Welcome to www.jchriso.com. jchriso is short for John Christopher O'Connell.but my friends and family just call me Chris. I have unlimited web space hosted by godaddy so I thought I would post some stuff about my hobbies here as time permits.
My hobbies are primarily music and hifi equipment, photography and photo gear and collecting HO scale slot cars (but not racing). Actually at one point I owned over 1000 cars but I have been selling off my slot car collection lately so its not quite as large. I also enjoy watching HD films on bluray ( haven't got a UHD bluray player yet )
I have been into music since I was a kid and was always interested in fidelity but it wasnt until the early nineties when I put together a high end system and got back into all analog Lps that my appreciation of both music and sound really took off,.
As far as photography goes I started out with a polaroid that took 4"x4" instant pictures when I was about 12 years old,Then a few years later I moved up to 35mm SLR with a mamiya/sekor DSX1000 while at the same time I took a photography course in high school. While 35mm is good, the larger formats are even better, and I had them all 6x6, 6x7 ,6x9, 4x5, 5x7, all the way up to the big ol' kodak 8x10 camera which took photos of mind blowing resolution. I used to shoot mostly black and white with these cameras and develop the negatives and prints myself until 2006, that was the year I got my fiist APS (crop) DSLR , a Pentax istDS. After getting instant results and not having to buy film and chemicals, digital just made film obsolete in my mind even though I do miss the old kodak 8x10 now and then, For 35mm as stated. I started out with a Mamiya Sekor. which used universal M42 screw mount lenses popular with Pentax, so I switched to Pentax Spotmatic camera body, far more refined than the clunky Mamiya. I also discovered the Pentax screw mount lenses (super multi coated Takumars) were also gems and set out to collect all of those too. At one point, I had every takumar from 15mm ultra wide angle to 1000mm super telephoto takumar. All in near mint to mint condition. In the film era, I preferred using screw mount Pentax gear, It wasnt until Pentax DSLRs came out that I finally switched to k mount lenses and sold off all my screw mount gear. I especially like the SMC Pentax K, M, and A manual focus lens series.
Regarding music and hifi, I have always enjoyed music, but didnt get into hi fidelity until I was in my teens. While I was an early adopter of CD and played digital only from around '86 to'90, I would now say I am a die hard analog fan spinning Lps (all analog) most of the time. For Lp playback, I use a vpi turntable, Conrad Johnson Preamp, Amherst Amp, and Magnepan speakers. While far from state of the art, this system still sounds pretty good. I bought the majority of my Lp collection back in the 90's for next to nothing when everyone else was dumping their Lps for CDs.With the right playback gear and a good recording on a well mastered Lp, The Lp can sound better than the CD. Hearing is believing.