End game or just another stop on the way?
Well I think this might be a little different to other people's hifi journeys in that I feel that the system I have now has reached my own personal nirvana, & certainly have no plans for further upgrades from now, other than perhaps improving my Firebottle Plus phono & trying different cartridges. But as we all know things just sort of happen & we end up taking another path, but we shall see.
I have always been a vinyl guy, I remember trying to rescue my mums Beatles records from misuse before I was 9 years old, & later on when I was a club DJ on the verge of making a name for myself giving it all up because I hated the damage lugging my records around venues, despite how careful I was with them.
Over the years I have had differing systems, first mainly Japanese gear, then Rega, Linn, Naim all came & by the middle of the '90's I settled on a Michell Orbe full fat, with a SME 309/Ortofon Rohmaan, Unison Research Simply 4/Simply Phono, & Audio Physic Spark speakers. I was very happy with this for some years, until I moved from Sheffield & came down to live in Poole, & it was all put into storage until I got myself sorted.
That took a lot longer than I thought, & instead of leaving the gear until I could use it properly I decided to sell it all & start again when the time was right.
Around a year ago I had a Quad 33/303, with a Funk Firm deck & Ortofon 2M blue, & Rega Ela speakers, & while it was very nice it didn't thrill me, so again I tried a bit of box swapping, & tried variously a Quad 34/306 combo, Quad ESL 57's, Heco Celan 500's, Funk Firm Saffire, Icon Audio Stereo 60 valve amp amongst others. Things were getting better, but still not quite right.
So, once again moving house, in the last few months have collected what is now my finished system. I will probably get shot by the Mrs when she knows I have taken photographs in the house as it has been stripped for refurbishment & decoration, but I put all my gear in the room that is scheduled to be done last so I could use it until we get to that point.
First up is the Origin Live Aurora Mk2, with a Audiomods Classic tonearm & Dynavector MC cart, & a Firebottle Plus phono stage. That is connected to the mighty Triode Corporation 845SE valve amp, & fed to my very recent additions, Art Moderne 6 floorstanding loudspeakers.
I also have a Musical Fidelity X-Ray CD player & X-Dac, sounding very decent but not employed very often.
Oh, I also have an old Dual CT1140 tuner, I do listen to the radio a fair bit & like most I am a sucker for VU meters!
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