Hey everybody,
I've been lurking around for weeks, reading a lot of your posts and stories. I thought I'd join! I mean, why not!
My name is Frans and I'm from the Netherlands. I've had a fascination for audio equipment as long as I can remember. Here's my little story! Hope you like reading it. And if not, just skip to the pictures at the bottom.
Around the time I was born my father's trusty Philips amp/tuner combination broke, which he replaced it with a very nice Technics class AA amplifier. The broken Philips was stowed away on top of a cabinet. Soon to be forgotten. At the same time he bought 6 (!!) Philips Motional Feedback loudspeakers (22AH567 I think). Pretty much the ultimate speaker money could buy those days. My parents still have them today. Though four broke and the remaining two suffer from a lot of quirks (bad connectors, leaking capacitors, a fried tweeter)...
At the age of 7 I found this gem of a Philips machine (Receiver #785 or something alike) on top of a cabinet. My father told me it was broken, so I took it apart to see what was in it. With a little help of my older brother I learned to identify the power supply, capacitors, resistors, circuit breakers and what not. I quickly found out what the problem was (there were actually a couple of problems) which I managed to fix myself. Swapping out parts, soldering a couple of things, fixing some mechanics... Needless to say I flabbergasted my parents who initially told me off because it could be dangerous.
I developed a feel for music and followed my parents' taste for quite some time. Still do actually... Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Queen, Eric Clapton, Dire Straits, Rod Steward, Elton John, etc.
Fast forward a few years. I started working as a newspaper boy at the age of 11. I worked for 1.5 years to save money for my very own audio mini set. I wanted to buy a Sony 5.1 surround set, but the price was just a little bit too steep. So I settled for a Pioneer. I can't remember the type number but I'm pretty sure it was a 2X30 watt system. It had a full auto reverse electronic transport tape deck. I impressed my friends by starting / stopping / fast forwarding my tapes by remote. It also stopped at audio gaps, how cool was that? It also came with a CD-player and an aux-in. A black unit, very nicely designed, with a big LCD screen in the centre and a graphic equalizer (a must have at the age of 12!).
By that time I started visiting local audio shops and taking different brand's brochures and stuff. In the 1994 - 1996 era, I knew almost all the products and the specs by heart for Sony, Pioneer, Philips, Technics, Panasonic and JVC equipment.
At the same time I got a vinyl player from school. They didn't need / want it anymore. It turned out my mum was quite an audiophile herself. She had an hifi-grade (whatever that means) cartridge tucked away somewhere, with a diamond needle tip. It was grossly expensive and she hadn't used it for years. I could keep it. This introduced me to vinyl and music such as Bob Dylan, Meatloaf, Neil Diamond, some more Queen and Simon & Garfunkle among others. I hooked up the turntable to - you guessed it - that Philips amp I fixed years earlier. I discovered "night radio" on that equipment, which I had installed inched from my pillow. It kinda opened Pandora's box. I can't remember how many nights of sleep I lost listening to "Talk radio" - a no-music station that organized all kinds of exciting stuff for their listeners. Like quests at night that you had to complete in your car and what not. Brilliant stuff.
At the age of 15, I replaced my trusty Pioneer set with a Technics Impact 750 (SH-EH-750), introducing me to Dolby Surround. This set delivered awesome sound quality but it was also very expensive. To me it was worth it. Instead of smoking cigarettes and learning to drink beer I spent my money on audio stuff. Much more rewarding IMHO. It also introduced me to some new artists like the Dutch band Blof, American singer / songwriter Shawn Mullins, Sister Hazel, REM and Guns N' Roses.
My love for audio equipment was to be overrun by a new obsession: Computers and internet. After a while I got back into the "audio world" by studying a internet / video orientated Multimedia Technology course in Amsterdam and Staffordshire University. I graduated in 2006. Nowadays I have my own company. We create websites and video productions. So audio still is very important to me. But now professionally as well.
I got my own apartment two years ago. One of the most important things to me was the audio and video equipment. I also love playing music very loud, so I had to find a way to prevent pissing of my new neighbors. So during the renovation I ordered specially sound insulated floors and walls to be built. I'm very happy with that. I can really crank up my music without disturbing any one. Plus, it turned out to be a money saver because the heat insulation is excellent as well! Even in winter I rarely have to crank up the radiators.
Lol, I remember my mum's face of total disbelieve when I showed her my initial blue prints for the living room. Whatever she told me to do decoration-wise (I just needed a woman's touch with that!), I never compromised the perfect 5.1 speaker set up I had in mind: "No mum, that's where the speakers need to go! I can't place a table there!"
After a little while I saved enough money to replace my trusty Technics set. At Stassen Hifi - Tegelen, the Netherlands - I bought a Marantz SR6003, BD7003 and Phonar P3 and M3 speakers coupled with a Phonar S7 sub.
I guess most people don't know this brand "Phonar". I know I didn't. These German built speakers are really a class of its own. They are modified by a Dutch audio expert, Edwin Maas. The result is a speaker that can easily compete with expensive models. I fell in love with them during two listening sessions at Stassen Hifi. All the other brands didn't come close to the amazing soundstage and richness. I did like the clear brightness of the Focal speakers a lot, I must admit. Freddie Mercury sounded amazingly awesome through those speakers. But I listen to other stuff as well, obviously, so I decided to take the all-rounder instead.
At the moment I'm awaiting an upgrade. I'm replacing the P3 floor standing speakers with their bigger brothers, the P5. I compared the P3 and P5 at Stassen a couple of weeks ago (when helping my parents upgrading their audio equipment). The P5 is vastly superior (and vastly more expensive too
) than the P3. So I couldn't resist. The P5 could even compare with amazingly expensive speakers costing over €10.000 a piece! Though I must admit those sounded even better. Can't even remember the brand, but they were ugly as hell.
But hey! A guy's gotta draw the line somewhere. I "only" got there to check out the new SR7005 anyway, because I really loved all the new network and internet capabilities it had (plus HDMI 1.4). I decided to place an order for the AV7005 and MM7055 combination instead. It's - perhaps - overkill in my living room, but I just love the idea of a having a separate pre/pro and amp.
So there you have it! My story. Needless to say, this post is worthless without pics, so here they are. My current set-up!
I just bought the Marantz Turntable to find out if I still like vinyl as much as I used to during my teenage years. I bought a couple of nice 180 grams vinyl's but I have to wait for my new AV7005 before I can hook it up as I currently don't have a pre-amp!
Pictures:
