Hello everyone.
I’ve had a passion for music from a very young age, learning the violin as a main instrument, and playing mainly classical music as a young lad and teenager. I got a bit diverted in my late teens by listening to John Peel most evenings, and saw many of the punk and post-punk bands in their prime. Career and family meant music and hifi took a back seat for quite a long time, particularly as I was working in various parts of Asia and Latin America for several years.
I bought my first decent system about 25 years ago, and still have most of it as a second system - a Marantz CD player, an Aura amp, and Ruark Templar speakers. After a while, I moved on to a system which hasn’t changed much in about 20 years - a Wadia CD player, a Pathos TT amp and Quad ESL63 speakers, and use Mana stands. LPs have become more and more important for me and I tend to browse second-hand shops whenever and wherever I can. I currently use a Lumley Heliosphere turntable, with an Audiomods Series V arm, Grado cartridge and Whest phono stage, and find I can listen to this for many hours. However, I now listen to music - mainly jazz and classical now - principally through the radio. A Naim NAT01 is used for FM, but I’m finding I use the computer more and more to listen to music and to stream through my hifi. My son sings bass, and I've also enjoyed discovering new music from him, while claiming that I have been familiar with that particular piece for years, naturally :)
I’ve spent the last few years working in Europe and have recently returned to Cheshire. I’m looking forward to refreshing my knowledge on hifi and music reproduction, and what I can do to optimise, update and adapt my current system. I quite like the idea of active speakers, for example, with an Apple iMac as the main source - the simplicity of this seems very attractive!