19 Dec 2009: Tony Pothitos

By Nikos Protonotarios

This month’s meeting took place at our site administrator’s house. Or rather I should say Tony and Kelly’s house because Tony’s better half is also a very ardent ACA member and almost never misses our meetings.

From the beginning it looked like it was going to be a different type of meeting. There was a big TV screen connected to a laptop in the living room and initially we were all guessing what our hosts had on the agenda. As everybody arrived and we settled down with drinks and snacks Tony announced his very interesting program.

The presentation...

In fact for the next few hours we forgot about audiophilia and the hi-end scene and we revisited through Tony’s audio/video presentation the source of our love for music which comes from our childhood experiences. Tony had spent many hours compiling rare music/video clips from Greek musicians of the 60’s and 70’s who had been very influential in his upbringing and in appreciating and connecting with his cultural heritage as a member of the Greek community in Canada.

Melina Merkouri, Hatzidakis, Theodorakis, Hatzinasios, Kazantzidis , Plessas were some of the names included in a real pantheon of appearances from the golden age of Greek music. The TV audio quality was lo-fi but absolutely nobody noticed as for the first time I saw our usually boisterous club fall completely silent as everybody’s childhood memories resurfaced with faces and notes that have been engraved on our psyche.

The system...

As Tony took us down memory lane he also made sure we came back and in the second part of the program we had the chance to listen to his very convincing system comprising of big Usher CP 8871 speakers, Tsakiridis modified KT-90 push-pull amp, Dynalab tuner, Klimo preamp, Clearaudio Master Solution TT/Rega 10 arm/Tekaitora cartridge and Luxman SACD player and silver cables by our member Alexis Hatziminas.

The sound...

The sound was big and bold (like Tony!) even though the dimensions of the room were rather tight and asymmetrical and the speakers quite close to the back wall. Tony has made use of some RPG traps to tame the bass to good effect and is experimenting with room diffusers to help solidify the imaging.

Conclusion...

At the end of the meeting everyone left with a rekindled interest and understanding of what made us audiophiles in the first place. Thanks Tony and Kelly!

Tony Pothitos' Member Page