Spot on Norvin, When I was a youngster, my very first dive into the realms of hifi, my dad had an old Awia cassiever and Sony turntable that made horrible rubbing sound, coming out of a pub one lunchtime (a bit worse for wear), i decided i’d get a new turntable, first shop I came too was the wonderful Soundcraft in Ashford high street. Wouldn’t sell me anything that day, insisted I had a dem the following weekend. (Floyd was allowed). Brought my first Rega 3 (with the dodgy arm), as soon after an A&R Cambridge A60ap and a pair of ARC 050 speakers, that had removable crossovers on the back so you could run them actively (never did afford the extra cambridge amp to do that).
18 years later when the arm failed, traded it in for another planer 3 with RB300 arm (travelled from Suffolk back to Ashford to buy it from sondcraft, which is still there today),which i later paired with an Arcam Alpha 10 and Castle Avon speakers, Added a DAVE board for the 10 (and later Arcam AV9 av processor and added another Alpha 10 power amp. (Time has moved on and life got busier so system sat largely unused and was put away when the granddaughter started crawling, Will get it out in a few years again
Back in the early days, my friend has the LP12, Ittock (of which I have a jigsaw off somewhere) and Karma cartridge, powered through Naim Pre-power set up with Hi cap power supply and a pair of Naim Isobarack speakers, for me that was the holy grail, which i never did find. Remember listening to Jacksons thriller album (Not a fan off) but you had to admire the sound quality of the track when the door creaked open and you could hear the silence between each creak of the doors it swung open slowly.
Dave I take our point about hearing (mine is shot now) but you can still tell the difference in sand quality of a good system on the bits you can still hear.
