Hi Mark
You've had some very nice gear.
I started my music and hifi journey back in the late 60's. initially a PYE valve world service radio, and a Grundig R/R to record the Top 20 and Luxembourg. Next a Bush record player Christmas 1970, followed a few years later by a cassette/tuner system, Icannot remember the make, In 1977 I got a Dual 504, and a Sansui amp and Monitor Audio Bookshelf speakers, that remained the same for a few years, although I added a Sansui tuner at some point. In 1985 we purchased an Aiwa stacking system, I am not sure why, wife friendly maybe, it was over £1k at the time, and surprisingly sounded quite good.
Around 1987 I purchased a Merdian 507-24bit CDP, Audio Innovations S500 valve amp, and Snell Ks with very heavy stands, I had that for many years until 1998 when the speakers were changed for KEF Reference 3.2 model 2's, 40th Birthday present. I had a Nakamichi Cassette deck for a few years, should have kept it, I became despondent with CD and digital in 2002 and sold nearly all the gear as I had stopped listening and went for a Technics surround amp system, keeping the KEFs as main speakers and Mission surrounds and Sub, this did fine for a while. then in 2010 I purchased a Mission 557 amp, Mission 562 surround processor, and 504 pre-amp, and 508 CDP, I drove the surrounds with a 4 channel car amp, which worked very well. Not sure why but a year later I sold the KEFs and changed them to Dali Ikon 6s, silly it was a room set up issue not the speakers.
We moved in 2013 and 18 months later I had heart problems, so had time at home to recover and start listening to music again. A friend was selling off his record collection and I got tempted and had about 50 of them, and purchased a Dual 506, then a few months later another friend sold me a Project Experience II he had in the loft with a Ortofon Rondo Blue. So I was in vinyl land again and spent many days looking around charity and 2nd hand shops, I was lucky and picked up around 500+ records in VG+ to NM (not he usual charity rubbish) for on average £3 each before prices rose. I was also given 4 small record collections by friends so another 400 or so records. I now have over 1600 records, of which 300 or so were purchased new.
So getting back into Vinyl started me back on SQ improvement ladder. The Meridian 557 power amp went for a pair of Renaiscance R01 300B mono power amps, which initially drove the Dali's , then Wilson Benesch ARCS, The RA01 amps were very sweet sounding but I had a couple of failing capacitor incidents, and so were changed for an Allnic T1500 300b integrated amp. the Project Experience II was replaced with a Michel Gyrodec with an SME MK IV arm and Michel Cusis cart. What a mistake that was, the TT was a resonant pile of pooh, I upgraded it to Orbe spec and did some suspension mods, it did improve but I was never happy, so I had a Voyd TT with 3 motors and used with the SME for a while, and then I replaced it with the Pro-Ject Signature 10 about a year later.
As mentionted before the Allnic amp caused me to go through various speakers until I admitted to myself it was at fault and I replaced it with the Krell finally driving the WB Vectors.
So that is more or less my Hifi journey, with a couple of speakers I played around with a pair of 1970 JBL 100's, Also a pair of excellent Chris Roger PRO-9 Transmission Line speakers, they were professionally built by a cabinet maker, and finished by a quite well known hifi reviewer who I got them from, they were his reference speakers for many years. these actually sounded very good, unfortunately they were not wife friendly, and I was made to move them out of the lounge went not being used, and so were moved onto another hifi buff.
So that is about it as far as my HiFi history is concerned.
All the best
Adrian
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Originally Posted by Swann36
