Pete Askew
Admin
You certainly put your finger on it Hamish I think. Having a system that plays your music in a way that you enjoy. I have bought very little equipment over the years but tons of music (LP and CD). Twenty five or so years ago I upgraded an old Sony DD deck that I''d saved up for when I was 17 to a Rega Planar 3 / RB250 / Corus Blue. Then replaced the late ''70''s amp with a OA21s from Onix. All this was originally playing through a pair of S/H Goodman Magnum speakers (quite handy as side tables but not the cleanest of sounds!) - which had replaced the pair of plastic speakers (re-housed in chipboard boxes I''ll have you know though!) that came from the first record player I''d bought myself at 14 (Fildelity with a lid that separated into 2 speakers) from Woolies (a quality bit of kit I can tell you)!! Interestingly the Sony, amp and Magnums are still being used by the friend I gave them to 20 years ago. The Sony replaced the Fidelity when I could afford it to save the records from being ground away but continued as the amplifier using a battery powered ''phono stage'' for a further couple of years.
And that was fine for a few years but when albums started being released on CD only I knew I had to do something. I''d already decided that I wanted a pair of Rega Ela speakers after hearing them at Reading Hi-Fi when I bought my Onix amp and so went in to audition a couple of ''award winning'' CD players at the same time (having got a better paid job). Unfortunately the Rega Planar blew them away and after listening to a few more (and much more expensive) CD players I ended up with a Meridian 206b (if I recall correctly this was about £1K in ''88 - a bit of a shock I can tell you!). So that left me with a Rega deck, Meridian CD integrated player / DAC (well they bolted the 2 units together with a metal plate), Regal Ela speakers and Exposure cables. And I still have it all and it still performs amazingly well.
The trouble started when I decided to put a second system together to use in Germany and that, as I liked what I had, I''d just source S/H versions of it. That is when I realised how difficult it was to get S/H Onix gear and how good they actually were. After talking to Reading Hi-Fi (now an Audio-T franchise - same guy I bought my original stuff from is still there although I ended up dealing with his colleague) I was told I should really upgrade my CD source as I''d be blown away by the advances that had been made (he tried to point me towards Naim). So I started to look and listen and I wasn''t blown away at all. OK, there were improvements but not what I was expecting after so many years. Anyway I started to put together another system so I could take my original gear to Germany. Bought a nice ''vintage'' Exposure amplification system XI/XII Super VIIIs (anyone interested?) as I couldn''t find any Onix gear. Added another Meridian CD / DAC (or 2) and then stumbled upon the Lector at Audio Oasis (S/H but hardly played). It did everything I loved about the Meridian but with more detail etc and so that replaced the original Meridian (which I still have). Bought the mono-blocks to try to get the Exposure amplifcation to sound more like the Onix (helped but Exposure really were into ''transistor sound''). Then I spotted an Onix pre / power setup and snapped it up. However, I kept using the pair of Meridian mono-blocks after discovering that I really could not distinguish between the Meridian mono-blocks and the Onix power amp (or the 601 I had bought in Germany - how does this happen!!). So I was using the power amp as the power supply for the pre-amp only but would have liked the dedicated power supply (SOAP). Six months later I managed to buy a pre / SOAP power combo from a ''famous'' Onix enthusiast in France - so at least I have a spare pre-amp and 2 power amps (and an integrated OA21s - argg).
During this ordeal I tried a fair few cables and settled on Siltech New York interconnects and Isotek mains cables. But throughout all this I kept the Rega Elas even after trying quite a few alternatives. Tried various speaker cables but stuck with the Exposure ones in the end (Townshend came close to bettering them not enough to make me change - might still do but it is really marginal). Added mains conditioning via Isotek Titan and Sigmas (after trying them for a month - again from Audio Oasis - much bigger difference than the speaker cables) and then, after a lot of dithering added Townshend Supertweeters (they do indeed do what they say and rounded the system off nicely!). Also bought an Onix tuner and SOAP when I saw one and a nice Nakamichi cassette deck (virtually unused DR-2 - couldn''t afford one when they were current - and they are not that cheap even now) which is quite handy as my car has a classic Clariant cassette / radio that I am loath to take out as it matches the interior so well.\n\nWith all that out of the way I went back to buying excessive numbers of CDs and LPs again!! Although I did start to think about improving my Rega Planar and there is also a Well Tempered Amadeus that I''d quite like to listen to...
