Author: Pasquale Robustini

My two Strats…

 

The two sisters? Or perhaps cousins? Second cousins? Perhaps it would be better to say foster sisters…

Well, yes, because they are not two Fenders. One is handmade in Italy, the other, the Fender, is made in Mexico. And they are, at least in appearance, emblematic of Fender’s golden years, roughly from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. They are not really vintage, at least the Fender isn’t: it would be impossible for me to buy one, the prices are absurd. But it is a reproduction (from 2006) of how Stratocasters were built 60 years earlier at Fender in California. They have the specifications of the first Stratocasters, and even the color is very typical of that era, very 1950s, even though the painting technique was quite different. The foster cousin, on the other hand, has the typical appearance and most common color of the 1960s Stratocasters; then Fender was sold to CBS and things changed. But this guitar is perhaps closer to the real Fenders of the time, even if it has a completely different history.

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Nait Fever

 

New year – New amplifier. At the end of 2025, something strange happened. I was doing some research for a CD player that would match my system. Asking for advice from the usual excellent TNT-Audio, I was given three magic names: Naim, Rega, Cyrus. Something clicked in my head. These names brought back memories of when, at the end of 1991, I bought the speakers that, at all costs, I wanted to base my system on: TDL Studio 0.5. At the first store I visited, they immediately made it clear to me that my modest amplifier, although good, would not be able to drive them; and so those same three magical names came up…

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Choosing a CD player today

 

The Compact Disc is a format that is becoming extinct. Streaming is the mode of the moment; for a few euros a month, we have all the music (or almost all) we could ever imagine. Just connect your computer or cell phone to a good DAC and you have a convenient and inexpensive digital source. If you have a good CD collection, the ideal solution is to extract the tracks onto your computer, catalog them, and listen to them whenever you want thanks to a good DAC (which some modern amplifiers also have built in). So what is the point of spending money on a CD player today? For those who appreciate having a physical medium, the CD remains a source that can sound really good. Prices are very low, even though CDs are actually coming back into fashion and could become more expensive. But there’s more…

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I still play vinyl – should I also play poly?

 

The HiFi section of this site is called I Still Play Vinyl. But “vinyls”, turntables, tonearms and cartridges have now reached such absurd prices that it has become uneconomical. Perhaps I should update the title (or add to it) with I Still Play Poly(carbonate).
For a long time, the Compact Disc, a format considered almost dead, experienced a decline in sales and consequently in prices, making optical discs a good deal again! And I remember well when people complained about the price of CDs! Now they are coming back into fashion and prices will surely rise again.

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One year with the Alfa 159

 

An Alfa Romeo is normally a choice made with the heart, not with reason. This theme was also used in an old Alfa Romeo advert. In fact even my choice was purely of the heart, if not for a few hints of rationality. Basically the question is: why buy such an old and in some ways polluting car? My first personal answer might be: because I was looking for an Alfa Romeo, not a car in general. There are also newer models like the Giulietta, but they were at least twice the price. So the obvious choice was an Alfa 159.

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A guitar for my 60s

 

Non so come sia potuto succedere ma anche io sono arrivato in un battibaleno a 60 anni. Fa impressione solo scriverlo qui. Una bella età, nel senso che gli anni non sono pochi e per certi versi si sente; per altri non mi sembra di averli davvero. Sarà che continuo a strimpellare allegramente? Penso di sì, anche per quello. E forse perché ancora alimento i sogni, il sale della vita. Fin da giovanissimo ho sempre sognato di avere una Fender Stratocaster. Come è accaduto per molti, il mio idolo chitarrista ne utilizzava una ed è così che ho conosciuto il celebre modello di chitarra elettrica nato in California negli anni 50. La prima Stratocaster che ho avuto è stata una imitazione piuttosto economica, regalatami a 15 anni dai miei genitori. È tuttora il regalo più bello che io abbia mai ricevuto. La prima chitarra non si scorda mai e, sebbene fosse ridotta male, costruita con materiali di bassa qualità, fatta eccezione per gli ottimi pick-up della Di Marzio, ne ho un ricordo affezionatissimo e maledico il giorno in cui l’ho data via.

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