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If you're a fan of Jump Racing and THE Festival, you will now where I live - Cheltenham in the UK.
As a teenager, I was Ken Kessler's saturday boy at Canterbury Hi-Fi in the late 70s, before KK diverted his attention to writing. His small terraced 'two up, two down" house in Canterbury was stacked full of gear (TD124, Garrard 301, Radford, Leak, Dynaco, Fisher, Hafler and Quad amps, a pair of Radford Tristar speakers and some other bits too) He had a penchant for Patek watches and fine wine even then. His love of fine things in life is nothing new.
Hence I became a life long fan of valves/tubes, vinyl and Decca/London cartridges. Needless to say, my love of audio remained through Med School, and my system survived many alcoholic and soporific nights in London. Some of the original items from that era still survive to this day including my Garrott Brothers Decca Gold and my early Hadcock 228 tonearm. My Quad II amplifiers (bought from KK's personal collection in about 1981) survived until 3 years ago, when I changed them for my TRON Voyager SET.
Being a turntable addict, I went through a Thorens TD160, a TD125/II, two TD124/IIs, a Garrard 401 and a Logic DM101. 10 years ago, I bought a Platine Verdier with a GT Audio Battery PSU, and that's how it's stayed. Two tonearms - Schroeder model 2 with Allaerts MC1B as well the Hadcock (rewired) and a Decca FFSS MkIV C4E (rebuilt by John Wright) - the latter pairing is unbelievably good. They feed into a TRON Seven Reference phono (Decca) and Graham Trickers' personal TRON Meteor preamplifier (Allaerts) with on board MC phono, which I bought in about 2006.
The noise (yes, my long suffering wife Sue, a pianist and ex-family practitioner, says that it's too loud) comes out a pair of Avantgarde Duos. Digital is a series of 1s and 0s; my system has 0 digital input - Hallelujah! More recently, my turntable has sat at 0 RPM, as my attentions turned to R2R. I now have 2 Sony APR 5000s (5003v and 5002) as well as a Studer A807/II. It's quite hard to listen to my turntable after listening to TP tapes or original production masters.
Anyway, fortunately for my wife, the noise rarely goes on. My music friends, such as Alan McGee, call me the "Photographer whose hobby is a cancer doc". My "night job" is photographing rock bands and jazz artists - a fun distraction to my day "hobby" in the hospital. Hence I try and burn the candle at both ends and I certainly know what live music sounds like. It makes for an interesting mix with plenty of fun.
I hope you all get as much enjoyment out of this hobby as I do and I look forward to meeting some of you in cyber-fi land.
Charlie
Charlie Chan
Cheltenham, UK
As a teenager, I was Ken Kessler's saturday boy at Canterbury Hi-Fi in the late 70s, before KK diverted his attention to writing. His small terraced 'two up, two down" house in Canterbury was stacked full of gear (TD124, Garrard 301, Radford, Leak, Dynaco, Fisher, Hafler and Quad amps, a pair of Radford Tristar speakers and some other bits too) He had a penchant for Patek watches and fine wine even then. His love of fine things in life is nothing new.
Hence I became a life long fan of valves/tubes, vinyl and Decca/London cartridges. Needless to say, my love of audio remained through Med School, and my system survived many alcoholic and soporific nights in London. Some of the original items from that era still survive to this day including my Garrott Brothers Decca Gold and my early Hadcock 228 tonearm. My Quad II amplifiers (bought from KK's personal collection in about 1981) survived until 3 years ago, when I changed them for my TRON Voyager SET.
Being a turntable addict, I went through a Thorens TD160, a TD125/II, two TD124/IIs, a Garrard 401 and a Logic DM101. 10 years ago, I bought a Platine Verdier with a GT Audio Battery PSU, and that's how it's stayed. Two tonearms - Schroeder model 2 with Allaerts MC1B as well the Hadcock (rewired) and a Decca FFSS MkIV C4E (rebuilt by John Wright) - the latter pairing is unbelievably good. They feed into a TRON Seven Reference phono (Decca) and Graham Trickers' personal TRON Meteor preamplifier (Allaerts) with on board MC phono, which I bought in about 2006.
The noise (yes, my long suffering wife Sue, a pianist and ex-family practitioner, says that it's too loud) comes out a pair of Avantgarde Duos. Digital is a series of 1s and 0s; my system has 0 digital input - Hallelujah! More recently, my turntable has sat at 0 RPM, as my attentions turned to R2R. I now have 2 Sony APR 5000s (5003v and 5002) as well as a Studer A807/II. It's quite hard to listen to my turntable after listening to TP tapes or original production masters.
Anyway, fortunately for my wife, the noise rarely goes on. My music friends, such as Alan McGee, call me the "Photographer whose hobby is a cancer doc". My "night job" is photographing rock bands and jazz artists - a fun distraction to my day "hobby" in the hospital. Hence I try and burn the candle at both ends and I certainly know what live music sounds like. It makes for an interesting mix with plenty of fun.
I hope you all get as much enjoyment out of this hobby as I do and I look forward to meeting some of you in cyber-fi land.
Charlie
Charlie Chan
Cheltenham, UK
Love reading about your audio audiophile journey. How did you skip the accepted U.K. Linn approved stage? 
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