Monday, June 16, 2008

Sounds and Current rigs


I have the great pleasure to be listening to the best system I've ever had. It's been a slow wonderful journey so far and the ears just keep growing ;-) I'm not really a gear head, for me it's real purpose is the music, although I love tinkering and soldering. (I may have to eat those words as I find my self falling in love with great equipment that has been fixed up and saved from the land fill).......
Being a serious guitar player for more than 30 years I traded in some of the gorgeous old guitar amps of the 60's that I had acquired for a serious journey into tube hifi.
From the sixties to the nineties I listened mainly to those fabulous Japanese receivers from the 1970's, the golden era. Over the years I bought new the Sansui 3000A, 5000, and the 9090. Those powered my Rectilinear IIIa's and later the stacked Advent A3's for a good twenty years. I kept my tube equipment for guitar playing and that nice clean SS sound for home hifi. That is until I ran into Mike Manulik, owner operator of Austin Stereo. I came there originally to have my Sansui repaired and over the following years came to meet a great bunch of wonderfully eccentric audiophiles. Mike is a passionate audiophile not to mention a very experienced and intuitive tech. Everything he touches sounds better when it's done. I learned a ton from Mike and the other members of our stereo club circle. I'm now happy to say that every time I spin some vinyl there are 18 tubes glowing in the dark. No SS can compare...;-)

Present main rig: Austin Stereo modified YAQIN MC-100B tube amp, Conrad Johnson Premier 10 preamp, Conrad Johnson EV-1 phono preamp, Austin Stereo modified Samsung HD-841 DVD & SACD player, Technics SL1200MKII turntable with AT 440MLa cartridge and a pair of KEF R107 speakers. Custom interconnects by Austin Stereo, plus ZU Oxyfuels. Speaker cables are ZU Julians.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Would you be interested in selling your Premier 10? My email is sam [at] samobletz [dot] com. Thanks in advance!

Anonymous said...

Hi Sam, Thanks for your interest but no chance. The Premier is presently feeding a Conrad Johnson Evolution 2000 amp and its the best combo I've ever had. I hope you find one. Best Regards.