My starting system into audiophile heaven after two years of searching and listening.

Setup in small living room for now (220sqf). It has components from Mark Levinson, Emmlabs, Sonus Faber, Nordost Valhalla, Finite Elemente, and Jena Labs

Wish list: turntable (Transrotor, Avid, Grand Prix), cd rack for 2000 cd's, room treatment/bigger room, and more great music!

Suggestions are most welcome!

OK. Let's go back to the beginning. My first audio posession was a Telefunken one box mono radio turntable system, where the turntable colapsed inside the box for storage, it did 33, 45, and 78 rpm. This was back in 1973. I was the happiest boy on the planet, none of my friends had such a music box and therefore we allways came back to my room to listen.

Between then and now there have been many hifi components from various mass producers, Sony, Nakamishi (the best tapedecks back then), Jamo, Philips, Schneider just to name a few. Nothing interesting until I graduated from University in 1991 and purchased the following system: top of the line Technics CD player and integrated Amplifier, Tannoy loudspakers, bi-wired! This system stayed with the for 8 years after which I sold it to my brother. I turned to multi-channel in 1999 and was amazed at the (surround-)sound and thought this was the best ever. Yamaha Z1, the first Pioneer DVD player with DTS out, a set of B&W CDM SE speakers, silver based wiring. I guess not audiophile by any stretch of the imagination but I was extremely happy for some years, mostly movies though.

In 2003 I wanted to enjoy music more and I bought a sony dvp-9000 dvd/cd/sacd player through eBay and bought some SACDs to try it out. I was stunned by the increase in transparency, soundstage, and structure of the music. Particularly one song that convinced me to go on the path of the search for ultimate sound: When I look into your eyes by Diana Krall. And indeed when I first listened to this song at a high-end dealer, I was sold. The system comprised of a set of B&W 802Ds, a Classe CAP2100 integrated amp, a Marantz SA-11 SACD player, and home-made wiring. The next time I brought in my wife with me, and we were both absolutely blown away by how emotioanlly involving music can be played on an audiophile system. Subsequently we tried out many combinations of equipment B&W, Nagra, Denon, Cary, Broksieper, T&A, Octave, JPS to name some. And first we thought tubes was it, but after listening to excellent solid state equipment, the tubes idea was put on ice (maybe later in a second system).

This is when a 2 year search started. Which has been an interesting journey, and one that has the above outcome as a first true step into the audiophile world. To be continued...