Time for a rebuild

It had to come, I've fially got some time to get back to the music and this blog. The exciting news for me is that an up and coming band has asked me to come "out of retirement" and get back behind a desk and mix one of the tracks for their forthcoming album.
Also I decided it was time for a change on the Hi-Fi front. Although my video edit/audio sweetening suite has modest JBL Control One monitors driven by a Samson amp I sometimes use the DAC in the Mackie desk to play Spotifiy over the net as the premium service sounds good at 320kbps better than CD. I also changed my home cinema set up, although I'm still using the Tannoy FX 5.1 speakers everything else has been changed to go HD.

I'll go into that further at a later date but suffice to say I had some kit to change in and decided to PX it for a Mac Mini! This has been coupled with an M-Audio Firewire Audiophile. the benefits of the high-bandwidth IEEE 1394 interface are very apparent on playback and it is a true 24bit/96khz unit. The addition of a 1Tb fan less, silent Iomega hard drive makes a great music/home entertainment server and will allow the digitisation of some vinyl and analog tape.
While I was commissioning of the server, I also stripped dwn the Michell Orbe turntable and re-set up the bearing and SME IV arm and checked the Koetsu Rosewood Signature which has been back to Japan for a rebuild. Now, I'm thinking about re-valving the ART Audio Concerto Amp and VPI Pre. The Server sounds so good that I'm now selling the Orelle CD 10 T transport and Tannoy DAC. I all sound really good at the moment very open and spacious with, detail and good highs and lows. Nervous Records have started putting albums I recorded for them on Spotify and If you check out Blue Egypt by The Pharaohs you can hear one of the albums I like the best.