A moment when you realized better sound was possible.

It was easy to hear differences between speakers and rooms and speaker positioning in rooms. It was really hard at first to hear differences between different sources, amps, speaker cables, etc.

Not only for me. Its common. One time at Definitive this guy drove all the way up from Portland to audition two DACs. I stood right there the whole time, heard the same thing he heard, thought to myself, "There’s no difference!" Then the guy says, "Maybe it was the long drive but I’m not hearing any difference." Aha! See!?!

Yet still there was this nagging frustration. How can there be this whole industry built up around something that doesn’t exist? It really bugged me. For months.

I had this XLO Test CD and on it are a couple tracks intended as examples of really good recordings, to sort of show off your system after you get it all tuned up I guess. Anyway one track Michael Ruff Poor Boy is a wonderful Sheffield recording and I really like the music.

So one day after listening to something at Definitive and wondering why anyone would pay all that money when my JBLs are just as good I come home and put on the Michael Ruff track.

All of a sudden it hits me, THIS IS THE SOUND! Something connects and I realize the difference between all my other CDs and this Sheffield recording, is just like the difference between the DACs and CDs and all the other stuff.

I didn’t have any words for it yet, not at that point. But, eureka! I have heard it! And boy, the better sound that is possible, let me tell you! But that was the moment. The moment that started it all. https://systems.audiogon.com/systems/8367

I went to my best buddy's tiny apartment in Berkeley.  It was during our college days.  I already had a considerable collection of LPs and I had what I thought was a decent stereo.  My dad was an audiophile, too, and we'd gone to several HiFi shows over the years. 


Anyway, my buddy had a tiny pair of B&O speakers bought from a Paris Audio.  I was shocked with the clarity and with how accurate the tone quality was.  As soon as I got back to L.A. I went to the town's Paris Audio.  The B&O's were there but I was much more impressed with the KEF Corellis, also on hand.  They made me realize that the B&O's had a distinct "cupped" tonality.  I got the Corellis as soon as I could get up the bucks.  Thus did my audiophile adventures progress.

When I was about 13 or 14, my dad bought me one of those "suitcase" style stereos with the swing-down turntable and swing-out speakers. At the time, I thought it was OK.

When I paid a visit to a friend of mine in college in 1970, his roommate had an old McIntosh tube integrated. I don't remember what he had for a turntable or speakers, but we listened to Larry Coryell's album, Lady Coryell.

I was absolutely blown away and knew I had to have a McIntosh, but they were WAY too expensive. Sometime later, another buddy of mine told me about a used Fisher X-101-ST that he had seen for sale at an audio repair shop in Akron and, by the way, did I want to buy his dad's Garrard Type A.

So, I bought them both, but now I couldn't afford speakers. Somewhere I got ahold of a pair of 12" EV Wolverines without cabinets. So, I cut some holes in a big pair of corrugated boxes and I had a good start on my first decent stereo system.

I did end up building some speaker cabinets using EV's plans and used that system on into the 80's. I still have the Fisher.

Back in the 80s as a freshman in college I heard my first CD player.  The technology seemed pretty cool but I was afraid to be on the only one in the crowd saying "vinyl sounds better".  So I suppose it was a moment when I realized worse sound was possible yet promoted as better sound - actually only "more convenient" sound. 

Back in the 80s as a freshman in college I heard my first CD player. The technology seemed pretty cool but I was afraid to be on the only one in the crowd saying "vinyl sounds better". So I suppose it was a moment when I realized worse sound was possible yet promoted as better sound - actually only "more convenient" sound.

Good one. Good for you. I'm older, CD came out after college when I was broke and moving around and keeping my treasured turntable safely stored away. So I never did compare and with all the moving around didn't notice and just assumed everyone was right and CD really was better. 

Until years later building my listening room which of course started with CD and was surprised to read Robert Harley's book saying "the turntable is the foundation of a high end music system." 

Say what? So I dug my Technics out of storage, hooked it up, and sure enough that beat up old table trounced my much more expensive CD player. 

This was by the way after the earlier episode of learning to listen. Better sound was not only possible- I heard it!

Back in the 80s as a freshman in college I heard my first CD player. The technology seemed pretty cool but I was afraid to be on the only one in the crowd saying "vinyl sounds better". So I suppose it was a moment when I realized worse sound was possible yet promoted as better sound - actually only "more convenient" sound.

Yep Continued fighting a rear guard action against cd for quite a while until the availability of re issues overwhelmed me.My move to cd was tempered by the lack of available vinyl catalogue until the recent renaissance.My first realization of good sound happened when a walked into the local hi-fi shop and was demonstrated the possibilities of better equipment.This continued to happen nearly every time I ventured back until the shop closed.Nothing like having a salesman who really knows his stuff.

I went to a friends house back around 1988. He had just made two 18" floor firing subwoofers with passive crossovers and plenty of watts and current (I don't know the specs) to account for the impedance of his 9 Kappas. The difference in how those speakers sounded to mine, (I just had a pair of EPI towers) then with the difference of the subs was surreal to me. I noticed how much space between the notes was there and how if he turned it up, there was no pain to my ears. 

