My first real Hi-Fi had Large Advent speakers (in vinyl finish - I wasn't going to pay the extra $16 each for the real walnut). These were driven by an AR XA turntable and an Eico Integrated amp. This would have been around 1972. Around 1976 I completed the transition to a fully Brit Hi-Fi with Spendor BC-1 speakers driven by a Transcriptors Saturn turntable and Quad 33/303.
This journey was begun by my discovery of the original Quad ELS around 1974 - it was the most musical speaker I had ever heard and lead me to subscribe to Hi-Fi News and Record Review and discover the wonderful world of British stereo equipment. I decided that the Quads were too big for my room but I heard the Spendor BC-1s which were the closest to the Quads I had heard in a box loudspeaker so I bought them and the Quad electronics.
Then in early 1978 I started working for a Hi-Fi store that carried a good mix of British (Linn, Rega), American and Japanese products. This gave me experience of a wide range of products and lead to a number of upgrades and side-grades. I am proud to say that my first upgrade was to purchase an LP12 that same year with the then obligatory Grace 707 tonearm.
My next set of speakers were Dahlquist DQ10s, an unashamed attempt to make a dynamic speaker that would play louder than the Quad ELS (which it did) while sounding at least as good (which it didn't). It was even designed to look like the Quad ESL as Jon Dahlquist owned the Quads and wanted to maintain the same look in his living room! (He ended up keeping the same look in his living room by switching back to Quad ESLs himself!) To go along with this rather power hungry speaker I purchased an APT Holman preamp and Threshold 400A power amp. You will note here that I had transitioned back to US Hi-Fi by purchasing a number of Audiophile Press darlings.
Several months after having now wedged the DQ10s into my living room, it occurred to me that I could just as easily fit my first love - the Quad ESLs. About this time in 1979 a coworker decided he wanted something that would handle more power than his Quads so he foolishly traded them to me along with an Audio Research transistor amp for my Dahlquists and the Threshold 400a. This was definitely a much more musical sound than I had form the DQ10 setup. A couple months later I spotted a Marantz 8B tube amp in excellent shape at another dealer selling cheap - I got it for $95! This was a match made in heaven with the Quads and made for a really engaging system. (The 8B also outperformed every amp we had in the store!) I also upgraded the arm/cartridge to a Mission 774 with Supex SDX1000.
Around this time in early 1980 I started reading more and more about the Linn Isobariks. Our store needed a good top line speaker having tried several different units without much success. I and my manager both felt we should check the Isobarik out. The owners said they had heard them at shows and weren't excited by them but said we could have the distributor send us a pair of samples if we wished. We ordered them in and I took them home the first weekend. I was amazed as, even through my APT Holman and Marantz 8B, the Isobariks clobbered the Quad ELS. They not only went deeper and played louder, they even outperformed the Quads musically in the Quads forte: the midrange! My manager took them home the next weekend and within a month we both owned a pair. They quickly became far and away the most popular top line speaker we ever sold.
Now that we were hip to Isobariks we started to look into Naim, which we didn't carry at the time. We heard about the new Naim NAC 42 and NAP 110 and put in a call to the distributor (who already sold us Linn) to request samples. Wow! The 42/110 outperformed the APT/Marantz combo at least as much as the Marantz had outperformed all the other amps. Within a couple of months both my manager and I owned 42/110 combos to go with our Isobariks and we became a Naim dealer.
In mid-1981 we both went to a Hi-Fi show where we met Ivor Tiefenbrun and Julian Vereker. Meeting Ivor was great but meeting Julian was "interesting". Luckily for me it was my manager, Bill, who introduced himself to Julian first. This is how it went:
Bill: Hello, I'm Bill Clephane and I just wanted to say I own your NAC42 and NAP110 and Linn Isobariks and I really like the way it sounds.
Julian: You own what?!
Bill: A 42/110 and Isobariks and
Julian: A NAP110 can't drive Isobariks.
Bill: But I have them and they sound good.
Julian: A NAP110 cannot drive Isobariks!
Bill: (Trying to recover) Well I was thinking of upgrading and was wondering how much difference there really is between the NAP 160 and the NAP 250?
Julian: It's not a question of "Can you hear this or that better with a 250 vs. a 160?". As far as I'm concerned the NAP250 is the only decent amp in the world. Period!
At this point Bill decided it was best to stop talking and I introduced myself being careful to make no mention of what my system was. :)
Back in the store the next week it was time for another call to the distributor to order up a sample of a NAP250 for evaluation. I immediately took it home, hooked it up and found out that Julian was 100% right - a NAP110 could not drive Isobariks. The 250 creamed the 110 and really let you hear what the Isos were all about. Once you'd heard the 250 you could tell that the 110 was straining whenever you turned it up past 11 O'Clock and it wasn't doing all that great even below that. But the 110 was so superior to all the other amps we had (Threshold, Bryston, APT, PS Audio, Hafler, CJ) that you couldn't hear the problem until you compared it to the 250. Bill took it home next and came back to the store cussing! He heard the same problem but he didn't have enough money to buy a 250 and now he couldn't listen to his Hi-Fi past 12 O'Clock or he heard the 110 falling apart. Since he was a rock-head this was a major limitation. I, however, did have the cash and immediately bought the NAP250. Bill still has his Isobariks driven by an LP12 into an LK1 and an LK280. He isn't currently in the business but has worked at several stores selling products like Wilson, Krell, Meridian, etc. but has never heard anything he likes as much as his system.
From 1981 when my system consisted of an LP12/Ittok/Asak, NAP42, HI-CAP, NAP250 and Isobariks, I went through a number of system upgrades but Isobariks have been my main speaker until 3 years ago when I bought my ATC SCM100ASLs. Being in the business I traded items around a fair bit so I have owned a fair number of LP12s and a number of Isobariks as well. My last pair of Isos was purchased in 1988 and are still performing admirably in the front of my home theater driven by a LK280/SPARK.
My amps went from 42/HI-CAP/250 to a 12S to a 32 and then to a pair of NAP135s in 1984. Then the Linn LK1/LK2 came out and the Naim gear was sold and replaced by them and further upgraded to an LK280 in 1988. I also upgraded my cartridge to a Karma. Since I went into the computer industry around this time my system remained constant for 10 years - an amazing length of time for me. It was LP12/Valhalla/Ittok/Karma, LK1/LK280 and Isobariks except that my stepdaughter killed my Karma in 1990 (bad Karma for her - good for me) giving me an excuse to replace it with a Troika.
In 1998 I discovered the joys of eBay back when you could still get some screaming deals and started some long overdue upgrades: 1997 LP12 with Cirkus and Ekos II, Lingo, Kairn, Isobarik Aktiv crossover and four LK280/SPARKs were purchased over the next couple of years. I came back in the Hi-Fi business in 2001 and through a series of upgrades came to the point I am right now: LP12/Radikal/Keel/ChrisH Plinth/Ekos SE/Akiva/Urika, Ikemi, Pekin, Klimax Kontrol/1, ATC SCM100ASLs, REL B1.
So where do I go from here? Well if I win the lottery (somewhat difficult since I don't often play) these look promising!
)
first powered by a Marantz receiver, later sounding much better with a Naim Nait 1.
