Click images above to enlarge.
Moving on up
(or down South to be more accurate)...
After over fifty years of relatively peaceful living in South
London, I have been fortunate to be able to relocate to hopefully
almost guaranteed peace (and greater space) of the South Coast.
Like many house hunting music lovers, my top priority (alongside
location - location, aspect and property structural integrity)
is ‘can the hi-fi and music collection fit comfortably
in the new listening space?’
This is my third and hopefully final move, so I had to get it
right! Now with greater musical experience, more (and better)
hi-fi components and an even larger record collection, I look
forward to designing my music listening room (Michael Valentine
Studio) almost from scratch.
After nearly eight months of planning, re-planning and waiting
for local authority approval, building works started on 31 January
2022. The cost of living, building and labour costs have increased
(and continue to rise) dramatically, however, I am still working
hard to insure I reach my goal. The initial predicted completion
date was the end of April 2022, however, due to unpredictable
weather patterns, minor design alterations and structural calculation
changes, the completion prediction date is now towards the end
of May 2022? Obviously I am keen to get back to serious listening,
but I much prefer for this project to take longer as long as everything
is completed to an exceptional standard!
When the planned extension to my new music listening room is
complete, dimensions will be 3.65m width X 8.38m length (12’Width
X 27.5’ in old money). This may not seem very substantial
to some (especially to some of my American cousins) but this is
a huge increase on my previous listening space and opens up various
component placement possibilities (especially as a MartinLogan
ESL user). A dedicated ring main (or two) or perhaps individual
radial circuits will be installed for the system and most importantly,
I will be looking to purchase new amplification.
The amplification shortlist at present:
1. Audia Flight Strumento No. 4 MKII
stereo power amplifier (added to list April 2022)
2. Gryphon Diablo 300 integrated amplifier
3. Hegel H590 integrated amplifier
4. Coda 60.0 mono amplifier x 2 (with
FET Preamplifier 06x or 07x)
Research and communication with all the above amplifier
companies continues during building works.
Other amplifiers may
be added to the mix, while others may be removed. Watch this space
for progress…
Robin Francis
© Michael Valentine Studio
December 2021 - April 2022
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