west wrote:
west
:
Next question, if you don't mind ...what are you using to play your CDs?

"Andre Jute" :
Quad CD66 and CD67, very old, very reliable. Both of mine were on
lease to the BBC, then checked over at the factory before they came to
me about fifteen years ago.

west:
I guess you're not into SACDs or keeping up with the Jones'. Do you use a
high efficiency horn or those ESL 57s? I'm trying to picture your system
from some of your posts. Perhaps you use 2 systems.

west

SACD is an irrelevance, another case the Himalayan Wasting Disease, of
engineers doing something because they can, when, if they had first
put their minds in gear, they would have discovered that it is
unnecessary.

I don't know who these Jones people are who expect me to follow
whatever fashion they have succumbed to this week. I make it a
principle never to do what people expect simply because they expect
it. The expectations of little people are an attempt to drag their
betters down to their level.

I don't have systems in the sense you mean, as in someone having a
listening room with a fixed setup; I don't have time to sit in a
listening room; I listen to music in my study and studio as I work; my
son has his own i-Pod/computer based system and my wife prefers to
read in silence though we could play music on the DVD player in her
room. I have ESL57, ESL63, horns of my own manufacture but built on
the Lowther Fidelio factory-cut wood with Lowther PM6Å, bigger
tractrix horns of my own design, various quarterwave pipes (I have for
instance a pair spefically tuned long to enhance the bass on Gregorian
Chant), Bang & Olufsen S25 (a copy of a very fine Goodmans bentback
bookshelf speaker of the 1960s), little Coral drivers in coconuts that
a Swiss designer sent me as computer speaks, ditto some from Apple,
and probably some more. I just play whichever speakers seem suitable
for whatever amp I want to use; in the middle of the night I often use
Sennheiser or Stax (electrostatic) earphones (I'm using Stax now -- I
have various tube and silicon amps both bought and of my own devising
specifically for driving earphones). In tubes I have SE amps from
about a third of a watt to about 80W, and PP amps from around 10W in
Class Å to over 100W in Class AB, plus of course silicon amps from
c10W to 150W, either of my own design and construction or from Quad
and Audiolab. The only speakers I have permanently rigged are ESL63,
which I use as a reference; the only amp I have permanently rigged is
Quad 405 MkII with an accompanying Quad 34 control amp (the last is
very useful for having a mono-ing button, to test amps of which you
have built only one channel, or a single speaker). I have more CD
players than the Quad 66 and 67 but I never use them; the Quads are
just too good to bother swapping players in and out, so they to are
permanently in use. Stuff I don't use is just packed up in boxes or
stands on the floor; I don't bother with "audiophile" conditioning of
the room -- book and CD lines walls do me fine, together with thick
carpets and throwmats for extra absobency anywhere I am likely to sit;
I live in a Georgian house at least 200 years old so the rooms have
high ceilings and abutments for fireplaces, which are all good, and
the converted attic where I spend most of my time has a sloping roof,
which is even better. I've been threatening for years to hide all the
cables and move the surplus gear out of sight into another room and
get a glass desk and a leather captain's seat (I sit on a cloth
covered high-backed chair office I designed and licensed to a company
which sells ergonomic gear) and become elegant but there is always new
work and no idle time in which to lounge elegantly. Maybe when I'm old
I'll be elegant and have an "audiophile system" and take myself and it
very seriously.

HTH.

Still working my way through my Handel disks. Now playing Fabio
Biondi's world premiere recording of Poro with Europa Galante (Opus
111).

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Amps at http://members.lycos.co.uk/fiultra/
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