[Reviewers' Bio] Matteo Bruni, reviewer and DIYer on TNT-Audio

Matteo Bruni

TNT-Audio Italy

I'm 39 years old (as of June, 2025), born and raised near the Cottian Alps, but now I live and work in Turin. I share with my wife Stefania a love for good food and mountain trekking. I'm passionate about tennis, music (I was also a terrible guitarist in high school), and of course, high fidelity. For many years I used to be passionate about motorcycles and dedicated time to bonsai cultivation.

I work as a psychotherapist and, in recent years, I've been especially interested in the psychological phenomena related to the use of new technologies. My job, call it professional deformation, leads me to observe the mental processes involved in our passion, which are often numerous and crucial in unconsciously influencing our choices. Of course, the fact that I am a slightly less naive observer of these phenomena doesn't mean I'm immune to them; in fact, of all the senses, hearing is by nature the most easily deceived, this applies to audiophiles, musicians, sound engineers, and psychologists alike.

I mainly listen to jazz (from Louis Armstrong to Shabaka Hutchings), classical music (from medieval music to Arvo Part), and acoustic music. I don't have a reference audio system, but as I write this biography I'm listening to Jazz24 (a streaming radio station available in CD quality) using a DIY BAF2018 pre-amplifier by Wayne Colburn and a modified Fosi V3 Stereo. The speakers are a curious pairing between a Seas CA22RNY woofer and a Faital Pro compression tweeter (HF108), crossed over at an unusually low frequency thanks to a series of tricks I might describe in a future article.

In the photo below I've gathered a small selection of some of my "toys": an old pentode, a proletarian integrated amplifier, some Toshiba 2SJ74 jFETs, a few measuring instruments, a crossover in progress, an excellent woofer, and more. As you can guess, I'm passionate about DIY, especially loudspeakers, and I enjoy experimenting with very different technologies, trying as much as possible to break free from my own biases. I firmly believe in one of TNT-Audio's mottos: listen and then judge.

I have many reference figures, but in this short presentation I'd like to mention three in particular:

Gilbert Arthur Briggs: Founder of Wharfedale, he was a true pioneer. He built speaker cabinets out of any material he could get his hands on, introduced the open baffle model, was among the first to implement a two-way system, and published several essays on DIY loudspeakers. Next time you attend a hi-fi demo where a live concert is recorded and played back through a system that costs more than a sedan, remember that Gilbert did it first over 70 years ago. The fact that a speaker designer and manufacturer chose to freely share his knowledge shows that true high fidelity is not an ode to consumerism, as we are now often led to believe. Here on TNT-Audio you can find a review of an interesting book on Gilbert Arthur Briggs, titled “A pair of Wharfedales”.

Siegfried Linkwitz: If you have the chance to listen to some of his talks on YouTube (just the first five minutes of his last interview, hosted by Michael Fremer, will suffice), you'll realize the love, dedication, and generosity this man poured into our passion, especially regarding what he believed was the most faithful way to reproduce audio: the open baffle. His website, still active today, is a goldmine of information, projects, and reflections.

Chris Templer: Yes, that Chris Templer. Although not a designer, but simply an enthusiast, he managed to convey all his fun and enthusiasm through his articles. It's especially thanks to him that, years ago, I decided to dive into DIY loudspeakers, leaving behind, at least in part, the path of pre-assembled commercial electronics.

Well, I'd say that's all for now. You'll find me on the pages of TNT-Audio, of course in the DIY section. I'm attaching a photo of myself sitting on a spun chair, pretending to be a vacuum tube getting ready for a rolling session.

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