The day started at the SP household @ 6 am in my office , ACTUALLY 5:50 am . Gooooood dammit boy. Just as I opened up my mails , I received a mail from Audio Note UK. I stated that it was going to be a crazy day at the shop with this AN show, and this I figured WITHOUT having called anyone nor mailing . Just a small blurb on our site. The day was beautiful and there is a Winterlude fest . Which means folks are thinking other things than audio.

I even opened the doors early at the shop to finish some stuff before the start of the show. You see guys , some things told me that it was going to be hectic, and intiutively I thought better not go all out. For Christ sake , That crystal ball of mine was on cue. Starting at 10 am, what ensued was a constant and overflowing stream of folks that were listening ....no, revelling in the glow of Audio Note triodes gear. The system went from the RITES OF SPRINGS , original RCA copy , conducted by Pierre Monteux, to Stevie Ray Vaugh, Gary Burton, Dire Straits( Love over gold , on vinyl ), to an Astree Label baroque piece on Vinyl , Ron Carter, Ivo Pogorelic, and the list went on. In there we also managed to sell quite of bit of gear , right , left and center, bing , bam badaboomskiiii.

Some folks heard a 50,000.00 cd player that is rare and for the most well healed .I never stated what was playing as digital ( I still like the fact that those CAM guys said that I am not a real AN dealer, my evil laugh was loud that day ....) , now shut up Lucster, get back to where you were ....In there, on that day , we went throught a multitude of Premium coffees. Also during that day, we managed to see approx 30 some odd people, very far from our record attended show, but the air was electryfying.

2 channel is not dead....if you are willing to put the sweat equity. All in all , folks were treated to a beautiful system, we have their smiles etched in our memories. We closed our doors at days end, we wished we would have had a beer or 2 Chris and I. You see we continued to listen. I placed on our AN TT 2 , another extremely rare and collectors Living Stereo, one of the most 3 expensive record copies to buy in the world used ( I have 3 copies of this Vintage...they run into the 1,000's of $$ ). We sat down and listened , just us , dead tired , but wonderfully so. Then did we notice , as all had left , as to the what and why the folks seemed happy and content. Its not the specs, its not the technology, its not the tubes, to be sure , money plays a role here. But on that day , money was on NO one' mind. Certainly not on ours.

Hmmm, I told Chris , "good thing we did not advertise this one , we would have lost control of the shop". That last record struck a sting with me on my drive home, and I thought, well, what the hell stops me from having the same system playing again NEXT Saturday the 13th of Feb. Nothing is stopping me , gaaaaad damm it. So let us just freakin do it, and to hell the consequences.

I am writing this ,after just finishing my days " work " , its nearing 7 pm Sat evening ( as you guys know , what I am writing here about are actual facts ,ooops I lied, its 7:13 Pm ), just mailed AN , just placed all my days orders, and now the old boy is alone for the night. I have already received 3 calls from friends to come and listen to some tunes at my place. You also see , what folks have listened too today, I have a great many systems at my disposal that are even greater , more expensive, more this and more that yadayadayada, you see, it matters not a thing to me.

I will now pay bills , have supper , while one of my super duper tube systems is warming up, then I KNOW I will have friends over. The music , the wine , the frienships , the laughter, and the plain stupid bahaviors of over grownkids will ensue tonight. You see guys...this is what 2 channel stereo is about. A lot of retailers have either forgotten about that , or simply dont care. My audio life continues even when my work is done. Dare I say, this is no "work", and this is all play.

So see you all next week, for those that could not come down TODAY, we will see you next saturday Then after next week, we will start again on this trail. And we will have as much fun with Operetta gear that we had with AN. You see guys , its not always about the gear...

See you next saturday ( ONLY ) while this special system is playing for the public. Now I must leave , my friends are about to show up, my tubes are about ready....hmmmmand ahhhh

Cheers amigo

from Psycho Lucster himself