Season's Greetings

Chez R's, evaluating the latest incarnation of the vinyl setup.

Season's Greetings

Greetings to you all!

It's that time of the year again, when everyone seems to be celebrating. While the younger souls seek fun and parties, it is closer to routine for many older people, without much time for discovery and reflection, sometimes even with burden that come with reality.

But for everyone, one thing is sure - those who think of giving possess the spirit and are the richer for it. And we should all be glad that we get to share and get together with friends, particularly over food. In that sense, my holiday season started early. The right pic shows the wonderful desserts from Brooklyn that I was served at my friend H's house on the last day of Hanukah. The left pic shows the great lunch Kevin served. With the exception of the fried eel, all were take-outs: the other flavored Fried Fish, surprisingly excellent Chicken (蔥油雞) and Spicy Beef with Tripe (夫妻肺片), the last the best I have ever had, better than any that I have had in Shenzhen (HK simply does not qualify), all testament to the prowess of the Chinese chef diaspora. The food was so good that I have forgotten what was on the audio agenda that day.

Chez R The Dining Highlight of my season must go to R's lunch or us last Sunday. The Pork Shank (Osso Buco equivalent) was privately sourced superior meat, brined and cooked to perfection. The fat had only slivers of connective tissue left, melting in the mouth. The garnishing was not to be slighted either: a self-fermented Sauerkraut and Kielbasa (home made by his friend). They looked so good that I forgot to take a pic of the table!

For some reason, this time the great food did not erase my audio memory. In the LR, which I have not reported on for quite a long time, we evaluated the current setup:

Analog: Rockport Sirius II / Jan Allaerts MC2
SUT: Kondo KSL SFz (previously Ortofon T20)
Phonoamp: mammoth Tube Research
Preamp: ARC Reference 2
Amp: mammoth Tube Research monoblocks
Loudspeakers: Wilson Grand Slamm

Most of these have been in the smaller audio room before. For more articles, simply use the search functions in this blog for "R". I'd not mince words - for various reasons I think the first incarnation of the system is still the best. Now it is just too sluggish and tame for me.

Chez Andy After visiting R, we retreated to Andy's place and drank more. Before Andy served us his signature Beef Noodles, VAS Stephen showed us some of the cartridges he had restored/modified for the crowd, including a Denon DL-103 with Ruby cantilever!!!