Minbari

I think the basics should always be learned in a safe and repeatable scenario. I would never suggest somebody's first soldering project to be on something so small. No reason to learn how to handle a soldering iron on this. Learn on some decent gauge wires and make a little headphone amp or something. Learning the technique properly and then learn how to handle much more difficult and much smaller projects. Dumping a new beginner into a nearly impossible project is a great way to get discouraged and not actually learn any of the transferable skills... I can't think of much worse advice than suggesting that learning in a good, well laid out scenario with clear instructions is bad. Obviously soldering earpods is difficult and maybe more "real world" but it absolutely should not be the starting point for somebody here. Learning is an individual process that doesn't have a one size fits all solution, and that's why education is usually handled gradually, to ensure the fundamental skills are there before moving to a worst-case scenario.

Yes this is possible. You can use a TRS/TRRS diagram to find the pin connections. The biggest problem will be the incredibly thin gauge of internal wire. Having tried adding a new 3.5mm connector to the end of a higher end pair of earbuds, I have found it nearly impossible to remove the insulation without destroying the wire core also. There isn't a good reason to waste time trying something like this on a pair of wired earpods. A new pair is inexpensive and a second hand pair out of somebody's iphone or on some local classifieds will probably be $5 or something. Just buy another pair.

Yes visions is 100% legit. Been shopping at their physical locations for at least 10 years. One of those stores where "everything is on sale" so its always worth cross shopping with other stores to make sure you're getting a good deal, but in general they have some fantastic deals on most products, plus you can always ask for discount and negotiate in store for an even better deal. Great place to find good prices on audio products specifically.

If you like the features you can try using the Peace GUI for it as well - gives you a lot more options for the look and presets and such.

Equalizer APO is fantastic. Give it a try

Without knowing more about your use case I can only try and make some general suggestions. If you want to have proper support from one vendor it would be best to go with a solution from some provider like Dell or HP or Cisco or IBM... DIY whitebox solutions will likely get more raw performance per dollar but at the expense of having to deal with any warranty service or issues with the individual component vendor (and obviously not getting the same level of enterprise support). Threadripper 2 might also be a better option simply because availability of threadripper 1 is a little low, and there are fairly significant performance improvements between them. Threadripper is certainly cheaper than equivalent EPYC gear, but it is only based on a consumer platform and doesn't give you the opportunity to use server boards. If you are considering used hardware, new but discounted E5 v4 equipment is easy to come by and fairly cheaply priced. It might not offer the same level of performance as threadripper, but would still come with a few years of support.

Its never 100% possible to tell from pictures. from personal experience the rack is probably just fine, especially since the doors and panels have zero impact on the vertical racking rails or the ability to mount hardware. Lots of used racks have dings and dented panels and I'm sure much of the damage is easily fixable, and potentially the doors could be straightened too. I would be happy to buy that rack for a decent price. Minor misalignments and stuff on cosmetic panels that you only require for sound dampening shouldn't deter you unless there is something structurally wrong with the cabinet (very unlikely).

If you need the right side panel and it doesn't have one then don't buy it. Unless you find one locally for cheap (almost impossible) then you are left trying to find one on ebay and ship a massive panel that rarely exists without the entire rack. I can't imagine what it would cost to source one of those. You would be better off making your own or buying a different rack.

$350 for a Dell 2420 is a great deal but I am from Canada so I suspect prices are typically much lower for racks where you live. From personal experience the front and back of server racks is where the best noise isolation needs to be added since very little noise comes from the sides of server equipment unless you have many side blower switches or routers. The "best" diy route to isolate server noise is constructing a baffle of sorts on the front/back/both of the rack. This thread has some very simplistic models to illustrate the concept of air channels to let the servers breathe but line the air channels with acoustic dampening. I can't imagine a 24U installation would be cheap or small, but I have seen it done by a few people online who need to keep servers in their bedroom closets or similar. https://www.gearslutz.com/board/bass-traps-acoustic-panels-foam-etc/538696-soundproof-computer-cabinet.html My best technique to quieten my server rack is to just turn off as much equipment as I can, perform fan mods on obnoxious servers and routers, and generally remove all switch fans. All my switches run just fine with reasonable temps with passive cooling in the room. The least time intensive (but not very effective) solution would be to use an enclosed rack and add some basic baffling or foam to some parts of it to dampen a bit of the noise. Keep in mind the airflow restrictiveness of the front panel though, most server documentation will specify a required percentage of the front door to be perforated and open for airflow. I believe these are typically in the 80% range, and most rack doors are around there also. If the close proximity is absolutely required: 1. try and reduce the overall noise output of all your equipment (and condense/reduce the amount of equipment in the rack at all 2. get it as far away as possible from the people as possible 3. add basic acoustic foam or dampening to a rack 4. If needed build some basic air baffle to shut noise out.

