Reading the Castle thread certainly brought back a lot of memories for me.
Someone else mentioned in another thread on what they thought was the golden era of Hi-Fi.
To many of us the decade will change and the love of certain products in terms of visual appeal, name and price will also be different to all of us.
I would perhaps like to encourage the members here to join this discussion and tell us what they consider to be their golden era (bearing in mind that we have age differences, tastes and preferences), so do bear in mind this is not a debate about disagreeing.
To me it has to be the 90's and as I said it was the castle thread that got me started.
I still recall a pair of castle standmounts being reviewed by Gavin Isaacs (I think) at around 1995. They were highly recommended for their price range.
I then recall listening to a pair of Howards and I was totally overwhelmed as a relatively you audiophile back then.
This was an era where you could go from store to store and drool, you could speak to other passionate audiophiles and music lovers.
It was an era where Sonus Faber released the stunning Minuetto's and then decided to bless the "less rich" audiophiles with their incredibly well priced and to this day their beautiful sounding Concertino's.
I recall speakers like the KEF Coda's and the B&W 600 i series. We also had the likes of Boston and then Sonor audio. These all made the audiophile on a tight budget very happy as we could purchase good quality ant affordable prices whilst we aspired to dreams like the B&W Matrix 801's and the bigger Sonus Fabers.
The Sonor Signets were around R 1 300.00 if I recall, what a bargain at that price.
Chario had the Academy 1, where a reviewer even compared them to Sophia Loren.
Martin Logan started making an impact (although most folks didn't have homes big enough to accommodate these monsters)
This was an Era where CD players became ever more popular by the day. Ken Ishiwata blew us away with his 63 KI signature. We got the likes of California Audio Labs (superb players) and the Arcam players were to be found locally.
Audio Alchemy brought us affordable DACS and decoding engines.
Can anyone remember the Musical Fidelity CDT triode cd. player ?
The big boys like Theta and Wadia blew us away with their boisterous size and cost. I drooled to my toes over these units (I would still like to own a Wadia)
Teac delivered the huge and incredible VRDS units.
Some of these big units were so stunning that to this day they give me goosebumps when I look at some pictures.
On the amplifier side names like Conrad Johnson became a common term though most of could not afford them.
We had the likes of Krell and those big Classe pre-amps and of course the boisterous Mark and Levinson's.
Can anyone remember the beautiful Sonus Faber Musica amplifier.
Seperates were too expensive for most of us, but we had superb intergarted amps to our disposal form the likes of Copland, Harman Kardon,Arcam, Cambridge Audio and Sherwood, just to name a few.
Nad and Rotel became as synonymous with audio as Hoover is with vacuum cleaners.
I can picture Schalk from Valve Audio loading his heavy Black Widow in a crate to Deon Schoeman for a review, the review had such an impact that the Black Widow has become one of those power amps that many aspire to.
This was an era where Audio and Video magazine did their reviews with a list of software used for the reviews.
I recall how we used to go on a hunt to look for these LP's and CD's.
Mary Black-Babes in the wood, Jazz at the Pawnshop, Roger Water-Amused to death, Windam Hill-Various artists just to name a few.
We had audio shows at Sandton and you could spend the entire day going from room to room and listen and drool.
How I remember the Sonus Faber Stradivari's and the B&W Nautilus.............awesome stuff.
We had the Bedini and also discwashers
Then on the analogue side Wilson Benesch and Roksan delivered awesome TT's.
The Linn LP 12 was an object of lust form most.
ARA from SME provided some of the most beautiful tone arms.
The VDH Grasshopper sold for something like 3 500 pounds sterling in 1995.
Pink Triangle had many an audiophile smiling.
Lastly to me I believe that vinyl is now in it's golden era.
Not in the volumes sold but in terms of the quality.
Records are better recorded, the mastering with people like Stan Ricker and others enables us to get the best from an album
People are buying esoteric Cartridges from the like of Koetsu, Benz, Zyx, Clearaudio and Shelter more than in the previous era of vinyl.
At home we have the Blue Angel Mantis, how is that for an incredible resurgence of vinyl as a super achievement.
Static, and snap crackle and pop is a thing of the past and the phonostages at our disposal is too vast to even choose from,
Thanks for letting me share.