Help!!
And that was fine for a few years but when albums started being released on CD only I knew I had to do something. I''d already decided that I wanted a pair of Rega Ela speakers after hearing them at Reading Hi-Fi when I bought my Onix amp and so went in to audition a couple of ''award winning'' CD players at the same time (having got a better paid job). Unfortunately the Rega Planar blew them away and after listening to a few more (and much more expensive) CD players I ended up with a Meridian 206b (if I recall correctly this was about £1K in ''88 - a bit of a shock I can tell you!). So that left me with a Rega deck, Meridian CD integrated player / DAC (well they bolted the 2 units together with a metal plate), Regal Ela speakers and Exposure cables. And I still have it all and it still performs amazingly well.
The trouble started when I decided to put a second system together to use in Germany and that, as I liked what I had, I''d just source S/H versions of it. That is when I realised how difficult it was to get S/H Onix gear and how good they actually were. After talking to Reading Hi-Fi (now an Audio-T franchise - same guy I bought my original stuff from is still there although I ended up dealing with his colleague) I was told I should really upgrade my CD source as I''d be blown away by the advances that had been made (he tried to point me towards Naim). So I started to look and listen and I wasn''t blown away at all. OK, there were improvements but not what I was expecting after so many years. Anyway I started to put together another system so I could take my original gear to Germany. Bought a nice ''vintage'' Exposure amplification system XI/XII Super VIIIs (anyone interested?) as I couldn''t find any Onix gear. Added another Meridian CD / DAC (or 2) and then stumbled upon the Lector at Audio Oasis (S/H but hardly played). It did everything I loved about the Meridian but with more detail etc and so that replaced the original Meridian (which I still have). Bought the mono-blocks to try to get the Exposure amplifcation to sound more like the Onix (helped but Exposure really were into ''transistor sound''). Then I spotted an Onix pre / power setup and snapped it up. However, I kept using the pair of Meridian mono-blocks after discovering that I really could not distinguish between the Meridian mono-blocks and the Onix power amp (or the 601 I had bought in Germany - how does this happen!!). So I was using the power amp as the power supply for the pre-amp only but would have liked the dedicated power supply (SOAP). Six months later I managed to buy a pre / SOAP power combo from a ''famous'' Onix enthusiast in France - so at least I have a spare pre-amp and 2 power amps (and an integrated OA21s - argg).
During this ordeal I tried a fair few cables and settled on Siltech New York interconnects and Isotek mains cables. But throughout all this I kept the Rega Elas even after trying quite a few alternatives. Tried various speaker cables but stuck with the Exposure ones in the end (Townshend came close to bettering them not enough to make me change - might still do but it is really marginal). Added mains conditioning via Isotek Titan and Sigmas (after trying them for a month - again from Audio Oasis - much bigger difference than the speaker cables) and then, after a lot of dithering added Townshend Supertweeters (they do indeed do what they say and rounded the system off nicely!). Also bought an Onix tuner and SOAP when I saw one and a nice Nakamichi cassette deck (virtually unused DR-2 - couldn''t afford one when they were current - and they are not that cheap even now) which is quite handy as my car has a classic Clariant cassette / radio that I am loath to take out as it matches the interior so well.\n\nWith all that out of the way I went back to buying excessive numbers of CDs and LPs again!! Although I did start to think about improving my Rega Planar and there is also a Well Tempered Amadeus that I''d quite like to listen to...
Help!!
