Hello Alex, good to hear from you again.

I lost my music/hifi mojo back in 2003. There were a number of reasons I suppose. In 2001 and 2002 we worked our arses off running a large Edwardian house in Devon as a Guest House and for 9 months of the year it was 10 to 12 hour days, nearly 7 days a week, so music listening was a rare event in the winter. We moved in 2003 and ended up with a more manageable B&B nearby, I had more time but became quite disspondent about digital music, some CDs I had sounded good, but quite few I found annoying one way or another, I had started listening to digital files at the time and that was pretty poor to be honest, so I just gave up, and focused on Cinema/film and surround sound which I and Sue both enjoyed together.

It was not until 2014 having moved again that I started listening to music proper, I made a few changes to the system and just used CDs initially. Then in 2016 my heart problems started and during my recovery a friend offered to sell me some of his LPs he was selling, so I was Back in the Black disc arena again after many years. Even with a used cheap Dual 504 TT I was enjoying listening again. A long time friend offered me his Pro-Ject Xperience II with Ortofon Rondo Blue for a silly price and it just got better. I was then off trawling the charity shops, hospicecare and 2nd hand stores locally, which was great fun and my black disc collection rapidly grew. I was very lucky and a few friends gave me their old record collections that had been languishing in lofts.

My Music Hifi/Mojo was fully re-ignited, and several more TTs came and went in the pursuit of better aural reception, and again my good friend came up trumps offering me his Marantz KI Pearl CD player. It is now nearly 9 years since my journey back began, and I am still loving it. I try and discover new music on my simple RPI/HiFiBerry streaming set up, sometimes used for casual listening, and if I find stuff I really like it usually results in a new LP purchase. I get a great deal of pleasure listening to my records now, and it helps me relax, I am not sure how much listening I will get in when Sue retires in 3 years time, but I can't see me not listening at least for a couple of hours a day.