It's time for some system maintenance, with my Classic 301 turntable off to visit Ray Clark in the UK for a little tune-up, and my vintage McIntosh MX110Z's volume pot finally died, so it's getting a new volume pot installed.

So in the interim I've put together a really sweet combination of hifi gear for a little early-morning listening.

The system is composed of the vintage "Stokowski" Altec loudspeakers, Duelund DCA12GA 600V speaker cables, SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier, Duelund DCA16GA interconnects, Soundsmith MMP3 phono preamplifier, Artisan Fidelity Statement Thorens TD124 turntable with a Schick tonearm and Soundsmith Carmen Mk II phono cartridge, with Acoustic Revive "Absolute" power cords.

The musical attributes of this system are so good it is mind boggling.

This is the kind of system that could lead one to say "adios" to the equipment merry-go-round and just settle in for the long haul with a nice LP collection.

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier with my vintage Altec 832A Corona loudspeakers and I was equally pleased with the result.

The idea occurred to me that I should do a "long term report" on the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier, and report on its performance over the long haul since my Positive Feedback review in Issue 78, over three years ago now!

The SPEC has been completely reliable, sounds utterly natural in the "live" music sense, is eminently musical, and is just a lot of fun to listen to music with.

My respect for the SPEC RSA-M3 EX Real Sound Amplifier just continues to grow, year after year.

In fact, I think I'm going to use this system in my upcoming Positive Feedback review of the exotic new Acoustic Revive Absolute Power Cords, RCA Absolute FM Interconnects, and PC-TripleC/EX Headshell Leads (above) that I previewed HERE.

I'm hoping to get some more done on the Duelund-Altec Project this weekend, but it's shaping up to be a busy weekend, so I'll have to see how things pan out.

I've been trying the new 600V DCA12GA as speaker cables until I get a chance to try building some power cords with it.

I doubt if the DCA12GA 600V is fully settled in yet, but it is sounding really nice. Very similar to the signal version of the DCA12GA, but with perhaps a slightly more laid back performance, and maybe a little less air. I could easily live with either as speaker cables for their sheer live-like musicality.

I've listening to a couple of nice double-album sets this morning while catching up on my coffee drinking.

Tommy Emmanuel's Accomplice One is a blast, featuring a host of great musicians. It kind of reminds me of Jorma Kaukonen's Blue Country Heart (I wish they'd release BCH on vinyl too!).

Accomplice One is a must have for guitar players!

My buddy Doc Leo recommended Peter Frampton's Acoustic Classics to me a while back, and it is another fun album. I haven't listened to Frampton in years, but I liked his music when I was a youngster in high school.

This is an utterly natural sounding album that I really enjoy listening to, and Frampton does an excellent job all around, vocals and guitar playing.

Ok, that's it for now. As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!