Hello Lasse and welcome to TAS. Could you please add 'Lasses HiFi' to your signature?

We would love to hear of your experience in Sweden. Is the hi-fi market there very different from the rest of Europe? Are there favourite brands that perhaps we haven't heard of?
Do also tell us about your personal system and what music you listen to.

Here is some answers to Martin and all...

I think the HiFi-market in Sweden has been very influenced by the English brand, since very long time ago. Then came the American brands more and more, and know I think we have become influenced by German HiFi. (Off course the Chinese has become bigger and bigger.)

I like what I hear, and I like to try new brands coming up, but I do not like Chinese ones (yet anyway). Lasses HiFi is run by me and own it by myself, that means we can take some risk with new stuff. We have been a quite big Naim dealer in the early days and we was distributing Chord Co Cables and Royd Loudspeakers in Sweden for over 10 years.

Today we are distributing Jorma Cables, Entreq-earth products, Exposure electronics and HiFi Racks support and Onda Ligera (a Speaker-company from Latvia) for the Swedish market. We also sell Tellurium Q, ProAc, Rega, Chord Electronics from the English companies...

Other brands we work with and like is: Synergistic-Research, Avalon, Kharma, Marten, McIntosh, Nagra, Spectral, Grandinote..etc..

To sum up, I think we, Lasses HiFi (I have one employee) is very different in the Swedish market, in common I think must shops work with most famous brands and "best in test"-products. So generally the Swedish market is like most Europe, but even more like the English, still...

Swedish brands you must hear is Jorma Design-cables, Entreq (very unique products), Marten (Exclusive speakers) ...These guys am also my personal friends, and also an English Gentleman, Colin Wonfor, creator of Tellurium Q, products I really like too..


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I been enjoying music very early in age, starting with Creedence, Queen, Rush, Pink Floyd...These are still my base in music. Then from Punk to Nirvana and a lots of Garage-bands...Violent Femmes, Green on Red, Hunters&Collectors...Later in age I start to listen to more Jazz-fusion and now too reel deep old Jazz. During this last 10 years I have also opened my eyes for Classical Music, like Bach, Mozart and those guys...So today I listen to Jazz and Classical music with some nice sing&songwriters like Diana Krall, Holly Cole, Tori Amos,Leonard Cohen, and above all Tom Waits....Well a lot of singers and Tommy Emanuels guitar-playing is nice...(I play guitar, electric ones, just for fun, and like to collect them too..)..Some nice Irish music is also cool, like Christy More....And ABBA :-)

I play CD:s and LP.s...Nothing more or less, but I lean on LP:s for it is more fun, and I prefer the sound too...I am an analog-kid that likes HiFi-products, good ones, like a child,,,still....And I still listen to Rush, frequently.. (Alex Lifeson and Brian May, Davis Gilmore, Larry Carlton and Tommy Emanuel is my favorite guitarists that has influenced me most, during all this years..)

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My personal system at home vary very much, because I have a dedicated room, that also works as our third listening room and also as my workshop, where I test different things. I write a lot of what we are doing and what I think of things, products and so on, in my blog, on my website. -It was there, I com in contact with Colin, and we became friends, he was actually recommend this forum to me.

Anyway, at the moment I use two system, but only one is connected: Nagra CD & Pre connected to TQ Iridium 20 Class-A amp. Speakers are Onda Ligera Wave 16t. Cables are from Entreq. A lot of room-corrections are from a Swedish expert and also a friend, Matts Odenmalm, Svanå. A lot of Synergistic-Research treatment is also there, makes a good help..

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I think this will do for now, ..

You got the big picture...

Great intro Lasse and welcome to TAS
Be very interesting to hear your views on various discussions from a Swedish and a shop perspective.
Sounds like you have the ideal job and one we might all swap with you.
I bought some Isobariks a few years back that had been driven actively by Exposure amps.
With the Isobariks came 3 stereo pairs of "Exposure Electronics" stamped speaker cable. This looks like a clone of Naim NACA4 and 5. I assumed it was cheap, not that good, but when I compared it to TQ Ultra black it was very close. Exposure don't seem to sell it now which is a shame.
Speak soon

Oh. Forgot the music. We have quite a bit in common there.
Do you have Mahavishnu, Brand X, Jeff Beck, Jan Hammer ?

