Chennai Brit

Thad E Ginathom

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2009
Messages
6,099
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113
Location
Chennai
Hi,

Settled in Chennai for nearly five years, courtesy of my local wife.

Music taste is largely carnatic classical, but does not exclude an occasional burst of the Grateful Dead!

For some reason, I find I actually don't listen to music much in the house these days, but when I do, this is what I listen to it on:

Castle Severn speakers (British)
Cyrus IIIi amp (British)
Marantz CD-67 CD
Old Sony tape deck.

I did have a Cyrus CD too, but (so much for Brit-built gear!) it broke down and was expensive to repair; the Marantz is old, wasn't expensive, but... fine.

My favourite is the Cyrus amp. It was a huge upgrade to the thing (forgotten) I had before, and my personal lesson in how 50watts per channel can be infinitely superior to 150! Only thing is, as age continues to affect my hearing, I begin to wish that it did have a tone control!

The amp and speakers were at the lower end of hi-fi expensive --- but both were ex-demo deals with as much as 50% off.

There is a RME card in my PC. When it was close to the hifi and all wired up, it gave some excellent sound, even better than hifi CD unit. Now I have a SqueezeBox Duet, infinitely more expensive than a piece of wire, and probably not as good quality, but an interesting gadget. Only getting occasional use so far.

Hoping all this stuff survives the Chennai humidity as, now retired, if it has to be replaced, it certainly won't be up-graded!
 
Interesting. Could you post your impressions on the sound quality of your setup? How does it fare with older poor quality Indian recordings?

Cheers
 
Hi,

Settled in Chennai for nearly five years, courtesy of my local wife.

Music taste is largely carnatic classical, but does not exclude an occasional burst of the Grateful Dead!

For some reason, I find I actually don't listen to music much in the house these days, but when I do, this is what I listen to it on:

Castle Severn speakers (British)
Cyrus IIIi amp (British)
Marantz CD-67 CD
Old Sony tape deck.

I did have a Cyrus CD too, but (so much for Brit-built gear!) it broke down and was expensive to repair; the Marantz is old, wasn't expensive, but... fine.

My favourite is the Cyrus amp. It was a huge upgrade to the thing (forgotten) I had before, and my personal lesson in how 50watts per channel can be infinitely superior to 150! Only thing is, as age continues to affect my hearing, I begin to wish that it did have a tone control!

The amp and speakers were at the lower end of hi-fi expensive --- but both were ex-demo deals with as much as 50% off.

There is a RME card in my PC. When it was close to the hifi and all wired up, it gave some excellent sound, even better than hifi CD unit. Now I have a SqueezeBox Duet, infinitely more expensive than a piece of wire, and probably not as good quality, but an interesting gadget. Only getting occasional use so far.

Hoping all this stuff survives the Chennai humidity as, now retired, if it has to be replaced, it certainly won't be up-graded!

Welcome buddy.
I hope ur gear survives too but if it doesn't ur in the right place for advice and some deals on used gear.
Castle is a brand thats a bit low on peoples radar here but they do have some sweet speakers.
Rgds
 
Welcome to HIFIVISION.

I am from chennai as well, What RME card you have in your PC?
 
Welcome to the forum, Thad, enjoy your stay in chennai and the forum. Me too listen to some carnatic. Hope we can have some healthy discussion in the Music section.
 
Hello Thad, welcome to the forum
Music taste is largely carnatic classical,
Carnatic Classical must be good, a Japanese friend is also carnatic music fan,
will try to listen at friends place

I did have a Cyrus CD too, but (so much for Brit-built gear!) it broke down
I like British products for its simplicity and efficiency in design

few British "Products" I have Enjoyed/used/heard
--- wharfedale speakers
--- Stanley Tools
--- Cadburys, Macintosh and Callard & Bowser (Desert Nougat was my favourite) toffees
--- If you consider them "Products" - Phil Collins, Depeche Mode, eurythmics, yazoo
--- Roles-Royce & Jaguar :lol: just kidding

Here is Pic of Bridge in my home town built by British in 1914-still functioning
 
Last edited:
Hi,

Settled in Chennai for nearly five years, courtesy of my local wife.

Music taste is largely carnatic classical, but does not exclude an occasional burst of the Grateful Dead!

For some reason, I find I actually don't listen to music much in the house these days, but when I do, this is what I listen to it on:

Castle Severn speakers (British)
Cyrus IIIi amp (British)
Marantz CD-67 CD
Old Sony tape deck.

I did have a Cyrus CD too, but (so much for Brit-built gear!) it broke down and was expensive to repair; the Marantz is old, wasn't expensive, but... fine.

My favourite is the Cyrus amp. It was a huge upgrade to the thing (forgotten) I had before, and my personal lesson in how 50watts per channel can be infinitely superior to 150! Only thing is, as age continues to affect my hearing, I begin to wish that it did have a tone control!

The amp and speakers were at the lower end of hi-fi expensive --- but both were ex-demo deals with as much as 50% off.

There is a RME card in my PC. When it was close to the hifi and all wired up, it gave some excellent sound, even better than hifi CD unit. Now I have a SqueezeBox Duet, infinitely more expensive than a piece of wire, and probably not as good quality, but an interesting gadget. Only getting occasional use so far.

Hoping all this stuff survives the Chennai humidity as, now retired, if it has to be replaced, it certainly won't be up-graded!

Hai Thad,

Welcome to forum, another chenaiite,

N.Murali
 
Thanks for all the welcomes! :)

My RME is a DIGI96/8 PST. It was out of production already when I bought it (another good deal) but fitted the bill for me as a simple stereo card having also digital i/o. My buying philosophy at the time was that the money might as well be spent on things I wanted, rather than stuff like midi and 5.1 etc etc. RME seems to have gone way upmarket since then!

Old music on my system... well, I guess a bad recording always sounds bad, but that what I have does not treat things particularly harshly.

Buying the speakers was an odd tale. They were being used to demo a couple of amplifiers for me: I left the amp and bought the speakers --- which is how I know just how good an upgrade the later-bought Cyrus was.
 
Thanks again, all; nice to be here, although I'm not such an active hifi-main as I might once have been. Part of that is the unfortunate progression from wondering what to buy next... to hoping stuff outlasts me!

At this very moment, I am winning in the longevity stakes over my PC speakers, and, possibly sound card too --- but not wanting to skimp on their replacements.

I'm amazed how busy this forum is.

Another thing that has surprised me, following some of the links, is how much exotic stuff gets made in India.
 
Welcome to the Hifivision club .... Have a wonderful time 'N' experience!!!

Cheers,
Thakka Dhimi Thakka Junu
Just kidding .... to match your ID "Thad E Ginathom" :D
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Ramesh @ Bangalore
 
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