The journey begins mid Friday afternoon when Dr Peter and I meet up at East Midland Airport to start our long weekend. On the agenda, a couple of LP12 tune-ups, an audition of the Naim Superline, a few cartridge and capacitor changes, plenty of good conversation, good food and a fair bit of travelling to see the sights of Southern Spain.

The first job was to make sure we had an even distribution of baggage between us see’s a clever bit of juggling to get us both below the allowed 15 KG weight limit with both of us just a couple of tenths of a KG below the allowed weight, stage one completed easy eh?

Stage 2 security, how difficult could that be with a linn tonearm in your hand luggage and a few hi-fi bits that of course every well educated airport security guard is fully aware of. The Linn tonearm was the easy bit, the Linn arm board caused a bit of concearn, it’s a bit of wood to mount a tonearm on says Dr P. Ah I used to make circuit boards declares the security guard, nope it’s a piece of wood declares Dr P, can I take it apart asks the security guard? I mean just how dangerous can a tonearm board be I snigger to myself?

Stage 2 complete!, oh no just when you thought you were through security a message comes over the tannoy, “Can a Mr P Swain report to security?” Explaining a tonearm to security but just how do you explain the Superline in baggage? Even worse as the security desk was outside the secure area Dr P had to go through the security gates a second time and explain the tomearm to a second security, however this one didn’t have the first idea of hi-fi, what fun Peter must have had. In the meantime I whilst all this was going on I had the tough job of checking out the coffee and chocolate muffins in the coffee bar.

Then comes the flight and a clever trick pulled off by Dr P and PB, Dr P sits in the window seat and I sit in the aisle seat, now which mug was going to sit between us? Yep no one was brave enough so we shared three seats between us, ahh the comfort lol

Then comes the inflight entertainment, just what could be better than a comedy film? Yep a peed of headmistress type who gets fed up with a stag group sat directly in front of us. Ten out of ten for courage asking a stag group to keep the noise down when they are full of excitement on the flight out to a weekend of frivolity. Nought out of ten for common sense, for what happens next was two and a half hours of being ridiculed by the whole group. Including a hilarious game of “who gets to sit next to the Headmistress next” which had me and Pete in stitches. Fair play to the cabin crew who were fighting a losing battle to keep on top of it and who even resorted to the old, “lets pour a glass of red wine over one of their crutches”

Some three hours later we land and meet up with Frank and then its of to Franks to unload our luggage and then head out to a nice restaurant for a real treat, fresh fish, the polar bear is in heaven! All three of us had a good evening of good food, company and conversation before its of to Franks to finish the evening off listening to his fine hi-fi system.

Franks System which has been well documentes but this was the first time I have really heard it.

However, the system starts like this on Saturday morning so who can spot the changes?

Sounds like fun. And what a good excuse to see those beautiful rosenut SBLs again!

What these?

They are a gorgeous colour.

Saturday see's Peter holidaying hard

Ooh er, that's a bit risque! Peter's flashing rather a lot of cleavage in that last picture!

Saturday sees the hard work begin. Peter has two decks to tune up, yes two deck!

The first as seen above is completely taken to bits and meticulously rebuilt taken extreme care and making sure every piece fits perfectly. The first consists of Franks LP12, Naim Aro and Dynavector te kaitora rua.

Many, many hours later it is rebuilt and put back into Franks system along with the superline running from the 552 for now. No other changes are made and comparisons are made with the same deck we heard the night before with Franks standard Naim phono stage. Hmmm, the improvements are not small in hi-fi terms and I think its fair to say Frank is quite pleased with what he has heard. Frank plays a few favourite lp’s funnily enough most of them from the late sixties and all sounding like they could have been recorded yesterday. For now no other comparisons were made, nothing more than listening to many favourite lp’s.

After a very long day its time for the chillie part of the story, yes Franks home made chilli served to the polar bear in Spain and very good it was indeed.

That’s the end of the hi-fi story for now, what followed after the chillie was some excellent sightseeing with a drive up to the mountains and then a very long twisty drive to the top of a mountain to find the only bar for tens of miles where the three of us sit and discuss the proceedings of the day.

quote:

Originally posted by Chillkram:
Ooh er, that's a bit risque! Peter's flashing rather a lot of cleavage in that last picture!

Is that better Mark?

thats dedication.

and here is the finished item

quote:

Originally posted by 151:
thats dedication.

Worthy of at least $200 per hour

quote:

and here is the finished item

When I read that, I almost daren't look.

Saturday evening and the fun begins, the comparing of all the loading plugs and I am sure all those interested have seen the posts elswhere on other threads. All I will add is Peter has really done his homework and is spot on with the correct plugs and Frank agrees. Just to make sure we do listen to plenty of other plugs and Frank is happy he has the correct loading plugs.

Then comes the surprise, hidden in Pete’s luggage just has to be an XV-1S, just so that Frank and I can hear the differences between the two cartridges, smiles grins and grimaces then follow. It was an interesting exercise as both frank and I have heard the differences and can discuss them on the forum having heard them for ourselves.

quote:

Originally posted by count.d:

quote:

and here is the finished item

When I read that, I almost daren't look.

For now

quote:

That’s the end of the hi-fi story for now, what followed after the chillie was some excellent sightseeing with a drive up to the mountains and then a very long twisty drive to the top of a mountain to find the only bar for tens of miles where the three of us sit and discuss the proceedings of the day.

hi-fi heaven.
can i ask are you running of a single spur or multiple?

Frank runs a single spur with a Grahams Hydra.

Picures of the bar and mountains will follow.

thanks.

In the meantime, who says Naim doesn't look good on Fraim