Interview with Chu Moy, Webmaster, HeadWize

RHM: What is your background? How did you get started in electronics?

CM: I am a software engineer but have an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering. The audio bug bit me in my early teens and I started spending lots of time at the public library, poring over back issues of audio magazines and DIY electronics magazines like Popular Electronics and Radio Electronics. It also helped that I lived in lower Manhattan, where there were many Radio Shacks (back when Radio Shack sold electronic parts) and surplus electronics stores to feed my interest.

RHM: What led you to start the site?

CM: Back in 1998 when HeadWize premiered, the phenomenal popularity of portable players indicated that headphones were becoming the primary means of listening to music for many people, including myself. Yet, unlike speaker-based audiophilia, there was very little information about headphones and headphone listening in print or on the web. Audio magazines would review headphone products occasionally, and they might put out a short headphone buyers guide every few years, but back then, "real" audiophiles did all their critical listening with speakers.

I got the idea to start a website that would serve as a repository for headphone-related materials and would promote headphone-philia. It occurred to me that getting DIYers involved would help advance the art of the headphone, so I added a Projects section in the HeadWize library. As an extra benefit, the Projects library would support the electronics hobbyist community, which was (and still is) in decline. Today, there are other sites that publish headphone reviews and DIY audio projects, but I think that HeadWize remains (imho) the top resource of its kind.

RHM: Why did you take on this project of building a headphone amplifier?

CM: I had built a headphone amplifier using an audio amplifier chip and didn't like it. At that time, I was also researching an article for HeadWize on opamps, so I decided to replace the headphone amplifier with my own opamp-based design. The challenge was to devise the simplest, high performance circuit possible, respecting audiophile design principles, and capable of running off a single battery.

RHM: Why did you decide to publish it on the web?

CM: Was it the first article that inaugurated the HeadWize Projects Library? It may well have been, and I do recall that the library needed a portable amp project. One important advantage of web publishing is that it is easy to disseminate updates to electronic projects. Over the years, the pocket amp article has been updated many times (more updates are waiting to be posted, when I get the time).

RHM: How does it feel to see the many, many amplifiers around eBay and elsewhere, all based on your original design?

CM: I don't understand the fuss, really. Although I expected the project to be popular, especially for beginner DIYers, it seems to have taken on a life of its own. I feel very proud to have launched it on its way. There appears to be a large audience out there, hungry for DIY audio projects that are both simple to build and offer enough performance to compete with commercial products.

RHM: And did you ever expect that individuals would use your design to make businesses out of building them for other people?

CM: I didn't publish the design with the intention of it becoming the basis for a business. Sales of the DIY headphone amps appear to be so lucrative that students are selling them to pay their way through college. Well, who'd of thunk it? I am overwhelmed to think that I helped start a cottage industry. The more important outcome though is that projects like the pocket headphone amp have enticed people to pick up a soldering iron for the first time and try their hands at electronics.