Apparently, I have to pitch something on the welcome pages… so here goes

Status: raddled old audiophile (b: 1961); hearing well shot so I wouldn’t take too much notice of anything I say (especially if it involves anything over about 12K).

Philosophy: rather spend money on music (and bikes and family and dog) than hi-fi toys, so a cheaper way of getting a good result is always good with me.

Outlook: sceptical. If all the ground-breaking advances since I bought my first system in 1978 added were as transformative as all that, new gear should sound worlds apart from even the very best of what we had back then. It doesn’t.

Best gear I’ve ever owned: (1) Speakers – Lowther Acoustas. So dynamic, so alive, and TBH the famed “Lowther shout” just didn’t make itself apparent in my system/room. Sadly also terribly fragile – too expensive to keep servicing/replacing drivers so no longer with me.

Best gear I’ve ever owned: (2) Power amp – Leak stereo 20. Infectious musicality minus the unrealistic “bloom” that I hear with many valve amps. Why on earth don’t I have one still?

Best gear I’ve ever owned: (3) Pre-amp – my own home-built passive-pre using switched pot. Volume control is a bit coarse (only 23 steps quiet-to-loud) but it's silent and sounds transparent. I’ve never really perceived the claimed lack of drive or dynamics that some people attribute to passive pre’s.

Best gear I’ve ever owned: (4) digital: Topping D30 DAC. Plenty of inputs, dirt cheap, silent and cleans up my CD, PC and radio sources impressively. Ludicrously competent and under £100!

Best gear I’ve ever owned: (5) analogue: can’t be anything other than my Garrard 301 with Martin Bastin plinth and Jelco 750. Got the style, got the sound. Not expecting to change it now.

Best bargain: Ocean Digital DBA-03R Internet Radio tuner. £45. That’s £45. Internet radio kills off DAB at a stroke – and I no longer use my analogue tuner either. The analogue outputs stink, but digital out to an external DAC sorts that out.

Is it just me?? (1) Do speakers get better as they get older? I know Lowther speakers have a reputation for getting better and better right up to the moment they break, but TBH I think this covers other brands too. (Yes – capacitors and resistors need replacing.) I’ve listened to a number of recent mid-price recommendations (Wharfedale, Tannoy, Q Acoustics) with a view to upgrading/up-dating. Haven’t liked any of ‘em. Sticking with my Bang & Olufsen S45 mk2’s. A cult classic from the mid 1970’s, there’s not much I like better. Not in my price range, anyway.

Is it just me?? (2) I love these classics, but I do worry about just being set in my ways. Is it like music, where nothing will ever sound quite as great as the stuff that excited you when you were 18? Maybe I only really respond to stuff that reminds me of the things that I aspired to back then.

Is it just me?? (3) Enough nostalgia! Some of that old stuff was always over-rated and is still just as poor. I’ve had a couple of pairs of Mission speakers through my hands recently – the little 70’s and 700’s. Both budget classics – and both ruddy dreadful. To be fair, I only tried them in my garage system with a Chinese 2020 class T mini amp, i.e. not remotely good enough to show you what’s good, but plenty good enough to reveal what’s bad. I “upgraded” to a pair of Sony mini-speakers that came with a low-fi mini-system. Genuinely, the Sony’s are a country mile better than the Missions! Shocking, eh?

Is it just me?? (4) I can’t hear what’s wrong with Class T amps! I currently use a couple of TPA3116 power amps – one in a home-made power amp with a Meanwell PSU, the other a cheap Chinese mini-amp. Both are great. I don’t hear any issue using switched mode power supplies either. (Like I said… old ears.)

Is it just me?? (4) Bloomin’ heck I do love Spotify. I know, it’s compressed digital, but at 320 mbps it sounds good to me. Very good, actually. (Old ears again…) Those LPs (and even the CDs) are getting taken out less and less. The choice! The convenience! I’m weak.

CURRENT PLAYLIST : Flook, Oi Va Voi, Stereolab, Kenny Burrell, Merry Clayton, Joni Mitchell, Delfonics, Bernad Peiffer, Sly & the Family Stone, Tortoise. Yeah, I know… but it’ll change next week, so never mind, eh?

And if you’ve read all the way to here, thanks for listening.