Piero Canova

TNT-Audio Italy

A lot of fun over many many years

[Piero Canova]

It's 7am on a gorgeous sunny day and I am staring at my computer screen trying to put down some short notes on who I am my dear readers: believe me it is one of the toughest tasks you could ask of me so please be gentle with your comments.

To begin, the usual trivial things: I was born in Venice in 1958, I live in Padua, I am married and I have a son, a daughter and two dogs, or better, my wife and the rest of the family provide me with a hotel during weekends when I am not abroad working.

My education side comprises a full degree in Chemical Engineering with a focus in Materials Science and Advanced Composite Materials. I begun work in the R&D department of a company where I had a lot of fun in laser welding the gearboxes of F1 cars and alike. But then the family, the mortgage and other trivial issues forced me to "sell my soul to the devil" and I become a manager. The rest, unless you are a head hunter, is very boring, but if you are really interested in it just Google my name or search Linkedin and you will find plenty of details.

Possibly and probably, since you have opened this window in this website, you are more interested in knowing my background concerning music reproduction.

My first stereo equipment dates back to the early seventies when I managed, thanks to my excellent school notes and a summer spent giving paid lessons of maths and physics, to pile up the money to buy myself a Thorens TD 165 with a Stanton 680 cartridge, a Sony integrated amp and, differently from the flavor of the day of that time, that was dominated by AR speakers, two second hand JBL 4310 Studio Monitors. Many moves and homes later still the TD 165 and one 4310 are still with me.

As with every hobby and passion in life, it had ups and downs, but in the last 20 years it has become a constant presence in my life, probably thanks to the fact that I am living now in the same house since 1998.

My system started from very commercial equipment and step by step has become what it is today: a collection of equipment chosen over time because they impressed me and have the capability to work in synergy together. 90% of my components have been bought second-hand around the world trying to grab, at reasonable value for money, what I thought was right for my system: many many trials, many mistakes in buying wrong stuff or selling components that, after a while, I did recognize they were right . Hours of twisting, welding, cleaning, lubricating, etc. The whole in a room that (this has been by far the best investment I have made) has been treated and tuned by a professional consultant. The list of components available today is the following:

Turntables: Denon DP 6000, Sony TTS 4000, Sony TTS 2500; on the bench Lenco L75, Denon DP 5000, Dual 721 and Thorens TD 165. All plinths and suspensions are homemade using birch plywood, lead, bulletproof glass, sand, leadshot and many other materials.
Cartridges: Shelter 901, ZYX R1000 Airy 3S Dynavector Karat 23R, Denon DL 103S graphite body and cantilever boron + Shibata, Audio Technica AT33E under tuning.
Arms: 3 arms homemade, two 16" and a 15"
Phono stages: Parasound Halo JC3, Burmester 838, Aqvox 2CI MK II
Preamplifier: Jeff Rowland Sinergy
Power amps: NuForce Ref 9 SE
Speakers: Thiel CS 3.6

Add please, as in all good recipes, some feet of all shapes and types, a wide selection of wires and cables balanced or single ended 99% home made and you have plenty of ingredients to play with.

What do I listen to? Musically I am a son of the seventies so if you ask me to fish blindfolded a record from my shelves most likely I will pick Allman Brothers or some British Progressive. Thankfully children keep you younger and refresh your views so Muse and Coldplay or other recent suggestions are now in rotation. Jazz and Classic music depend on the mood.

What do I have to offer you dear readers? A deep allergy for black magic, an intellectual honesty in judging somebody else's efforts and accomplishments, a passion from the deep in my heart for excellent reproduction of music and 35 years of experience in manufacturing and selling of various industrial goods that allows me to estimate the cost of a good piece of equipment with a fair tolerance

If you are looking for golden ears, absolute truth, undisputable or biased judgements, sorry ladies and gentlemen, we finished with them a long time ago and I doubt we will receive new deliveries soon.