Hi Guys and Gals.
I hope every one is keeping well
I will share a bit about myself, just so everyone knows where I am coming from.
Up until late September I was the manager of an Audio/video shop,with particular responsibility for the HI-Fi side of things. Like many in the trade, this shop entered the Multi-room/Custom Install side of things and did well until the almost total death of new builds early this year. As you would expect, cut backs had to happen(funny how Banks were everyones friend until recently), so I and a colleague got the old heave-ho.
Any way thats the past. The reason I mention this is I think it will be obvious to anyone and everyone that what I may have to say will probably sound like Trade. I should like to add that I am first and foremost an enthusiast and someone who has always put his money where is mouth is.
I am a bit of a collector(my wife would say hoarder), so I do have a bit of a collection of audio; along with collections of hi-fi mags,music(on all formats), books,dvd's etc.
I have along time preference for Valve/Tube amps but I also have used and have a respect for Class A soild state(using Mosfets) and Hybrid (Valve/Tube-Solid state). I like both vinyl and cd and while I would say I think vinyl has many strength that cd does not, I do find myself using cd more.
When it comes to CDP's I am a big fan of Marantz multi-bit players and have a small collection of such, with pride of place falling to a Marantz cd7
I like most genres of music(not really country or pure folk). I love electronica/dance music such as Afterlife, Rokysopp, Orb etc, Melodic rock (aor) such as Saga, Journey, Kansas etc. I also like female singer songwriters such as, Toni Childs, Kate Bush, Robin Holcolm etc. Jazz such as, Pat Metheny, Return to Forever, holly Cole etc. Prog Rock such as, Yes, Genesis,
, Flower Kings. I do listen to a fair amount of current pop music as well.
My main system(in the living room) is as follows. Moon Andromeda CDP, Sme Model 20 with Graham Phantom arm, various cartridges VDH, Ortofon and Lyra
Phono stage Bat VK 10se and a Pass labs X Ono. Marantz sacd 7. Amplification is a Bat Pre VK31 se with a Bat VK 75 and Music Reference RM 200 amplifiers. speakers are Anthony Gallo Ref 3.1 and cabling is Audience Au24 and Atlas Marvos. Every thing that is balanced is hooked up that way. I believe this makes a big difference I have a Leak Troughline Tuner with Ear Fm decoder and an Audio valve headphone amp with Grado 1000 headphones.
I also have a smaller room which is also valve based.
One thing I am not very good with is PC so if you want to see pictures I would have to suggest you look at Zero Gain where in the show me your system you can see photos of my main set up( sorry about this but a colleague did this for me and I will need to get help to post any pictures on this site. Something I will try to arrange soon)
Anyway I think thats about it for now.
Regards D S D L