In general you can find basic four post racks that have no panels. Enclosed racks with side panels and doors, and sound isolated racks that are designed to put servers in close proximity to people. New 25U four post racks can come from amazon or ebay and are pretty inexpensive. New ones are under $200, and there is likely plenty used ones for sale locally. Enclosed racks are a lot nicer and generally are able to support more equipment and offer a minimal level of sound deadening. New models will be very expensive, but usually used racks like a Dell 2410 or 2510 can be found locally for cheap from data centers replacing their older cabinets. I would expect used half height racks like this to sell for under $100 especially in Socal. Finding a sound isolation rack is very challenging used typically. I have seen a couple sell used in the ~$2000 range and occasionally people find one for very cheap on craigslist or similar, but it seems very uncommon. New prices for a quality sound isolating rack would likely be many thousands of dollars. Also remember that casters aren't useful once you have a rack full of equipment and you should probably lower the stabilizing legs once you have the rack in position- I cannot imagine trying to roll around a loaded server rack anywhere. I would also consider looking into racks that arent the full 1000mm, because finding one will likely cost a great deal more than a half height that is shorter (and your servers and cables can always just hang out the back if you have anything exceptionally long. I have my C7000 and 5108 chassis hang out the back of the rack slightly. I use a fairly basic 4 post 45U rack myself.

No you cannot use the E5-46xx or any of the E7 line in an R620. The first digit after the product line so E5-(2/4/8)xxx is how many sockets that cpu can be used in a server with. The E5-46xx and E7-(2/4/8)xxx were only compatible with different chipsets used in different servers. If you want to get into a system that can support the 46xx line or some of the E7's you could look at R810/R910 or the R820/R920 (or the HP / IBM / Supermicro / other variations of these). Using the chipset in the R620 you have to stick with the E5-26xx or E5-26xx v2

Don't go with a whitebox solution here. If next year you aren't with them anymore and they bring somebody else in, that could be messy. It also isn't worth the risk of using consumer off the shelf hardware with zero support for an application like this. Dell and HPE and lots of tier 1's have "small business" NAS solutions such as the Dell NX appliances. They are relatively affordable and have legitimate one stop warranty and support contracts. There is nothing wrong with DIY solutions for home NAS, but for a legitimate business/enterprise there really wouldnt be an excuse to have a server down for potentially weeks while you go through with an MSI motherboard RMA or something like that. Things are always bound to go wrong, so save yourself the potentially massive issues down the road and get in tough with some vendors and make a proposal for your law firm. It will almost assuredly work out better for them in the end.

For a newcomer to stock purchasing, purely buying companies that you are "interested" in isn't really the smartest move. If you are questioning a tech forum on stock options, you should seriously reconsider purchasing them right now. Schedule an appointment with an investment advisor somewhere who can talk you through all your options. Something like an index/mutual fund might be a much smarter investment to start off with if you have no experience.

In that price range, especially if 4K video is a priority I would suggest a Panasonic GH4, they can be had lightly used or new on sale in the $700 range and lenses are cheap for m43 bodies. It will have a smaller sensor than your a6000 but the GH4 is a great camera for shooting 4K on the cheap, but not as good for shooting stills. If you prefer to stay with a Sony camera you will likely have to give up 4K for that price range, but you should be able to get quality 1080p with a used a7ii or similar (but will require more expensive full frame lenses).

With SSD pricing so cheap these days, C$150-165 / TB makes pretty big SSD boot/storage a lot easier to go with. During video editing the random performance of SSD's is 100% worth it. For simple storing of footage though HDD's are more than enough. Sequential read and write above 100MBps shouldn't be an issue unless you need constant access to the files. I quickly looked at the data sheet for the T5600 and it looks like it has at least 4 sata ports on the board, but keep in mind that many of these machines came with LSI raid cards and support all kinds of drive expansion if you can find room in the case to hold them.