{"id":2627,"date":"2017-06-09T08:55:35","date_gmt":"2017-06-09T06:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/building-your-hi-fi-system-interview-of-francis-loyal-customer-of-maplatine-com\/"},"modified":"2017-11-23T09:37:23","modified_gmt":"2017-11-23T08:37:23","slug":"building-your-hi-fi-system-interview-of-francis-loyal-customer-of-maplatine-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/building-your-hi-fi-system-interview-of-francis-loyal-customer-of-maplatine-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a Hi-Fi system: interview with Francis, a loyal maPlatine.com customer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Francis is one of maPlatine.com\u2019s most loyal customers. He is passionate about music and the Hi-Fi world, and was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about how he built up his Hi-Fi system<\/strong> and record collection<\/strong>.   <\/p>\n

– Where does your interest in analogue and Hi-Fi come from?<\/h3>\n

I\u2019ve loved classical music ever since I was a little kid. My love for music grew during the 1970s and \u201880s, particularly when I was introduced to baroque music by the opera Atys by Jean-Baptiste Lully, conducted by William Christie.   <\/p>\n

– What were your first pieces of Hi-Fi equipment? How has your system changed and developed over the years?<\/h3>\n

A long time ago, I used to buy the early CD players<\/a> released by brands like Sony and Denon. At the time, they were practically the only models available on the Hi-Fi market. Since then, I’ve been able to test out various products by different Hi-Fi brands<\/strong>: several VPI turntables<\/a>, Ortofon<\/a>, Dynavector<\/a> and Transfiguration phono cartridges<\/a>, excellent Sutherland<\/a> and Audio Research phono preamps, a Lehmann Audio headphone amp, Grado<\/a> and Focal headphones, to name a few.   <\/p>\n

– What do you look for when choosing Hi-Fi equipment?<\/h3>\n

Well, naturally I prioritise the quality of the sound produced by the different players and speakers<\/a>. On top of that, the reliability and user-friendliness of the equipment is also important to me. These are the three main qualities I look for when choosing my Hi-Fi equipment<\/strong>.   <\/p>\n

– What does your current Hi-Fi system look like?<\/h3>\n

I recently replaced my VPI Classic 3 turntable<\/a> with VPI’s new turntable, the Prime Signature<\/strong> with a 3D tonearm. I’ve fitted a Transfiguration Proteus MC cartridge<\/a> onto the tonearm, which replaced my old Ortofon Hi-Fi<\/a> cartridge.   \"Platine   The rest of my Hi-Fi system<\/strong> is made up of various different Audio Research products. So I have an Audio Research Reference Phono 3 phono preamp<\/a> and an Audio Research Reference 6 preamplifier. My amplifier is a Reference 75SE, also by Audio Research<\/a>. \"Pr\u00e9ampli<\/a> On top of all that, I have an Esoteric CD player and a Naim Audio<\/a> network player. Lastly, I use Transparent cables<\/a>. For headphone listening, I have a pair of Focal Utopia headphones<\/a> and a Heada headphone amplifier by Aurorasound<\/a>.   \"Amplificateur<\/a>   <\/p>\n

– Could you tell us a bit about the sound quality you get with this setup?<\/h3>\n

Everything sounds good to me. Overall, it has a lot of musicality while also being very realistic and remarkably precise.   <\/p>\n

– Do you have any plans to upgrade your system? If yes, what changes would you make?<\/h3>\n

Well, it\u2019s hard to say at the moment. Only time will tell\u2026   <\/p>\n

– What is your favourite genre of music?<\/h3>\n

At the moment I\u2019m more interested in jazz than classical. This new-found passion for jazz has actually come from my growing interest in vinyl.   <\/p>\n

– How many records do you think you have in your collection now?<\/h3>\n

I think I must have over 5000 records in my collection<\/strong> now, and probably more CDs. I\u2019m starting to run out of shelf space for them, which is stopping me from buying even more!   <\/p>\n

– What was the first ever record you ever bought?<\/h3>\n

My very first vinyl was a Beethoven symphony recorded by Herbert Von Karajan on Deutsche Grammophon, a German classical music label.   <\/p>\n

– How do you keep your records in good condition?<\/h3>\n

Every now and then I wash them with my VPI HW-17 record cleaning machine. Otherwise, I do the more regular cleaning with the Pure Vinyl Mist cleaning solution<\/a>. I always keep a few bottles of this product in the cupboard!   \"Produit<\/a> <\/p>\n

– Is there a particular record in your collection that means a lot to you? Why is it so important?<\/h3>\n

This is a difficult question… I would have to say that my favourite records \u2013 and CDs for that matter \u2013 are my Bill Evans records!   <\/p>\n

– Are there any records you would like to own but haven’t been able to find yet?<\/h3>\n

There is actually one record, or rather a box set, that I\u2019m looking for at the moment. It\u2019s the Mosaic box set of The Nat King Cole Trio, an American jazz trio. It contains a total of 27 LPs. They only sell one or two copies of it a year in the whole world! \"The   <\/p>\n

– We have a monthly column on our website where we recommend our favourite records. If you had to recommend two of your records, which ones would you choose?<\/h3>\n

Well, that would have to be Bill Evans again! I can’t wait for Record Store Day to roll around again so I can find more of his records! They\u2019re quite hard to find outside of the US and Australia\u2026   <\/p>\n

– Thank you Francis =)<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Francis is one of maPlatine.com\u2019s most loyal customers. He is passionate about music and the Hi-Fi world, and was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about how he built up his Hi-Fi system and record collection.   – Where does your interest in analogue and Hi-Fi come from? I\u2019ve loved classical music […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2668,"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2627\/revisions\/2668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maplatine.com\/blog\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}