Brook and I, regular visitors to each others premises, gladly accepted an invitation from Tom to listen to his system the other night. I have been to both his current address and his former Winnersh address where we were neighbours. This was Brook's first time.

A feature of Tom's set-up is that he caters for mono and both of us have dabbled and/or are about to dabble in that sphere. We listened to 2 Miyajima mono carts on the resident TD124 and listened attentively as Tom explained the differences between their different diamonds and the mono eras they belonged to. We were able to play some mono records we had brought including my mono issue of 'Down To The Jetty'.

Towards the end Brook asked for a favourite track in stereo of his idol David Bowie and Tom promptly switched to a very expensive stereo Miyajima (quickly and easily via removeable headshells) and we were both mightlily impressed. Then we had Louis Armstrong with the 'King Oliver' album and that was excellent.

A facet of Tom's system which Ive noted in the past is its ability to portray the swelling of big dramatic passages - I dont know what's doing it but the fact that Tom has 15" drivers must contribute to this sense of power, scale and range that's on tap.

A super night - thanks Tom.

Jack NSM