David Houpt's Hi-Fi

I first became interested in hi-fi in the seventies. I suppose that my first set up that could genuinely be called hi-fi was a Pioneer PL12D with a Shure M95ED cartridge connected to a Technics amp and Celestion Ditton 25 speakers. I had a tuner as well and later added a Technics cassette deck. It sounded OK, especially the record deck, but I could never work out why the tuner didn't seem up to much. It was only later that I cottoned on to the importance of a good FM aerial.

After that, over the years, I have 'upgraded' quite a bit which, in my case, often meant making changes for the worse. 

Downgrades included:

An AR EB101 turntable (why oh why were these well regarded? When I finally came to dispose of it I couldn't even give it away on uk.rec.audio)

A Sansui direct drive record deck (it had a Technics cartridge which was probably the best thing about it)

A Quad FM3 tuner (cult item - I wish I'd kept it if only to sell on Ebay)

An Arcam 10 DAB tuner (well, err, it seemed a good idea at the time....)


I am quite pleased with my current set up, although I am tempted to change the amp. As you can see by the pictures, I have:

	A valhalla'd and trampoline'd LP12 with a Naim Aro tonearm and a Musicman MM cartridge (a secondhand buy and one of my better decisions)
A Sony minidisk deck (for recording from the tuner and from friends' CDs) An Arcam 9 amp (and I could have bought an Audiolab 8000? Well, the Arcam sounded better to my ears) An Arcam 9 CD player (with that system for playing CDs that nobody makes)
	A Denon 660L tuner (good piece of kit - attached to a 4 dipole aerial in the loft) An Arcam 10 tuner (yes, yes, I know, I know ...) A Denon DRM800 cassette deck (for playing a fairly large collection of tapes - this sounds much better than its reputation would suggest)
A pair of Tannoy Yorks (with 15 inch Monitor Golds - just wonderful)
	This my latest acquisition, a Leak Stereo 20 valve amplifier. A late model in grey with choke smoothing added. This brings back memories. My uncle was an electrical engineer. My introduction to hi-fi in the 60s came through him. He had a stereo 20 amp, a Leak tuner together with a Garrard deck, SME arm and a couple of home built speakers using what looked like drainpipes to me!

My new toy, replacing the LP12, is an Origin Live Ultra Modern kit with an OL Silver arm and a Goldring 1042 cartridge. I bought a Gram 2 phono stage at the same time. I also invested (well, that's my word for it) in the enhanced regulator board too.

I haven't mentioned the interconnects because I have never found that they make much difference to the sound.

My listening room is pretty small, although we have a fairly large house. I am getting close to being an empty nester so I may be able to change this sometime.