After 11+ years in this hobby (6 of which were fun, while the other 5 were completely obsessive)I have finally settled down. It has taken me 8 integrated amps, 8 amps, 4 pre-amps, 6 CD players, 3 analog rigs, and 8 pairs of speakers to settle on what I have now.

Am I happy? Yes.

I think everybody in this hobby should be a music lover first and a gear fanatic second. I think that is mostly the case, but I've run into a few exceptions and it still baffles me whenever I encounter it. My goal now is to listen to the music first, and the system second.

In order to hear the music though I require that a system have little to no noise. That is my first requirement. I had a bad experience with Joule Electra OTL gear being noisy (a problem that never was resolved by the manufacturer) and it has forever soured me on any sort of noise in a system.

The second thing that a system must do for me is be accurate in how the controls work. I am a stickler for volume controls being transparent and attenuating the signal evenly in both channels across the volume spectrum. I had a high end Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista integrated amp sour me on the proliferation of inferior volume pots. It had a slight channel imbalance at low volumes, but the deviation was within the manufacturer's "spec", so they would not fix it.

Kudos to Ayre, Tom Evans, and other manufacturers that do not act like cheapskates when it comes to volume controls. Companies like yours will always have my business (when I buy solid-state gear).

The next thing I like to have is coherant sounding speakers from top to bottom. I choose electrostats and planars over dynamic drivers because even though I love the kick and presence of dynamic drivers, planars and electrostats sound more "real" to me. If I listen long and hard enough to a dynamic driver speaker (especially to speakers that are not monitors), I start to easily pick up on the integration points or defeciencies in the drivers themselves. However, to be fair, I love monitor speakers. Its just that my room is a bit too big for them.

Finally, my source has to play with rhythm and pace above all else. I hate CD players that have technical issues (or sound too clinical, veiled, or mechanical). As far as analog rigs go, after switching to the Garrard, I am in no hurry to go back to a belt-driven turntable.

I have not owned enough cartridges to comment on what my requirements are yet. I suppose the first requirement be that they match well with my phono-preamp, so I'll just leave it at that.

So thats about it.....oh wait, what about the music? I listen mainly to rock (classic rock, metal, glam, punk, new wave, etc) but I also listen to folk, jazz, country, bluegrass, and blues too. My new love is classical and I have been listening to it for the last few years, but I am still a n00b. There is so much to learn in that genre.

Happy listening and if you have comments about my system, I would love to hear them.