Rana
22-01-2013, 00:07
I'm Rana. I've been dabbling in hi-fi since the early 1980's when my teenage best friend took me to his mate's house to gaze in awe at his new Nakamichi tape deck. For me the equipment came before the music originally 'til I started at uni and got into typical 1980's engineering student-type music (mainly singer songwriter stuff). I lived at home so my Uni grant (remember those) got spent at AT Labs in Gants Hill, Bartlett's hii-fi in North London and Richer Sounds' original shop in London Bridge. Gainful employment in the automotive industry brought about real disposable income and I actually bought my flat in Birmingham based upon the fact it was perfect for hi-fi expansion. Until my good lady finally moved in (mid-90's), I had graduated to a Roksan Xerxes Artemiz / Shure VST-V front end, Concordant Excelsior pre and Concordant modified Quad 11 amps feeding Lowther Acoustas. It sounded glorious, however on trying to sell the Lowthers (suspicion was that wifey would not get on with speakers the size of kitchen appliances), I was made an offer for all my kit that I could not refuse and spent a few years out of the hi-fi trail. A few years later and I found myself living in Worthing which had the advantage of being a hi-fi shop paradise and soon bought a pair of Linn Kan IV to build a small sistem from a dem at Phase 3. Absolutely loved them and went on to get a Nait 2 for beer money. I was hooked on hi-fi again and spent subsequent years on the Naim upgrade trail helped by Ebay and PFM (joined the day it went live) and then a rapid succession of kit of many descriptions. I would have made jandl look like an amateur (not really)! Last few years and changed priorities has seen me downgrade into a smaller room but I am hooked onto Shahinian speakers. I've had Arcs and now love my Super Elves. I did think I would regain my larger room by now and buy Shahinian Obelisks (I had even bought a monster Bedini amp in anticipation) but it is not to be. At the moment I have bought a small mini-ATX computer running Linux controlled by an Ipad and looking to sample the world of music servers. DAC/pre is a Peachtree Decco2 which is to my ears even better than the 8200CDQ it replaced. I have a Transcriptors Saturn with vestigal tonearm sitting in its original box waiting patiently for me to resurrect it. Love it for its looks was ruing selling my Gyrodec/Zeta/Tom Evans vinyl system when I saw it in the local ads.