HOW DID YOU END UP WITH YOUR DREAM SYSTEM?

25+ years ago. Sitting at a picnic table behind a well known hifi shop where the owner and a British elder (magician) were recapping torn up Eico’s and Marantz 8B’s, while customers perused $30K CD Transports (remember them?) inside. We sort of chilled out and had some laughs. Hit it off I guess.

One thing led to another as we all became more friends with the same sarcastic twisted humor. Not sure I actually went into the shop that much, We were all jazz LP collectors. Kind of like the "after school gang" hanging.

So, eventually -- with their help, and fair - not rip off artists. They ran the same stuff at home.

Original Quad ESL 57’s

Marantz 8B restored to spec - man, that amp was/is sublime

Eico monos fully recapped running NOS you know what EL84’s

Sonic Frontiers, or maybe Anthem - right when one became the other -- tube pre with the cage ripped off. That was a finicky beast - I hated dealing with that thing.

Merrill Heirloom/Merch Dp6/Koetsu (insert wood type for that era). Someone came in and traded this $4000 now used analogue rig toward a Krell transport.

The owner called me and said do you want this? I said how much, he said "$750, It’s not perfect cosmetically, I don’t want to deal with it." I said fine with me. There was small dent in the Heirloom lead platter ring clamp, and some pitting on the Merch arm. Who cares. I know now he was throwing me a bone.

MIT cables used.

I don’t remember the rest.

However, I do remember John Coltrane standing right in front of me while an original pressing of Giant Steps played on this rig, and it scared the living crap out of me - not small holographic sweet spot, no, actually his 6" 4 self in front me. Must be as the Quads are angled up, and the room was perfectly wide, whatever voodoo was going on - it happened more than once.

Maybe it was the pot :) Not the amplifier kind ha.

Anyway, had to dump all of it when kids started running around everywhere and f-ing things up, not to mention ungrounded vintage voltage that could actually kill someone. Ended up with an LFD/Spendor kit many years ago still in action.

I have surrendered to the fact that I heard the sublime (for me), and that is good enough.

It was a time and place, with comrades in arms, at a certain age, doing our thing, loving music first, and whatever voodoo my hifi buddies did with those magic caps, transistors, and whatever else we were smoking.

@msbel  love hearing your story.  I lost one of my audiophile brothers Charles about 10 years ago. Was unexpected and I was stunned.  We used to listen to music all the time and talk audio a lot. Me,him and my friend Bill had the best times. Putting systems together and competing against one another. Great  times. Your story reminds me of that. 

@calvinj Over the decades, my preference has swung between vinyl and CD/digital at least a couple of times.

I tried to ditch vinyl altogether five years ago. Now, I am back into it again.

Ironically, it was improvements on the the digital side that made vinyl so much better too through the Urika II phono stage. Thereafter, I found that I prefer vinyl. Digital files and streaming high res just don’t do it for me any more.

@calvinj 

Hi there. So sorry to hear about your loss of Charles this many years ago. Perhaps he is up there smiling at you carrying the torch here in this community, and I am sure others ... 

Time, place, age, friends, cables ... in that order :)

MB