Dear Raul,
Your journey sounds thrilling and I wish I had the opportunity to listen to many of those great systems that you heard. With my increasing years and work demands I simply don't get the time to socialise with audiophiles over here but have spent a great deal of my past journeying around homes and listening studios in England. In fact, a good deal of my learning curve goes back to exposure to such retailers and audiophiles and to their real generosity in sharing their knowledge and equipment. Going back to the seventies these would include so many, but people such as Dak Boonsong (a Thai audiophile living in London) Les Wong at Walrus Hifi (a retailer and expert who I knew and was guided by a long time before he set up Walrus), David Wood (a very generous retailer at Brighton Hifi Exchange) and a whole host of others have really helped my formative hifi learning.
However, throughout this the key feature has always been my real love of music and never more so than when I could hear this live. My parents always played gospel music, jazz and so-called easy listening. We also attended religious events where I acquired a love of the live human voice and supporting acoustic guitars and keboards (organs and piano). My tastes therefore grew from a young age and has influenced my efforts to listen to as much live music as I can. I suppose this is what has really driven this obsession that I have with music and hifi, albeit that these tastes have been extended over the years.
Anyway when, in the mid seventies, I bought my first Philips music center I started collecting my own records and playing them on audio cassette and vinyl. In fact, my music centre's saving grace was an ability to play (not very well) tapes on an endless loop, which made me very proud at the time. This was a far step from the earliest audiophile gear that I managed to own. Amomerable early system was my Leak ST60; Croft preamp that showed the genius of simple design; leak troughline tuner and Xerxes turntable. This was changed over the years for various systems before my next major step which consisted of acquiring an ARC VT100 with Proac Response 2.5 speakers and all Siltech silver cables in the early nineties. The sound of this system still holds a romantic spot in my heart. I sometimes wonder how much the large and acoustically favourable listening room that I then occupied influenced the excellent sound that I got but it was definitely no small part.
I then moved on to try all sorts of valve amplification, turntables, cartridges, cables and accessories. This led me to think that I knew everything that you could get with a good set up. That my learning curve was about to take a major shift is largely due to the events that followed my exposure to Audiogon. And that's a whole new story
Your journey sounds thrilling and I wish I had the opportunity to listen to many of those great systems that you heard. With my increasing years and work demands I simply don't get the time to socialise with audiophiles over here but have spent a great deal of my past journeying around homes and listening studios in England. In fact, a good deal of my learning curve goes back to exposure to such retailers and audiophiles and to their real generosity in sharing their knowledge and equipment. Going back to the seventies these would include so many, but people such as Dak Boonsong (a Thai audiophile living in London) Les Wong at Walrus Hifi (a retailer and expert who I knew and was guided by a long time before he set up Walrus), David Wood (a very generous retailer at Brighton Hifi Exchange) and a whole host of others have really helped my formative hifi learning.
However, throughout this the key feature has always been my real love of music and never more so than when I could hear this live. My parents always played gospel music, jazz and so-called easy listening. We also attended religious events where I acquired a love of the live human voice and supporting acoustic guitars and keboards (organs and piano). My tastes therefore grew from a young age and has influenced my efforts to listen to as much live music as I can. I suppose this is what has really driven this obsession that I have with music and hifi, albeit that these tastes have been extended over the years.
Anyway when, in the mid seventies, I bought my first Philips music center I started collecting my own records and playing them on audio cassette and vinyl. In fact, my music centre's saving grace was an ability to play (not very well) tapes on an endless loop, which made me very proud at the time. This was a far step from the earliest audiophile gear that I managed to own. Amomerable early system was my Leak ST60; Croft preamp that showed the genius of simple design; leak troughline tuner and Xerxes turntable. This was changed over the years for various systems before my next major step which consisted of acquiring an ARC VT100 with Proac Response 2.5 speakers and all Siltech silver cables in the early nineties. The sound of this system still holds a romantic spot in my heart. I sometimes wonder how much the large and acoustically favourable listening room that I then occupied influenced the excellent sound that I got but it was definitely no small part.
I then moved on to try all sorts of valve amplification, turntables, cartridges, cables and accessories. This led me to think that I knew everything that you could get with a good set up. That my learning curve was about to take a major shift is largely due to the events that followed my exposure to Audiogon. And that's a whole new story