A long and winding road down memory lane . . .

Back in the late '60's, the tale end of HS, then college and the decade following, I was really heavy into the audio scene. Way back then, I knew many of the people associated with Stereophile and Absolute Sound and hung out with a number of high-end gurus in the Raleigh NC area. I also accumulated a really fine -- at least, for its day -- audio system, some of it new and some of it acquired by deals for cast-offs with those various golden-eared friends whose wallets were more stuffed than mine at their annual (quarterly? monthly?) system reorganizations in pursuit of the latest advances, real or imagined, or simply to satisfy their GAS (gear acquisition syndrome).

My system started small: A Garrard SL95, HeathKit AR-1500, a pair of AR3 speakers and Koss Pro4a headphones (I know, the Garrard and the Pro4a's weren't all that, but the HeathKit and the AR3's were the bomb in their day). Over a period of about fifteen years, I graduated to a system that might not have been the absolute best, but it was probably in the top 1-or-2%. My system stabilized with a Thorens TD126 Mk3, a Technics SP10 Mk2 (both with SME 3009 arms), a McIntosh MR78 tuner (and the MPI-4), a Studer/Revox A702, a Nakamichi Dragon, an Apt Holman preamp, three Hafler DH-500 amps, and a pair of ML Monolith speakers (with an active DQ-LP1 crossover). I'd also accumulated some 600 albums -- including the entire catalog of MFSL half-speed mastered LP's -- all packed nicely in those nice 13x13 plastic crates that eggs came in from the grocery store.

Then disaster struck. I moved into a corner, ground-level unit in a garden apartment complex. I'd been there less than a week when, in broad daylight, while I was at work, someone backed a trailer up against my living room window, tossed in a cinder block, cleared out the debris and loaded the trailer through the opening. All my equipment and records gone! Actually, not quite, they left me the Apt preamp, the DQ-LP1 crossover and a bunch of cut audio cables. They hadn't taken time to disconnect anything. They just pulled power cords and cut everything else.

The police came and went, showing little interest in following up. The management of the apartment complex insisted that none of their employees would ever do such a thing (they didn't notice a trailer parked on their manicured lawn and a gaping hole in the wall after it pulled away???). When I went back to the police to get a copy of the report, they stonewalled for a couple of weeks and finally gave me a copy -- with the incident date wrong by EIGHT days! Yeah, they were really interested in finding the culprit(s). Even worse, although I had had insurance where I had been living, the company insisted that they were not responsible at the new location in spite of my policy still having four months of coverage remaining. So, no insurance. A total loss. I abandoned my audiophile ways cold turkey.

Fast forward several decades and I'm retired. In going through some old boxes, I came across the ancient Apt preamp and the DQ-LP1 crossover. The bug has bitten again. No, not the Covid-19 bug, the audiophile bug. Although, forced inactivity brought on by the pandemic and staring at four walls may have been a highly contributing factor. I've just paid an insane amount of money (I'm not complaining; I consider both purchases to be very fair deals -- just saying) for a used McIntosh MR-80 (that belonged to David Ogden Stiers - how cool is that?) and an MPI-4. Now I'm on a quest for more vintage toys. I haven't decided if I'm going to try to replicate my vinyl collection -- probably not. So I may skip the turntables. But nothing I've ever heard compared to the electrostats -- not even the DQ-10s and 1Ws that preceded them.

Now, an impractical question: who reconditions Apt Holman preamps these days? Mine hasn't even been plugged in since the mid-'80's.