Greetings from the Great State of Oregon!

[MarkusTubesNow]

Hi All -
I selected my user name "MarkusTubesNow" because for the last couple of decades I've generally been known as "Naimnut" because, well, I owned a lot of Naim gear. I'll keep my story short(er) by saying that I recently retired and, as a retirement gift to myself I purchased a Supratek Cortese preamp. For those not familiar with this brand, it is basically a custom, hand-made-to-order, point-to-point hardwired all tube preamp made in Australia. It has transformed my system and I love it and it has caused me to become somewhat obsessed with tubes, though I use solid state power amplifiers.

Here's my system configuration:
Analog: Main source - Late 1980s Linn LP12 with Ittok tonearm, Dynavector 17D3 cartridge into LCR phono stage in the Cortese preamp. Previously used a Linn Linto phono stage
Second 'table: Sony 2251 direct drive turntable with stock Sony arm, Signet 3Ea or Stanton transcription cartridge into Plinius Jarrah phono stage mainly used for 45s.
Third 'table: Numark DJ table with stock arm and Stanton DJ cartridge for 78s and albums and 45s that are really destroyed
Preamp: Supratek Cortese with LCR phono stage
Power amp: Quad 909 or Innersound Electrostatic or OCM Model 100 (each one is solid state. It's a longish story how I came to have three power amps.)
Speakers: Right now I'm listening to a pair of Quad 2805s that have been tweaked by Electrostatic Solutions. These are likely going to replace my Quad ESL 63s (original, non-USA monitors, not serviced, wonderful). I also have a wonderful pair of JBL 4430 studio monitors for when I really want to crank up the volume.
Digital sources: Naim CD 3.5 cd player with & without hicap power supply, Fostex CR300 cd player/burner into Cambridge Audio DACMagic 100 (I think that's the original one)
60 or 70 linear feet of albums. Approximately 20 feet of cds. Lots of 45s.
Oh. One more thing. I had my hearing tested last year and learned that it falls off rapidly above about 8000 Hz. Below that it's pretty good.
Oh - ONE MORE THING - Hearing loss is A) gradual, B) painless and C) irreversible.

[walpurgis]

Hello Mark. Welcome to AOS.

That's quite a collection of HiFi gear you've put together. I don't know your Supratek pre-amp, but I have heard of them.

Feel free to join in any chat that interests you, there's a lot going on and everybody is friendly.


Enjoy the forum,
Geoff.

[Barry]

Welcome to AoS Mark.

That is an impressive collection of gear you have there, and an impressive amount of LPs as well. What are your tastes in music?

The Supratek Cortese preamp is new to me - I'll go and find out a bit more about it!

Enjoy the Forum
Barry

[MarkusTubesNow]

I think the first LP I ever bought was Country Joe & the Fish "Electric Music for the Mind and Body". This would have been around 1967 or '68. My second LP was by Charles Lloyd - "Forest Flower", right around the same time. I don't know for sure but I think that album contributed significantly to Keith Jarrett's reputation. (No, I don't plan to share an album-by-album narrative of the development of my collection but I think it does predict the wide-ranging nature of my collection, given that I was about 14 at the time.)
Probably the largest, best organized genre in my collection is jazz. I have lots of Mingus, a fair bit of Chet Baker, Chico Hamilton, Gerry Mulligan, Monk, Blakey. Johnny Hartman - I love his voice and think there must have been a conspiracy against him to keep him from being a superstar. Blues & R'n'B & soul & funk would be next. Reggae is in there. Hip-hop. Some country. Classical. Lots of soundtracks and Sound Library. Sound Library is probably where I've spent most of my $ lately.
I enjoy Spotify and have learned a lot about new music. My laptop sounds pretty good through the humble DACMagic. I know this DAC is nothing special and that almost any of the newer ones will be an improvement.

[southall-1998_mk2]

Howdy! Welcome to AOS.

Have fun.

S.