Ari Kilpeläinen is an audio enthusiast who has quite a long history of hifi enthusiasm. He is also a building engineer which adds some technical aspects to his audio equipment evaluation and audio enthusiasm.

Ari’s first serious audio experiences were during the 1970’s when people in Finland widely listened to Hurriganes’ Roadrunner and Elton John’s Crocodile Rock. During those days Ari only had a mono radio cassette recorder but soon he also listened to a Sanyo tape recorder which offered a new stereo experience. Then Ari’s father purchased a B&O stereo system which brought a huge improvement to the sound but if compared done to the system Ari owns today the sound quality would have seemed quite poor!

When Ari moved to his own house he bought a Pioneer stereo system and Finnish OR UK-350 speakers. After a couple of years of saving up he purchased a more robust Pioneer system and B&W 330i speakers. That system served him well for many years until he heard a Yamaha integrated amp and Hifi 85/B (an assembly kit) speakers at his friend. Ari was blown away! When Ari moved again, to a relatively large apartment house, those speakers were soon found there. Anyway, Ari’s and his wife’s dreams of their own one-family house remained. At the beginning of this century they decided to start their new house project which included a separate listening room.

Those days Ari also started to be more and more interested in watching movies. Because of that a multi channel Pioneer system was purchased. Unfortunately its sound quality in stereo mode was quite poor and after updating the speakers to second hand Magneplanar 1.5 QRs, which sonically fit surprisingly well in a small listening room, the lacks of the amp were even more obvious. Although Ari tried a couple of Yamaha multi channel amps which offered more power resources he was not totally satisfied, especially when listening to bass-rich stereo music (for example Depeche Mode). Something needed to be done, but before the most crucial solutions he decided to exchange his Mg 1.5s to 1.6s and the Audio Pro subwoofer to a pair (!) of Velodyne SPL-1000R’s.

Ari thought that it would be very difficult and expensive to improve the stereo sound by purchasing a new multi channel amp and a multi format player. So, finally he decided to make a separation between the stereo and multi channel equipment and try a Bladelius S-101 stereo amp which his audiophile friend has recommended. That was a decision which he has never regretted! This amp offered enough power, very high quality stereo sound and naturally a possibility for the main channels to be used when the movies are watched. For traditional Red Book music Ari first bought an Audio Aero Prima Mk II and later a Bladelius Freja which is an even more accurate player and also has an appropriate look. At the same time Ari found that there are audible differences between cables as well. The ordinary interconnects were replaced by a pair of secondhand Siltech Forbes Lakes (a balanced model) and Transparent Music Wave 200 speaker cables were replaced by a pair of biwired Transparent Music Link Ultras which were also used. Now that the relationship between price and quality of the system has achieved quite an optimal level, Ari has declared himself a Maggie fan mostly because of the soundstaging features of this brand He has dreamed about the Magneplanar 3.6Rs but they are very likely too large for this room. Because of that, trials of traditional speakers are more probable.

Now it is time to consider some ideas to help Ari forward in his audio hobby. Ari thinks that although he is not a “frequency response” hifi enthusiast, it is good to be conscious of the importance of some basic measurements. When the minimum measurement requirements are fulfilled the rest of the equipment selection challenges are easy to bring to a conclusion by listening. Generally Ari tries to analyze the listening results as a whole but he mentioned that sometimes it is also necessary to go into details. The most important feature of Ari’s audio hobby is that he has to be relaxed during the listening sessions. He mentioned that this helps to forget the daily worries for a while and gives some mental therapy. The only negative side of equipment improvement is that bad recordings will become almost unlistenable. On the other hand, good recordings are even more enjoyable, Ari explained. Well, those are well known facts among audiophiles. Ari is not very critical to music material but his favorites are melodic rock and pop artists like Dire Straits, Alan Parson, Gregorian, Chris De Burgh and Celine Dion.