savoy014

I spent a week with two bagfuls of top drawer cables. OK, some may argue that there are far more expensive and better cables out there, but not every audiophile is comfortable with cables priced with a whole string of zeros in all the wrong places. The ever enthusiastic Ivan Cheng of Norman Audio wanted me to try these cables as an alternative to my usual cabling, which is a mix of Acoustic Revive and Acrolink. Well, being the typical audiophile, I absolutely hate to try new things (with absolutely no strings attached I may add), or to tinker about in my system. If you believe the preceding statement, you obviously are not an audiophile. Maybe you believe in Unicorns and Leprechauns too ? I left Norman Audio with two plastic bags full of cables. The original plan was to outfit me with enough cables to wire up my whole system. Unfortunately, we had to omit the MIT speaker cables as there simply was not enough space in the two very full plastic bags. After ensuring that no suspicious cha...

How do you look after your CDs ? I usually wash them once in a while in a basin of tap water with a drop of dish washing liquid added. It is effective to get rid of any fingerprints, dust, and fungus. I've not used an professional cleaning kit before, although I do admit to resorting to brasso and toothpaste in an attempt to remove deep scratches from damaged discs (neither worked by the way). The Essence of Music Kit comes in a simple cardboard box. Open the box, and you will find two spray bottles of 20ml each, which look dangerously similar to some of my wife's cosmetic products. Two microfiber cleaning cloths are provided too, as well as finger cots to protect your precious digits from the overall nastiness of the liquid solutions. The manufacturer claims that the kit can treat up to 400 discs. Application is straightforward. Spray on the first liquid and rub the disc surface for one minute with your cot protected finger. Then apply the second liquid and rub again for one m...

A Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there. I took the opportunity to cook a nice Mother's Day meal for the mother of my child. These farmed oysters from New Zealand had just arrived in the shop and the staff member was quite enthusiastic about them. They were quite unique tasting with a slight briny attack, and luscious creaminess. The next course was French onion soup and duck leg confit. All washed down with a nice bottle of champagne.

Introduction Audiophiles are an impatient lot. The problem with our hobby is that burn-in is a necessary evil to hear almost any audio component at it's best. One of my dealer friends once reminded me not to make any hasty judgement of any Focal Utopia speaker before it had at least 500 to 1000 hours on it. "These impatient guys never hear the Beryllium tweeter open up, and think that the problem lies with the speaker and sell it off.", he advised in his usual sagely way. I am now on to my second Utopia speaker, and his words could not have been truer. The Teflon capacitors in my Conrad Johnson also require punishing burn-in, with most users reporting significant changes at the 300 hour mark, with further changes happening all the way up to the 1000 hour mark. You could use one of the many burn-in CDs on the market and put your CD player on repeat, but I hate reducing the life of my laser pick-up just for this purpose. I've been using the Frybaby for a few years alrea...