Audio, hifi and music

I've played with a variety of audio equipment over the years.  At the moment I have only a few hifi components until I settle into a new home.

I had a pair of Quad ESL63 speakers in the 80s and loved them, and was keen to get back to that electrostatic sound.  At the time the Quad 988 and 989 was their current model; Quad have since released another electrostatic loudspeaker.

Electrostatic panels differ from 'ordinary' speakers in that a very thin plastic sheet is given a conductive coating and stretched between two electrode plates. The music signal causes the thin plastic sheet to move between the plates. Because the plastic sheet is so light, it reacts faster than any cone speaker; as it is mounted in an open frame there are no box colourations; and a sufficiently large panel can reproduce a full frequency range.

Buying a pair of Quad 989 speakers second hand was a big mistake as they started to make strange fizzing noises.  Quad, despite making their speakers in China these days, still have good service and their charges for replacement elements were not extortionate.  I miss the real tree wood and build quality of the ESL-63 though.

A friend lent me his Technics SL-110 direct drive turntable with SME arm and Shure cartridge that I really love (it makes a change from all the belt driven bouncy platters that define audiophile turntables now). I'd love to fit it with an SME series V arm; I joke with him about needing something straight black and muscular (the adjectives I use to describe the SME V).

Musically speaking I have fairly wide tastes. I don't usually stray into rap or hip-hop territory and my interest in classical and opera is low, but that doesn't mean I don't listen or enjoy. So the collection spans music of the 60's including the Beatles, Beach Boys and Elvis Presley, a little Motown; the 70s taking us from Abba to Blondie, the Police, and Kate Bush. In the 80's I discovered Peter Gabriel's 3rd - untitled - album, Bucks Fizz won Eurovision and Trevor Horn became a production GOD making hits.

Trevor's achievements include the Buggles (Video Killed the Radio Star), Dollar (Mirror Mirror is the most perfect pure bubblegum pop), ABC (the Look of Love and Poison Arrow), The Art of Noise and Propaganda, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Grace Jones (Slave to the Rhythm), The Pet Shop Boys, Seal and so many more...

It seems Trevor helped a lot of 80s bands become famous, but other artists were rising (and some falling spectacularly) as Stock Aitken and Waterman sent an endless stream of artists into the UK charts. Rick Astley, Kylie Minogue, Dead or Alive...

The 80's was also the time I started going out to clubs, every night it seems now looking back.  I seriously recall the week starting out with a couple of nights at local clubs til 2am, followed by a night in central London, the occasional Thursday night 'off', Friday and Saturday night out til at least 4am (usually 6am), and sleeping most of Sunday. I have a legacy of 12" singles from buying all the music I danced to during the 80s.

In the 90s I mellowed out, started listening to more album oriented rock and became more interested in computers. By the year 2000 I'd lost interest in the latest music offerings and instead had invested heavily in DVD. Having most of my CD collection stolen in 1997 didn't help.

But now there's an uneasy alliance between my vinyl, CD, DVD and even mp3 and other formats. I bought a 'Squeezebox' that allows music streaming from your computer and internet radio.

Typically soon after I bought mine they released a version with a black front which I would have preferred.  I had my Squeezebox modified by Wayne at The Bolder Cable Company; replacing ICs and noisy capacitors, uprated DAC and better phono sockets.

I've seen a number of bands live over the years. In the 80's there was Gary Numan, Howard Jones and Japan, plus short 'public appearances' from bands like Odyssey at clubs. More recently I've seen Take That, George Michael, Kraftwerk and Sparks. The following links take you to some photos of those concerts.