Hi John and welcome to TAS, it's really nice that you found us. I think we'd all love to see some photos of that system of yours. Some of us like to do that in the blog section

Hi Chris, hi Martin;

Thanks for the warm welcome. Though my photography skills, on recent evidence, are abysmal - I promise to post some pictures as soon as possible - I'm actually awaiting delivery of my new power amps (in about a month's time) so pictures will be coming once everything finds its rightful place! In the meantime, here is some info on my gear, for those with the time and energy to bother:
Most of my gear comes from Audio Analogue, a relatively small Italian company that started operations in Tuscany in 1995; they are fairly well known for their "entry level" components such as the Paganini CD player, the Puccini integrated and Bellini/Donizetti pre-power combos. My stuff comes from their higher end series, called the Maestro - pre is a dual chassis line only unit; power amps are mono,of the behemoth variety, 2x200 watts at 8 ohms, doubling at 4 ohm. Info on them can be found here:
www.audioanalogue.com/maestro-stereo-line-preamplifier-se--P48.html
www.audioanalogue.com/maestro-monoaural-se-P55.html

Other electronics come from another Italian company, Goldnote; they are better known by their former names, Goldenote and Bluenote. Mostly focused on vinyl replay but now with a full range of electronics as well: www.goldnote.it/

Speakers come from a relatively new company (2007), from Florence, called Rosso Fiorentino. They are the Fiesole stand mounts, from their reference series, and I absolutely love them! They (rather comfortably to my ears) beat off some quite stiff competition, including the new SF Olympica, the Diapason Adamantes and the Triangle Magellan Duetto. They've blended in perfectly in my listening space - wife loves them so who am I to argue? Info on these babies can be found here: www.rossofiorentino.com/en/collections-fiesole.asp

Last, but not least my vinyl replay rig: Vyger is a very small company from Rome - my Timor is their entry level deck, a fairly straightforward belt driven design with external motor. Their designs include the rather garish and blingy Indian signature and Atlantis - rather an acquired taste...Info here: www.vyger.com/index.php?/categories
Cartridge is from Bluelectric, a Swiss company run by an Italian, Mr. Reto Andreoli. The Virus is the entry level offering; by the looks of it, it's actually a heavily modded Denon 103 - I recently had it fully rebuilt, using all original (Bluelectric) components (down to the stylus and silver coils)at Roberto Torlai in Italy. Not much on the internet on these cartridges, but some basic info can be found here: wizard-highend.blogspot.gr/2012/10/micromagic-altair-cartridge.html and here: axissaudio.com/component/virus/

That's it! Hope this proves to be helpful and I apologize for boring anyone to death!
I promise to put up some pictures in due time.
All the best,
John

Very interesting system John I heard a few of the Audio Analogue gear and remember it sounding good. Not heard the rest but sure it must sound really good.
Looking forward to some posts on TAS

Cheers Martin; I'm actually expecting the Maestro monos; currently using an older AA Donizetti for listening.Can't wait until my new ones get here!
You're right about the speakers: a rather "modest" Nomex mid/woofer with a trusty Morel DT 30 silk dome tweeter; frankly, the integrated MuRata ES 103b super-tweeter seems to be making the difference, at least as far as resolution and refinement are concerned.Very happy with these little boxes.

Hi John, classical and 70's rock is my staple diet too ... Welcome.

...and I see you're No. 6

Fantastic, wasn't it? I was really sad when it ended.

Started off OK, interesting premise looking at the beginning of it all, kinda lost steam/momentum as time went by. Little bit dragging towards the end. No surprise they killed it afterwards..