This started me on my "journey".

June 12th 1971.

Back in the late 80s I was able to pick up a Luxman turntable with a decent MM cartridge. Several years later I was helping in the construction phase of a recording studio, where payment at one phase in the overall effort was in the form of used vintage audio gear. Not knowing anything of the company or quality of equipment they produce, I chose a McIntosh C20 tube preamp for that paycheck. A few years later (late 90s) I was able to pick up a pair of Proac Studio 1s (again, not knowing anything about their reputation). 

At some point thereafter I put them all together with record play of John Lennon's 'Watching the Wheels' and, for the first time in my life, experienced a sound stage (i.e. sound imaging). I've been chasing the dream ever since that amazing experience...

Current state = that same Luxman TT, a Luxman CL-38uSE preamp, Atma-Sphere M60 OTL amps, and those same Proac Studio 1s.

Freshman year of college I heard some DIY speakers some upperclassmen in my dorm had made. Eventually I got to visit a music lab where they had made a pair of subs with 24” drivers. The cabinets were multiple layers of of plywood with sand between the inner and outer box. I think the main dimensions were 8’hx4’wx12’d, but I’m not 100% sure on the depth. I do know they had left the outside as full sheets to simplify the cuts and there was a long heat sink extending from each driver’s voice coil. No idea what the upper range speakers or amplification were, but I’m sure it was massive. I remember one specific test track vividly. It was an outside setting with birdsong, the wind rustling long grass, and a small stream that had lifelike realism. Then way off in the distance was a barely audible whine that slowly grew in volume until it became recognizable as a plane. The plane gets closer and the volume grows until you could literally feel the jetliner flying over your head as it came in for a landing somewhere beyond the speakers. It was surreal. 

Likely to get flamed on this one, but my first "system" as an early teen was based on some no name floor speakers, a Technics integrated from a rack system, double cassette deck, and basic Kenwood TT.  Loved it.  Crushed the heck out of some cassette listening and raided my older sisters' LP collections (AC/DC, Billy Squier, Foreigner, Kiss).

Got an off-brand CD player from a pawn shop, first CD haul was Tom Petty, Billy Joel, BTO.  Hit the play button on that thing, and was blown away.  Not trying to argue that CD is better than tape or vinyl, but on that system with those components it sure as hell was.

I have still been living in mid to upper midfi, but heck I am happy with the way it's going.  With some of the high value proposition components out there these days, starting to feel like I am putting together a legit experience.

iron47 -- You're on your way!  Just try not to go bankrupt too quickly. And try not to make your neighbors too murderous.

Thanks @edcyn!

I have external crossovers. I read on a forum (maybe this one) about how solid core wire sounds different than stranded. I went to the hardware store and grabbed some 20 gauge solid core doorbell wire and ran that between the crossover and the tweeters. This was eye opening for me because it proved to me that cables do in fact matter. 
Two more experiences further opened my mind: upgraded interconnects and a power cable for my amplifier. I began to realize that virtually every piece of the chain is in a sense a component, which sent me on a mission to tweak every last piece of my system to get the best sound possible out of it.

I began to realize that virtually every piece of the chain is in a sense a component, which sent me on a mission to tweak every last piece of my system to get the best sound possible out of it.

"Virtually". Good one.

I began to realize that every piece of the chain is indeed a component, which sent me on a mission to tweak every last piece of my system to get the best sound possible out of it.

FIFY.

Hi,
age 13 and i had a mono Philips record changer with ceramic cartridge and a full range speaker having the magnet infront. I did not even know what stereo was so i thought just adding a speaker would upgrade it to stereo. NO, but i clearly understood that the new speaker was no match  compared to system's original. A year later i heard my first stereo system playing Child in time from Deep Purple, that was it, but it took me 1 more year to buy my first real stero (at the store i listened only to the speakers with the amp), Wharfedale Lintons, Kenwood amp, Lenco tt. So i could hear speaker differences, cartridge differences (i changed 3 on that Lenco) and if an amp had good drive or not. The biggest step though happened, back in the 80's, and with no return, when i bought secondhand a Mission 775SM with 774 tone arm, a new then Cyrus 2/PSX (plastic cover) driving a new TDL Studio 2 speaker. A Pink Triangle with Alphason HR100S and ARC SP-9MKII in the early 90's sealed it. 

In the very early days of CDs I definitely heard some problems with them, although I was instantly enamored with the lack of pops, scratches, wow and flutter, and background hiss. One thing I could hear was a hissing around flutes that I didn't hear on LPs. This was later, I believe, recognized as problem with early CD players. There was also a buzzing sound in one of my Telarc CDs. Chariots of Fire lacked the atmosphere I percieved on the LP. I'm not sure if that was a change in the mixing or an effect of the CD players back then. I haven't heard that LP or CD in ages now.  By the year 2000 I no longer preferred LP. I still have the recordings where I originally heard the hissing flutes and the other one with the buzzing. Both effects have been long gone for years now even on the cheapest DVD players. It's fabulous to me that after countless playings both of these CDs are no worse for wear.