Description

The system is in an old landowner/merchant's house deep in the north country of Japan (in the hamlet of Kamagui in Niigata Prefecture for anyone interested in setting up an Audio Club) which we purchased and refurbished with a friend of ours.

Everything is used (only the Altecs were purchased for this system so far - the rest comes from a home system), and I am thinking of replacing the EAR and SONY before getting the DIY done because they don't look scruffy enough.

The Whiskey Room is on the 3rd floor of an old 'minka', with a view over the hamlet's rice paddies as the sun sets - the perfect place to drink a whiskey after a hard day relaxing in the countryside.

There are no room treatments ('mud-over-straw' walls are sooted with woodsmoke from when the kitchen was wood-fired and this room was the chimney to the outside), the floorboards were formerly the inside wall-boards of one of the storehouses, furniture is a couple of ugly brown vinyl armchairs and an even uglier 'baby-poop brown' La-Z-Boy recliner, and a couple of brown bar stools (all told, about $50), and an old wooden fridge. There's a tattered old Uzbeki rug on the floor which I like, and, oh-yeah, there's no heat, and not enough light.

But the view is great, and the sound is out of this world.

Please stop by if you are in the neighborhood...
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Components Toggle details

    • Altec Lansing Model-19
    Two-way, super-efficient (101dB?) speakers. Fabulous for the price.
    • EAR 859
    EAR integrated SET-like amp (called Enhanced Triode Mode - pentode tube given triode functionality/linearity (Grid1 tied to cathode, Grid2 signal, Grid3 is ground) putting out all of 13.5W. Uses EL519 tubes which will probably outlast me.
    • Sony SCD-777ES
    stock player, owned since 2002
    • Ridiculously Comfortable Chairs
    self-explanatory
    • Baby-Poop Brown Lazy-Boy Recliner
    also self-explanatory
    • Diatone LT-1
    Linear tracker from the late 1970s. Mitsubishi's top effort as a TT. Uses a Denon DL-103R right now but going to change to a higher compliance MM cart.

Comments 30

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T_Bone,

Why you live in my house? I leave for few weeks and you make my house yours? I very pissed on, I mean pissed off. I vow to eliminate you, I mean evict you, very soon.

Yours sincerely,

Samurai Sam
aka 'The Butcher'

noble100