Hello Forum.

Nice to "be" here & to meet all the Forum members. I am a Professional Violinist now in my 50s; I used to perform, but now I teach from home which is Bristol, UK. Anyway, I love Hifi.. and yes, I love Classical and a bit of Jazz plus a bit of easy listening plus anything than I can tap my foot to or hum in the shower.

I have 4 hifi systems, if you count the one on the desktop a hifi ; Quad Vena feeding Dali Opticon 2 bookshelf speakers. System 2 is an Arcam IrDAC + A39 120W Integrated Amp. driving Older B&W DM603 S3 floorstanders. System 1 is Arcam A90 +P90 Bi Amped running B&W704 (also floorstanders which were current models about 10 years ago) + a REL Ti7 Sub, and source is Arcam IrDACII or CDS27. System 4 is not up and running at the moment...

What makes a massive difference for me and my tastes in sound are Atlas Cables which I use everywhere... Copper only no Silver not even silver plated / it's the devil ! I put as much money into cables as I do speakers... that's way more than most!! I'm pretty good at tweaking (been tweaking my hifi for the last 30 years... started out with Bob Carver gear and AR speakers... err.. actually that's a lie.. started out in my teens with Italian speakers and cheap Sony record player and amp... and wow did it sound good. The family HiFi was also not bad, until we moved from records / tapes to CDs in 1982... as soon as CD came out.

I believe in HiRes, not because we can unmistakably hear it and identify it over Redbook blindfolded, but I believe we benefit from better remastering (digital has improved over the last 30 years) so we benefit indirectly... and I think the main jump is to go from 16-bit to 24-bit and the sound will invariably come across more relaxed (and not just because the levels are usually lower). That's my opinion, and well, even my Carver CD player way back in the 80s upsampled to 18-Bit !!

I am super keen on Hifi, and my next move may be to upgrade from my B&W 704s to Dali Opticon 6 or 8 or Rubicon 6.
What I like about the Dali are the Wood composite drivers, and how tight the bass comes across... I am less keen on the treble end (especially since the 704s are so transparent) but I often use Foobar as a Hires source, and I don't mind a bit of EQ. Usually prefer to leave it flat, of course.

Anyway that's me ; sorry to bore you if you got to the end ! Cheerio, Roland