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.
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.
I have been to Japan many, many times, but never as far north as your house. I, too, had an EAR 859. Currently, I am using a Deja Vu 2a3/45 - great sound and definitely scruffy.
Pjudice, most of the LPs currently up there are either 50s-70s jazz, or classical. The CDs currently up there are highly varied (last weekend's CD listening sessions were Jamiroquai, XTC, Eric Clapton, Elgar, Britten, Lizst, Ella Fitzgerald, Fairfield Four and a few other things).
Drinking? Whatever suits the temperature (because one feels it there, especially in that room), the time, and the company. This past winter, it was mostly red wine or cognac (includes armagnac and Spanish brandy), with just a bit of whiskey consumed. This spring saw a few of bottles of champagne get consumed. I assume there will be some sangria, mint juleps, mojitos, pastisse, and some whiskey in summer.
The funny thing so far is that there has been little whiskey consumed there because while Japanese people from Tokyo have visited and they would love to drink whiskey while listening (seems to be the favorite urban Japanese adult 'relax-time' drink), they have usually been there when locals have also been there and the locals don't drink whiskey - it's usually shochu (and I cannot imagine wanting to mix those two in the same evening!)
