Part One: The Back Story
My story starts with the company of some good friends, a bottle of Beefeater and a vinyl of Dire Straits. A Technics turntable fed the delicious analog source via a Lyrita pre-amp to a beefy McCormack amplifier. The electronics channeled Knopfler's genius to the quite brilliant Usher Be-718 speakers.
The experience was life changing.
As the notes faded along with the night, I knew that I was about to embark on an adventurous and expensive journey. Like all pragmatic people, I set myself a goal of purchasing a stereo rig in a reasonable budget. Having sampled some of the usual suspects, reignofchaos suggested we go meet Sridhar at ARN, from where he had purchased his Ushers. It turned out to be an excellent decision. Sridhar is an out and out gentleman. Plus he knows a thing or two about audio.
After an hour or two at ARN, listening to the Be-718's smaller sibling, the X-718, I was convinced that I could buy these with a slight extension of my modest budget. All this while, there were a pair of non-descript looking speakers standing against the far wall. When I say non-descript, I mean bright red. Think Ferraris. A single driver and tweeter. No frills and no fuss. Then Sridhar plugged them in and it was deja vu.
The experience was life changing.
End of part one.
My story starts with the company of some good friends, a bottle of Beefeater and a vinyl of Dire Straits. A Technics turntable fed the delicious analog source via a Lyrita pre-amp to a beefy McCormack amplifier. The electronics channeled Knopfler's genius to the quite brilliant Usher Be-718 speakers.
The experience was life changing.
As the notes faded along with the night, I knew that I was about to embark on an adventurous and expensive journey. Like all pragmatic people, I set myself a goal of purchasing a stereo rig in a reasonable budget. Having sampled some of the usual suspects, reignofchaos suggested we go meet Sridhar at ARN, from where he had purchased his Ushers. It turned out to be an excellent decision. Sridhar is an out and out gentleman. Plus he knows a thing or two about audio.
After an hour or two at ARN, listening to the Be-718's smaller sibling, the X-718, I was convinced that I could buy these with a slight extension of my modest budget. All this while, there were a pair of non-descript looking speakers standing against the far wall. When I say non-descript, I mean bright red. Think Ferraris. A single driver and tweeter. No frills and no fuss. Then Sridhar plugged them in and it was deja vu.
The experience was life changing.
End of part one.