I tamed the treble, but didn't completely kill it, and added a bass shelf to utilize the dynamic driver's slam.
The most impressive part of the 1990s is the soundstage. This is my first set of headphones that actually delievers an out of head staging experience. I recommend Chaotic by LOONA ODD EYE CIRCLE and Can't Love You Anymore (With OHHYUK) as sound stage test tracks.
Eventually I would like to add a planar headphone to my collection, likely from HIFIMAN. The Arya V3 seems to check all of my boxes, apart from durability. Maybe one day I could splurge on a ZMF set too?
The Andromedas sound great, but are not perfect. I'd say the mids and treble perform similarly to my EQ'd 1990s but the bass is where my main issue lies. These iems are a perfect case of tonality suffering from a full balanced armature setup. Now the bass definitely doesn't suck by any metric but it sticks out like a sore thumb when compared against the other ranges. Although bass presence is full and tonally "correct", the technicalities suffer from a general lack of slam.
I can't really see myself using anything other than the Apple dongle as they measure great and are extremely cheap.
KEF's smallest offering of their reference lineup is the R3, and simply put it sounds exceptionally clean. Tonally everything blends so well together while not overemphasizing anything at all. Even without a subwoofer, it delievers analytical but still fun bass in my listening space. I believe that even in its bookshelf size, it reproduces sound better than plenty of floor standing speakers.
Both the R3 and Audiolab 7000A feature elegant, simple design that can only be described as inoffensive, and I absolutely love it. I don't need my equipment to be the centerpiece of my room, but rather be perfect at doing the job I need them for. I don't have much to say for the 7000A other than to praise their engineers for the amp's ease of use.