Been a life-long interest for me, but I steer clear of the fringe and junky areas. Not too interested in the latest & greatest. I like to find older, well-built equipment, fix it up and keep it going. I have two old Pioneer receivers, one I bought used from a friend while in college ~ 1979. Still works though needs some tiny bulbs replaced and no doubt re-capped.
Here's my write up on reworking a HK Citation 7:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/3240214/1
A stereo amp I built in the mid-90's designed by Erno Borbely: http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/3561586/Searchpage/1/Main/227364/Words/phoenix+/Search/true/Phoenix_Project_II:_Servo100_A#Post3561586
I re-worked a Philips DAC960 according to a series of articles found in Audio Amateur magazine.
I also started a thread about refinishing a loudspeaker I'd built many years ago:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb...nee#Post3503645
Tuned up pair of dual subwoofer cabinets with a nasty BOOOOMMMING resonance right around 70Hz or so if I remember correctly. Stiffened up the cabinet walls, made braces to hold the woofers by the magnet, refoamed the surrounds (4), new speaker cable (Canare) and connectors (Neutrik SpeakOn). Lots of work, that one. And lots of testing using Audiomatica's CLIO acoustical measurement system on an old confuser running W98!
Current loudspeakers are a custom MTM using SEAS Excell drivers with a XO designed by Joe D'Appolito.
Still need to reinstall a Parasound 6-channel amp to re-enable surround sound. The main power caps were bulging. About the time I nearly finished that, my old Tek 465M oscilloscope developed a problem in the horiz. sweep ckt. Also found some other capacitors that were bad and replaced those.
Still using a 1990 JVC 36" CRT TV. I've fixed it several times + color-calibrated the picture. Deep blacks, great colors. I focus on big sound rather than big video. One of these days the JVC will croak (maybe), then I'll have to rebuild my entertainment center to accomodate a 16:9 set, rather than a 4:3.
You can tell I'm a very hands-on audiophile. I enjoy the building, reworking, learning, researching aspect. Feeds my EE left brain, while the music feeds my right brain. Thus audio engineering & acoustics is a perfect fit for me!