Who R U?

David99, I must need a shrink (hello, Detlof & Larryr).It's taken me 6 months to reveal myself and although a newcomer at AG, I should have caught on earlier. Uncanny, the connections shared w/ you guys (& gals?), seems I'm not alone: let me summarise the connections. I'm Greg, 43 yrs old, from the old continent (hi, again, Detlof), born in Russia, raised in middle-europe and lived in France (moved around, a bit like Mohammad and Dekay. I am now a headhunter by trade (Ezmeralda11, if u see this, send me a resume... hi, Briweve / Sdcampbell, if u're there, let's do business. Need it for my next upgrade). Divorced with a beautiful (ofcourse) 6 yr old daughter, living with a lovely partner who has not, yet, offered me Mesa Barons (Dtj, you lucky b...!) BUT she's from DOWN UNDER (hi RED, hi Tim.warhurst). BTW, Red + hdm + other Junior Wells aficionados, I heard Junior live in Paris... drool (I did)!
A law + MBA graduate, I began my professional life at CBS (now Sony music) then, Unilever...unbeleivable, there's a P&G ex-rival on this thread.
Hobbies: my daughter, my partner, (red) wine, cognac, cigars, literature and music ever since I can remember. (i.e. things that are expensive, fattening and immoral.) I listen mostly to classical, jazz & blues. Am listening to Liszt's Christus as I warble.
Hi-end, etc. Got hooked when I first heard huge horn-loaded speakers at the tender age of ¬7 (Westminsters, Canterbury... something like that). I still remember being awed. My first system was a Philips integrated TT with two detachable bookshelf speakers & it took me 10 years to finance my first separates: Luxman (35?) integrated, Technics TT, Kefs. Since then, finance not really permitting but demos, deals, and friends allowing, I've gone thru valves (Jadis, ampliton!!!, KR, CAT, AR), all kinds of speakers (Apogee, Rogers, Spendor, Audioexklusiv, Quad, Audio Physic, Genesis), and source components (you name it). This is getting to sound like a hi-fi shop....
Thought I had a dream system some while back -- but had to sell everything due to dire financial straits.
Now operational again with Gen V speakers, Symphonic Line Kraftquelle pre, RG7 power, Reference CD, Zarathustra/ PLuto 6A/ Clearaudio Victory TT set-up / bearlabs cables-- and tweaking with lots of help from J D (Winters Lessons -- thanks JD for the tweaks and many thanks for your stamina: it teaches me many a lesson).
I'm now into searching the *best performance* in classical -- a costly past-time.
Thank you David, not only for the thread, but also for managing the plethora of responses.
Take care everyone and let's all be well to enjoy the beauty around us.

Greetings Detlof,
Is there a correlation between Tubes and mental health? I suspect harmonic "rightness" and psychic "rightness" are like hand and glove.. Any thoughts? Kindest regards, Larry

Greetings Larry,
I like your thought and I do agree, that when we feel "right", we are indeed in harmony with ourselves. I also agree, that the midrange harmony my tube gear will bring, invariably will put me back into feeling "right" no matter how my day has been. Music indeed can soothe the savage breast, and tube gear is amongst the most musical.
Remember the early CD's Larry? They invariably had the contrary effect on many people, who would feel not "right". I have a bit of experience with music therapy of both psychotic and depressive patients in a stationary setting and I would say that in both cases music often had a short term "rightening" influence. We used music from Bach's "Well tempered Clavier" because of its stucturedness and and its harmonic nature. Unfortunatedly it never got over an experimental stage, but I remember some interesting and rather touching moments. You know, your thought feels spontaneously -intuitively just perfectly "on the dot", though I don't doubt that good SS-gear will have the same effect, if its musical. That is what counts. If I listen to my SYSTEM, I generally feel not right, but if my system draws me into the music and I can forget about it, then deep contentment and happyness is close. A wonderful thought, Larry, thanks for bringing it up and sharing it with us. Warm regards,

Oh Larry, don't you think, your thought would make a nice thread for others to comment as well? Just an idea...

OK, I'm gonna jump in. I'm 57. At 26 after successfully dogging the draft, I was laid off at Boeing. Then my girl friend dumped me so I moved in with a odd but interesting new friend of mine. I cleaned his house and he got the big tube amp I had built working. He was trying to build the worlds most powerful transistor amp ..... looked like fun to me, so he made me his partner. Ten years and a lot of stories later Phase Linear was sold to Pioneer. I had a 36' foot cutter built and went sailing for five years.

I got the itch to do something again somewhere in Costa Rica. Co-founded Heart Interface which built power inverters. Wasn't happy with that, so, with three friends for partners, I started Trace Engineering. This company also manufactured power inverters primarily for the alternative energy market. Trace did well and with 250 employees we sold a few years ago.

I ride my recumbent bike alot and still sail although mostly on sailboards in the Columbia gorge. I became a pilot five years ago and love to fly. Learned to fly helicopters recently and fly an R-22 from my backyard almost everyday. I am presently leading a happy life of meaningless self-indulgence.