Well hallo!

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Alter ego Dr Bunsen Honeydew because I am a well known muppet, and mad scientist. Richard Dunn in reality, owner of NVA and designer of NVA products.

Any music as long as it doesn't make me wince.

Any gear as long as it is NVA though I have a Pioneer PL-71 turntable with either Ortofon SPU gold or Decca London Super Gold or Shure M3D or Denon 103. Carts sound familiar, I wonder who is copying who

Also I have got a Garrard 401 refurbished that either I need time to do or to contract someone to do the plinth for it, and a spare Pioneer PL-71 arm Speedy Steve converted to 12 inch for me, so a future project.

Apart from that my system varies a lot according to what I am working on in prototype or is knocking around waiting for a customer. At the moment it is the Pioneer with Ortofon SPU Gold feeding a dual PSU fed Phono2, feeding a P50sa passive control unit, feeding a pair of A80 monoblocks, feeding a pair of Cube1 speakers, all wired with NVA cable.

It also has one of the first batch of NVA TFS music computers (designed by Figlet108 / Jason) connected, which I am virtually using all the time now connected to a cheap Tesco special Technika 32 inch LCD as monitor with wireless keyboard and mouse. It has given me a digital source at last that is at least the equal musically to the Pioneer DD, but the addition of the screen at the moment is fascinating me and I am ploughing through the dross at Youtube to find and save the gems, and believe it or not there are some real gems. Saved links to some Albano yesterday for the wife as we saw him in concert last week in Ischia Italy, and she likes him though his ex wife he used to sing with on some of the clips was a bit nice.

Anyway enough rambling - tootle pip!

Richard

[chris@panteg]

Welcome back to the fold Richard , i thought you had retired from the forum malarky ?

Are you going to be at Whittlebury this year ? Would like to hear those cubes again .

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

I never retire from forums, they retire from me.

I even have my own little one so that I can't be booted from all of them at once. We will see if I survive here this time.

I don't know about Whittlebury, it is not very cost effective. Anyway if you want to hear them again you would be welcome in Epping.

[Marco]

Hi Richard,

Welcome to AoS - you know the ropes!

I have a Pioneer PL-71 turntable with either Ortofon SPU gold or Decca London Super Gold or Shure M3D or Denon 103. Carts sound familiar, I wonder who is copying who

Lol - I suspect that you discovered most of those cartridges long before I did! Interesting, though, that we appear to have similar tastes in that respect.

It also has one of the first batch of NVA TFS music computers (designed by Figlet108 / Jason) connected, which I am virtually using all the time now...

That sounds intriguing, and liable to be of interest to quite a few folks here . Perhaps you could tell our members more about it in the trade room?

Saved links to some Albano yesterday for the wife as we saw him in concert last week in Ischia Italy, and she likes him though his ex wife he used to sing with on some of the clips was a bit nice.

Interesting - I'll check out Albano. I've never been to Ischia, but it looks stunning! I've been to Sardinia and the Isle of Elba, which were also both stunning and representative of 'island life' in Italy.

If you haven't been to Tuscany, you should go, as I think you'd love it. I could certainly recommend some areas to visit. The Cinque Terre, in nearby Liguria, would certainly be in the equation

http://www.lecinqueterre.org/eng/

Marco.

[Beechwoods]

Welcome to AOS Richard

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Well I have lolled around on the beach at Forte dei Marmi and Viareggio while staying in Pisa. Obviously to do Firenza for Nadia as I have been before and also Lucca a delightful small town. Doing it all by train but next time I will hire a car as she is now nagging me about the lakes and Venetia and Roma *and* then a week in Ischia.

I thoroughly recommend Ischia, nothing like Napoli (filthy place) or the Amalfi coast. Very very few Brits (thank god) but lots of Germans. Unspoilt, never heard of fish and chips or warm beer, lots of ice cold Limonchello and Ruccolino and one place in Casamicciola for brilliant granita and gelato. The small neighbouring island of Procida is a delight as well, but Capri, forget it, too crowded expensive and commercial. Ischia is a semi extinct volcano so one of its main assets is the hot volcanic water that all the spa hotels have pools of in their basements, and the lots Terme where you get volcanic mud treatments. We go to La Rita Terme in Cassamicciola overlooking Lacco Ameno which has the best water and mud in the whole of Ischia. Started going because Nadia was getting rheumatism, mud has cured it as long as we go twice a year, the NHS could do nothing but give her pain killers.

Anyway a couple of link to the hotel we use where they are now friends, and to trip advisor about them (#1 in the whole island).

http://www.hotelvillasirena.it/Azienda_ing.html
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_R..._Campania.html

[Marco]

That's all very interesting, Richard! I'll comment more afterwards (particularly on Lucca and Viareggio, etc, which I know very well). Lucca is only about 15-20km from the village where my family come from, Barga:

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Travel-...aly:Barga.html

Right now I'm off to listen to some tunes, as last night I had some new PSU caps fitted to my Croft preamp, and haven't head the effect yet in my own system - laters!

Marco.

[HighFidelityGuy]

Welcome back Richard.

[MartinT]

I have a Pioneer PL-71 turntable with either Ortofon SPU gold or Decca London Super Gold or Shure M3D or Denon 103. Carts sound familiar, I wonder who is copying who

Welcome, Richard. Lovely deck and Marco has rather given me a taste for SPUs even though I don't have one personally. As for copying, we're all guilty of that but then if we didn't we would never make any improvements, would we?

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

It was supposed to be a joke.