good day folks, how's it all going? trust that everyone is enjoying their music to the fullest and appreciate what they have achieved.

Yes, I'm back in Aussie land now from our small overseas stint. I had the pleasure of using some awesome Odin cables from nordost with the Wilson X-2's for a few months, using the Lamm ml 2.2 monoblocks; wow what a stunning performance. Then one of my dealer buddies wanted me to do some serious listening to the new Avant Garde tri omega horn speakers before heading back to melbourne.

So I did and was truely amazed at the Avant Gardes driven with the Lamms. Wilson, Avant Garde and Quad all sounded very different, with very realistic sound stages it was unbelievable! Since I had already sold off my X-2's for room reasons, I was thinking about the Trio's. However after careful long hours of listening, which you really can't do on the Trio's due to the horn waveform; they tend to get tiresome after a while.

Therefore I returned with my good old Quads still have the 2905 series, was using the new Quad series 2912 or something (very similar in all aspects, only cosmetic changes, hence no need to sweat!) The dealer was very happy to take them back and hand over my ML 2.2's back which I would never leave for anything.

I could not affor the Odin's, hence settled for the Nordost fray and heimdal series, which is also fantastic for what it can do. I also had the pleasure of trying out the new c-j monoblocks Art amps and the Gat preamp, plus a host of other wonderful amps from Audio research ref 250 and ref 150.

I must say all in all, there is some majic of true pure live sound that is very musical in smaller amps. Although those systems were mega buck stuff, the sound I currently get out of my little c-j mv60se with kt120 tubes, controlled with the c-j Act2 preamp and Quads, plus using the ML2.2's on occasion to me "just sounds right!"

No doubt the others had far greater slam, dynamics, huge soundsatge to the point it seemed over exaggerated specially on the horns (those things are massive!) Only one of those Trios would fit in my room to begin with, I'd have to place the other one of the roof!

The system I currently have after so many months of auditioning during the few months I had on work, and am truly satisfied with:
preamp c-j Act2
power amps c-j MV60SE (with kt120 output tubes), and Lamm ML2.2 monoblocks
digital sources: Cayin CD50T transport, and Weiss Dac 202 (got rid of the Audio Research ref CD8, sounded too tubey...)
speakers: Quad ESL 2905 (guess I will never change from these)
QRT QX4 magetic field stabilizer plus Thor PS10 power conditioner
cables / interconnects: Nordost Fray + Heimdals + DH Labs Q10 series II

Overall sound "the closest approach to the original sound"

Singapore is an outstanding place for high end audio, you can get your hands on just about anything. I even heard the new Wilson XLF's driven with Lamm ML 3 signatures, very nice indeed, but yes I have to admit I still prefer my Quads, don't know why? Who cares what they say, just enjoy your music.

Cheers mates and have a good one!
RJ