If you have some time, please visit my blog. You can translate thru Google. I am very proud to tell you it is around for over 5 years and is popular in many countries. (I don´t know why, but keep getting very nice comments from all over.)

I had this idea for a couple of years ago, to test an categorize all cable-brands on the Swedish market. I did this in a very serious way. I started to cut off what is irrelevant, like home-made cables, cables that was not on the Swedish market and above all, I did not focus at all on how they are mad, materials, technical data or so. I tested them thru several years, I used them as a system, not just one cable in the system. I used them for several mounts in the system. I also tested them i a second system, and finally with a second pair of ears, my employee or some customers...Cheaper cables, I let my employee test at home, in his system, then in a second system in my shop with me, a second opinion kind of way..Some cables that we worked and are working with, we know all models, and characters, some brands, just the models we borrowed...These are some of the brands we know of quite well:
-Chord Co
-TQ
-Jorma Design
-Entreq
-Synergistic-Research
-Nordost
-Cardas
-Kimber
-Chrystal
-Siltech
-Transparent
-Acoustic-Zen
-Harmonic-Technology
-MIT
-Abbey Road
Naim-Linn cables
-Supra
-Ixos
-DNM

I think that was the major-biggest brands anyway..I tested signal & loudspeaker cables + power cables..and only as a system.
For this work, we have become famous as a consultant when customer are in cable-upgrade thoughts..

We also worked hard with different power-strips & cables, with tests and evaluations: Brands like:
-Isotek
-Kemp
-Supra
-Shunyata Research
-Gigawatt
-Entreq
-MIT
-Oehlbach
-Nordost
-Quantum
etc...

So, we have some cable-power-experience...if anyone wonder something, perhaps we can give some input...
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Last project on our blog was to report serious from Munich high-end show 2014. -Lots of pictures

Hope you enjoy...

lasses-hifi.com/blogg/

It is 2nd, Mike, but I still am in a learning-phase-big time...I also think, I have taken that phrase "If it sounds good..." from Igor, the Linn-guy himself or so...But I live with that phrase, it is all about fun, and not dead serious...Some think Mp3 sounds good,,,so fine,,,,I can only help those who want help, I will not push anything to anyone, just for the sake of it,,,Not my cup of tea. Sorry, now I am preaching again...

Thank you for your reflections, Mike..

I will try to spell in a kind of understandable way,,,:-)

/L

Lasse,
Can I just make comment on your last post in order to make a few things clear?

While I really value what you might bring to our new forum and I appreciate that you will want to establish who you are and what you do, I'd like to make it clear that one of the reasons this forum was started was to create something where members are here purely for their love of the hobby. We chose not to have special accounts for the members who may also be members of the hi-fi industry because we want you to post here as yourself as a private individual and not a representative of the company that you own. So we ask you to leave your commercial activity at the door. You have declared your interest and if you are directly asked for advice on the products that you sell, then please, by all means reply. If you have interesting experiences from your work in the trade, then I'm sure we would love to read about them.

In essence, I think we would rather do our shopping on our own terms than for people to sell to us, if you see what I mean.  This is a fundamental tenet of The Audio Standard - that it should be a forum for enthusiasts in the truest sense of the word.

Thanks for your understanding.

Hi Lasse

Thanks for your understanding. Please do stay as we value your input.

May I ask whether your experience has suggested a preference for absorbent or mechanical grounding types of footer?

Ok, you mentioned footers / equipment supports but many of the brands are unknown to me.

I was wondering whether you generally favoured absorbent type footers, like sorbothane, or 'mechanical grounding' types like Stillpoints?

Martin, always mechanical grounding, only when you have problems, like wobbling floors or so, then I try absorbing grounding, as a tool for solving a problem. Mechanical grounding is for better performance. I hope you understand my thinking, I can explain why, but it will take too many words,,

Chris, I understand you totally, as administrator, and as we do not know each other yet, you don´t know what kind of intentions I have, being here..But I promise you, you do not have to worry, at all..

/L