By Juan C. Ayllon It's hard to believe that the year 2017 is coming to a close. As I was in the car en route to work this morning, I remembered a house party I threw circa 2004 at a lake house I used to own. This young, attractive divorcee I'd met at church stopped by for about half an hour but left before I had a chance to really talk with her. Then, six years later in late February 2010, we started dating, quickly fell in love and were married a year and a half after that!
While we were dating in 2010, I realized that I was spending more evenings at her place than at my home, so I setup my home audio system in her cavernous living room. Back then, I had a pair of Martin Logan Sequel IIs, an Angstrom 200 AV preamp/processor, and a Lexicon 212 (rebadged Bryston 3B ST) at the core of my setup. She and her two high school children were blown away! Despite living in an upscale North Shore neighborhood, they only had Bose satellite speakers and a subwoofer linked up to a receiver in their living room, so they weren't prepared for how much movies came to life in their living room. I was a rock star overnight! Systems have come and gone since then. My wife bought me a pair of used Martin Logan reQuests for my birthday several years later and that gave way to my Von Schweikert VR-5 HSE speakers, while the Lexicon 212 was sold, replaced by a vintage Mark Levinson ML-9 amplifier -- which, in turn, was sold and replaced by an Odyssey Stratos amp stuffed into a Khartago chasis (long story). I now play music primarily through a Lampizator DSD Komputer music server (replacing the Toshiba laptop my wife gave me which held those duties previously) linked up to a heavily modded Lampizator Lite 7 DAC (there's nothing light about it now!). I chuckle when I think of the pair of $95,000 speakers that we demoed for four months in our second home together this past year for a friend in the industry. That was something. And, now, this page is the latest iteration of changes coming down the pipe. The future is promising and I look forward to all that 2018 holds for us. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!
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Juan C. AyllonA writer, artist, educator and owner of Prairie Audio Man Cave, he lives with his wife, Isabel (AKA Belle), and their Goldendoodle, Liam, enjoys listening to high fidelity music and all things hi-fi at their home in the greater Chicagoland area.. Archives
March 2024
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