Kevin Fiske

Kevin Fiske is a UK-dwelling Englishman who was seduced into a love of music as a child while attending children’s Saturday morning concerts at the Fairfield Halls in south London. Since then, and for the last 50 years, he has spent more money than was probably wise on satiating this hunger for live performances of all genres, and on pursuing a quest for audio excellence in the home. In the last 10 years Kevin believes he might have got closer to that latter goal. After following his nose down what he now believes is the blind alley of solid state big Wattage and monolithic, low efficiency speakers, Kevin now favours low output tube-based systems with high efficiency speakers configured to deliver musicality above all else. Having done with costly box-swapping, he is trying to make up for lost time by acquiring recordings on vinyl and red book CD right across the genres from Sinatra and Shearing, through Metallica and Yes, to Wagner, Verdi and Bach. He has a notable weakness for introspective Scandinavian jazz. Kevin has little time for measurements as a benchmark of audio quality, having heard so many components and systems that fall badly short despite boasting stellar metrics. He accepts that not all audiophiles are welcoming of such an approach, but he is unapologetic. Kevin has a particular interest in spotlighting UK and mainland Europe-based audio companies that he believes merit attention. Along the way he hopes to entertain Dagogo readers, and encourage them to broaden their auditioning horizons – using their ears rather than their eyes to evaluate what they are hearing.