Me and the other half had a short half hour drive over to Alan and Shirley's Black Country abode last night, first of all the welcome we received was fantastic. We were made to feel right at home and it was a pleasure to spend a good couple of hours there.

First thing that hit me walking into Alan's listening room was his Quad 57's, I'd never seen a pair in the flesh before but damn their impressive and are now on my list of wants .

After a bit of a chat we got down to some listening, Naim cd player, Firebottle KIN and Firebottle AIR were the first bits of kit we had a listen to, I think this was through some Goodmans Mezzo 3's if I remember correctly. Zeppelin was the first cd to get played. WOW now please bear with me, I'm crap at explaining what I hear so go easy, as soon as I heard the first few notes I was amazed, then the vocals oh man...... sweet, crisp and right there in front of me, incredible.

Alan switched to the Quads, I went and got a cd from the car, Alice in Chains-Unplugged one of my fav acoustic albums and one I know very well.
I knew as soon as I heard the Crowd at the start of the album this was gonna be special, it sounded like sitting in with the crowd not just a load of static how crowds can sometimes sound, it really added to the atmosphere of what is a great album, 3 dimensional audience realism lol gotta love it!!!
I was thinking it couldn't get much better, Alan told me it could!!!

The Vivant was added, also a Lenco 75, first vinyl was London Grammar-If you wait. The vocals on this sounded truly haunting, I have never heard anything like it,fantastic. Instruments were dancing all around the room, It sounds daft but to me it was like 'watching' a huge tv without any picture, I could look around the room and 'see' the different sounds in different places....mad!!

Alan's Monoblocks next, few more pieces of vinyl, Dire Staits and a bit of classic Jazz.
This was the icing on the cake. everything was there but just more of it, holographic is the word I think I could use. If I had Alan's system I could quite happily live with it for a lifetime. Hopefully I have done it justice with this little write up.

I came away with the AIR, had it on a couple hrs last night and 90% of today. I'm over the moon with it. It has certainly improved my system and I know for sure I'll be dealing with Alan again in the near future his pieces of kit are that good. You lucky lot who are going to MiBO are in for a treat I tell ya....

Thanks again for a great night Alan, looking forward to the next time.