Tones, many thanks for writing about this visit because you made me save a lot of time.  

Actually I wanted to post it in the music section because over 99% of our time we dedicated it to music and when the system came into discussion it was only because we thought it could have interact with the judging of an interpretation.

I have posted the latest pictures of my system with the room here (scroll to Titian) so you donßt need to link to foreign sites especially when not updated since years. 

The CDs Tones brought were absolutely fantastic and I will certainly will buy some / most of them. Now that I'm not planning any changes to my system for at least 5 years, I'll have enough budget for CDs. But also here I'm not going to buy "many" because I want to primarly hear the ones I have.

I was so amazed by the quality of the Brahms violin concerto with Szeryng on LP that I must hear more vinyl again. Especially the interpretation aspect of these famous players of the last century strucks me every time against this fixed idea of our days interpretation of producing, as highest priority, fabulous sound. I suppose this is a simple "reaction" of what we today want: perfect pure sound out of an instrument. Who cares if it the music comes from the "soul". This I also see when I hear the reaction of the people after a concert. First of all no wrong notes, then sound quality then technique....

Back to the CDs of Tones.

Yes the series of the Bach Cantatas I'll have to get. Unfortunately we didn't hear the other CDs of the collection...

Bartoli will also be on top of my list as well as the interpretations of the "Concerto italiano" conducted by Rinaldo Alessandrini (Tones, you didn't mention this   ). This group remembers me very much about the other italian group "

Il Giardino Armonico" conducted by Antonini. The goal what they want to archieve is simalar but the technical, musical way to achieve it is different and therefor, even if the interpretation of these two groups appear quite simalar, there are interesting differences. After a concert of the "Il Giardino Armonico" I had the pleasure to talk nearly half an hour with Antonini about his interpretation and the italian baroque with its connections with Händel and Bach.

 Sharon Isbin's interpretation impressed me quite a lot. I'm a lover of Julian Bream's or John Williams recordings but another kind of approach and of course a better recording quality will be very welcome in my collection.

Tones I was trilled about your visit and I hope we could regularly meet to continue this exchange of opinions and music.

In this occasion and for the same reason I also am looking forward to meet Graham again or anybody else who would like to present his music. This doesn't mean only classical. I love very much Jazz (I just had a visit of 10 days of a member of a german forum presenting Jazz music) and I'm not against Pop / Rock.

@Neville

I once told Tones that considering the fact of the Analog part, the cables, the racks and the CD-Player, my system could cost much much less and maybe he wouldn't hear a great difference. 

I'm not here to justify my choices nor to tell somebody that he should go my way. Actually I feel great that I have something unique that nobody else has (point of view hardware) but I like to share the result with those who enjoy listening seriously to music (not  Hifi). The question of cables and any other controvertial Hifi-points (voodoo) is for me clear and I have no problems with other points of view. Actually I like and accept critics to my system from those who were here indipendently who and with what education they were. Without those critics I couldn't have made the sound quality in my room better. 

best regards