I am sixty years old and I have been a pharmaceutical representative for more than thirty years. I like off-road motorcycles and bikes. Former Milanese, for twenty-seven years I have been living in Brianza.
A great passion of mine is the music. I go often to the live concerts and I am convinced that no system will give me the same unique emotions. Hence, it is obvious, at least for me, why I want to find the best way to listen to my records at home. To have some of the emotions I can feel at a live event. Besides, I think that also the studio recordings require to be reproduced at best!
Here comes onstage the Hi-Fi as the necessary means to a great listening experience. Otherwise, you can just buy a compact in a superstore. Dynamics, tone, spatial reconstruction and detail are some of the aspects that, if well reproduced, make you understand how tasty can be a home system. At this point also Hi-Fi has become a passion and a passion has to be fed. To feed it means keeping informed about the new devices and the new technologies, reading magazines, visiting the exhibitions, changing the components in search of the best or the different one. Switching from Klipsch to 3/5 or vice versa could have no sense, but this is what makes this “hobby” a passion. Comparisons, new experiences, new stimuli! And why not, writing about them.
Hi-Fi is a game, and as a game, it is just for fun. Who says that a one-way speaker performs better or worse than an electrostatic one? If I listen to Beethoven, why cannot I listen to Nick Drake? It depends on what you are looking for, on your musical culture, on your sensitivity, sometimes it depends on particular moments in life. For this reason I do not like the attitude of who takes sides in an exaggerate way, of who loves only tubes or only transistors, of who owns the same mega-system for ten years, maybe with thirty records, chosen by the dealer instead of him. In short, I do not love who does not have the right mind opening.
I do not want to bore you with lists of devices that have followed in thirty years. I just want to say that I have always appreciated the Brit approach to Hi-Fi and I have owned Rogers, Spendor, Epos, Naim amps, Magnum, Myst – do you remind it? – Musical Fidelity, Quad, Roksan, Heybrook and Rega turntables. I have liked some Italian brands and I have had Sonus Faber, Galactron, North Star, Audiogram, MPN Audio, Norma, Unison Research, alternated to the European Copland, Thule Audio, Jadis, Atoll.
Few Japanese devices like Luxman, Kenwood, Pioneer, Supex cartridges, some Marantz cd players and few American things, Michell, Dahlquist, Klipsch, the MET 7 by Sequerra, PS Audio, Monarchy Audio (class A), preamp 12 and power amp 50 by Spectral, the amazing Linear Tube Audio MicroZOTL. The oriental preamp/power amp NuForce and the half-oriental NuForce/Optoma STA 200.
Last considerations, very important for me.
The first one is that I prefer systems of medium cost. Both to own and review. You can change them more often. There is more satisfaction in assembling and making perform well a system with few money.
The second that it is not always true that by changing a component with a “better one” the system will improve. For some dealers the best component is always the dearest one. On the other hand, for some magazines it is the latest to be tested or if the brand buys more advertising spaces. The best component does not exist. The same amp behaves differently depending on the audio chain. What we hear is the outcome of a series of concatenations between devices (and between devices and listening room). Remember it!
Keep always in mind that sometimes a less expensive component could make the system perform better (even if the average enthusiast does not know and the dealer does not want to let him know!).
My current system since the beginning of 2018
Network audio player: Pioneer N-70AE
Super Audio CD player: Pioneer PD- 50
Digital source: Unison Research Unico CD DUE
Preamp: Linear Tube Audio MicroZOTL, integrated amp too, 1 tube watt OTL
Power amp: NuForce STA 200
Loudspeakers: Horn Manufaktur A90 one-way
Cables: Acoustic Revive and Nordost
Loudspeakers stands: DAMachine
But most of all about 3.300 CDs: 1.000 jazz, 200 blues, 1.200 rock and pop, 200 ethnic, 300 Italian and 300 classical music.
