I believe it's a process/journey we started, as to the ending....
During my high school and college days, we had an all SONY hifi system at home: ttable, receiver, cassette player & speakers. Analog was slowly loosing ground to the CD forever revolution. I had a few local records. During med school, my mother 'disposed' our hifi system, preferring the smaller footprint of an all mini-compo SONY boxes.
It could never capture the huge sound I was used to. I finished residency, went to the US for additional training. I got back to start practice, got married and had kids. I took up golf for a hobby. One of my MD buddies started me off into HT. That was fine. It was for the family.
It all began for me when I bought a pair of Acoustic Energy AE109 spkrs for my HT fronts from my friend Ninja. When I realized that my family didn't 'need' the speakers for their usual dvd viewing, the AE109s were 'set-free'.
My very first audio set-up circa 2001 consisted of ARC LS-2, MF XA-200 monos, Rotel 971 cdp and trhe AE-109s. ICs & speaker wires were mostly Ixus brand. At that point in time, a digital front was fine because I had about 1000pcs of original cds of mixed genre. Next addition to my system was a MF X-10D to give it a tubey sound. As you can surmise, I built the system around the speakers.
It should have been an ok system to hold onto for sometime. Problem was, my friend Ninja, knew another friend(Yucca) who was disposing electrostatic speakers...
I was just planning to audition them at his place with my friend Ninja. When I first saw them....WOW
The Martin Logan Aerius i's were beautiful to look at. They didn't have that look of box speakers. When we started to play them, I realized how different electrostats image vs cones. Magical. After a scrumptiously delicious home cooked meal by his wife, I closed the deal and brought them home. They have remained with me since.
Expensive problems occur when you hang out in the wrong places. For me it was The Home Theater of Sonny Tuazon.
AT the time he was always playing his Signature VAC 70 wpc 300B amp. Lovely, but too pricey for me. One day, it wasn't the VAC playing. It was a CJ MV-55 with matching PV10-AL pre. 'Patay ako dito' I muttered to myself.
If I remember, they were hooked up to a pair of ProAC Tablette 2000 bookshelf speakers. After a bit of checkbook balancing, I brought them home. I wondered how I could keep the mrs. from noticing the addition...
Let me get to the point, with it's gold fascia and tubes sticking out: "What is that?" was the line that came from her when Sonny delivered the CJ combo. It simply had no chance of slipping in quietly. "What about your cylindrical amps?"
I replied quickly: "I'm letting them go to offset the CJs ..." Napilitan tuloy akong ibenta kaagad. Then again I wasn't happy with the ARC/MF/ML speaker synergy. So now, I ended with a great tubey CJ sound w/c couldn't drive the 4ohm 87db MLs.
Since I wasn't using the ARC LS2 pre anymore, I put it up for sale at the HT. Problem nanaman. In the shop was an ARC D115 tube amp w/c was also being sold. When we hooked up the two, I couldn't believe the synergy. WOW
That's the way to go...an all ARC combo. The combo was hooked up to B&W 805s. Diana Krall's The Look of Love was luscious with the ARC combo. Patay nanaman me.
I pulled out the LS2 and decided to keep it for the meantime.
How to drive those MLs....that was eating me. Sonny went on a trip to HK. He found another CJ MV55. I told him to bring it home... for me. Bi-amped with MV55s, I could now play the MLs with that lovely CJ sound. 90wpc of tube still wasn't enough for these hungry MLs. I felt the bass was still lacking.
Then a pair of 110wpc ARC VTM120s landed at Sensible Audio. I brought them home for audition. Another WOW
Here was the bottom-end I was looking for. I kept them.
I knew the days of one of my MV55s was numbered. By this time I had added a MFA324 DAC into my system and swapped the hybrid LS2 for the matching all-tube LS-7 ARC pre.
Ayos na sana. Problems have been solved. What remained was just to unload one MV55. It happened again at the HT. I was 'lounging' after work when Sonny decides to fire up a Project RPM-4. TonyA was in attendance. Dang
Here we go again. It dawned on me I was approaching it the wrong way. I was trying to get the analog sound thru digital playback. To add further consternation, my MF A324 was superseded by the MF Tri-Vista DAC at 2x the cost
Hmmmm, it was really the wrong way to go about it.
I ended up ordering a two-armed Project Studie ttable. With a Grado Silver on the 9in arm and a Denon DL-103 on the 12in arm, I was in analog bliss. Phonostages at the time was a Project Phonobox SE & the classic MF X-LP. The more I played records, less cd time remained. I re-learned analog through this set-up. For a while I had a ProAc tablette, but my dad chose to bring them home over the AE109s- he chose well didn't he? I passed to him my spare NAD 320BEE integrated amp. I can't remember anymore when I got my pair of Quad ESL-63s. I am restoring(?) them at the moment..another WIP.
I eventually went on spring cleaning sale: the AE109 spkrs, the CJ MV55, excess amp stands, LPs and I unloaded my Project Studie. I had to keep the digital front for my wife who like to listen to her CDs via the MLs. I had a pair of Technics SL-1200s(Mk3 & Ltd) to keep my vinyls happy.
After the sale of the Studie and other gears, I bought a Michell Orbe/SME V as my reference analog front-end. If someone-who-must-not-be-told found out that my front-end cost more than the car I was driving, you'd find me in the obit the next day.
But heck, this was one fine sounding analog front-end. I had loved the sonics and set-up of a Gyrodec. The Orbe had maxxed it out.
I had some left-overs from the spring cleaning sale, and ended up getting a pair of ProAc Reference Signature Tablettes. I had missed their being paired to my CJs.
A CJ Sonographe SA-400 came along. I could now hear the CJ sound via my MLs.
It would have been the end of it. I was done with the middle and end of my audio chain. I was steadily collecting vinyl to feed my 3 ttables. Enter the vintage ttable bandwagon. I heard the 301s at the hifi show and I was hooked
I was able to discern the sonic differences between a direct-drive vs belt-drive vs idler driven ttables. Patay nanaman ako...
So now I find myself in analog heaven(?
) with a few ttables, carts, phonos, switcher(s)....others say I've gone deep over the analog edge.
I say I have found inner peace because of the music I listen to with my heart and soul.
In the end, that's all that matters in this hobby.