How did U get into this expensive hobby?

When I was a kid back in the 70's I was fortunate to get to hear a stereo based around a couple of Klipsh Cornerhorns (very popular in Arkansas where I grew up). This showed me that a lot was possible with stereo. I have always enjoyed listening to music but never bought a stereo of my own until a couple of years ago. I have found this to be a great site to buy used gear from. Right now I am limited due to the fact that I live in an apartment. Hope to move to a house in 2001. Meanwhile I will keep listening albeit at somewhat low levels.

I started in the late 60's, or "the golden age & birth of high end stereo". My father was an electrical engineer in L.A. and I was in High School. Both of us frequented what were then Stereo Shops. I was enamored with meters, buttons, lights and size often neglecting sound. I remember one of dads systems; ar 3a speakers, H&K citation amp&pre, dual table w/shure cartridge. A great sound in it's day. I loved hifi so much I went to work for various hifi stores in the L.A. area. To my suprise hifi was about selling, and money, and NOT about loving hifi and music. My dad and I opened our own very successfull hifi stores in Las Vegas & Phoenix. I began falling out of love with hifi, because it became labor and marketing.(we were the largest Bose & Klipsch dealers in the western U.S). The fact was, I began to hate hifi and what it stood for. We sold the stores and began making a hifi product which I still manufacture and sell today(Gruvglide). The message here is that there is a "BIG DIFFERENCE" in marketing & the business of hifi, and the love of hifi and music! I love to read the often sound advice from the likes of Garfish, Carl eber, redkiwi and others. I've gone full circle and now I'm back enjoying hifi again!

Love yer Gruvglide!! Can I have a free can?? :)

Hififile, what do you think hifi stands for? I am currious to hear your side since you've been on both side of the playing field. Please share with us some of the industry's secrets, especially the onces that the marketing dept. have locked away deep in their top secret safe. Thanks..

Hi Hififile, I would like to know what kind of profit margin like in selling "Hi-Fi". Cheers! Happy New Year!!!

1964, She Loves You, came out. I was ten years old and sat there with my record player and 45. I played that record over and over. Life hasn't been the same

Grateful Dead productions about 2 years ago began to release live recordings that have been stored in an air conditioned state of the art vault in San Rafael, CA. Being a long time groover of the Grateful Dead and a collector of tapes this was significant to me. My old system, a Marantz receiver (that was my Dad's)an entry level Nakamichi cassette deck, and a pair of some Radioshack bookshelf speakers had finally worn out their welcome. I was in need of a new system which would get the most out of these release's that would become famously known as "Dick's Pick's" For those of you who don't know Dick Latvala was the archivist responsible for all of the recordings kept in the vault. Unfortunately Dick passed away about a year ago, but his spirit lives on in each and every release. Dick's Pick's volume 20 was just released this week. Most of the selections (known as "pick's" by vol#) are 3 cd's. GD productions sells direct at aprox 18.50 a pick. This blows away all the comercial labels. Each pick is lovingly choosen from amongst hundreds of live show's. Oh yea, back to why I got into this hobby. If you havn't guessed, it was to get the absolute most out of each and every release. I can say that I have done that. I could have a system with more bass and a CD player with HDCD. All picks since vol 13 or 14 are HDCD encoded. But this will be addressed down the road when I upgrade my CD player. If you have ever been interested in learning about the GD, check out the website www.dead.net. Click on the icon "Dick's Pick's" This is probably the only and the greatest collection of live concerts brought to distribution by in band in the history of the world. I urge you to investigate. Cheers

As a six year old, my father gave me an old broken down Philco radio for my bedroom. It sounded crummy, but played. After saving for months, I ran to the local electronics supply store and bought a fancy new "whizzer cone" speaker with a big fat magnet for (if I can still remember) $3.95. Tore the Philco apart, learned how to solder on it (with a little help from Dad), and upgraded the speaker. Cleaned the scratchy volume pot. Even put in new, thicker speaker wires from an old lamp (long before Ray Kimber was around). Ran a goofy looking wire antenna out the window and down the side of the house. Thought it was the cat's meow. Learned to enjoy music and the artistry of the human voice for the first time on that old box. Never turned back on the love of high fidelity audio, music, radio theory, and the value of thoughtful mods.

My grandfather was a nut, back in 1960 he bought a fisher tube amp and pre?i think on the pre,anyways i rememmber growing up listening to the music being played all the time and he thought it was swo great| awhile probaly 25 yrs. my father told me that when my grandmother finally found out how much it cost,she nearlly died. I dont rememmber the amount but quite expensive for the time.
Anyways since being a child i have been exposed to good quality music,i dont know if i should than k my grandfather or not since this hobby has we all know is #$@%^*& expensive.
Ten years ago at the age of 29 i got my first system, cary slm 70s,denon 3560 mod. by stan warren and after several years of research and 5 prototypes i had a pair of speakers and have been hooked.

Skip Weshnner, Barbara Keith and Tracy Nelson. Skip (whose wife, Ronnie Gilbert was one of the Weavers)had a radio at midnight on KFAC, LA classical station in the old days. Skip didnt play classical music much unless it was an audiophile recording. He played a lot of folk music. I'll never forget hearing Barbara Keith for the first time. He would always say she made the best album by a "distaff' singer in the last 10 years (her first eponymous lp on Verve, which I have, but you cant get), and then she made a better one. The song he played was The Road I Took to You from her second eponymous albums (on Warner, reissued recently as a Japanese cd, you can get it from Amazon, but I think its out of phase).

Skip's show was sponsored by LA high-end dealers, including one that was near me, Dimensions in Stereo in Torrance. I lived in that store, even though I couldnt afford to buy anything from them when I was in college. After I moved back to LA from Texas in my late 20s, I bought a Connoisseur turntable from them and they repaired my wife's KLH Model 5 speakers.

Tracy Nelson comes in because for many many years, my goal for my audio system was to have her "appear" in my room (or, even better now that I'm more knowledgeable, transport me to wherever she was when she made the recording). I share my love for Trixie with a close friend who would always remind me that her records just didnt sound like she did in person. We get pretty close now.

My brother gave me his Linn Intek Amp, CDP and Linn Helix speakers back in 1994 when he upgraded...the rest is history.

my son burned out one channel of the Dynaco amp I'd had since the early 60's ( the last time I'd paid much attention to gear). NY Times had an article about Rotel that I'd read earlier so i went to a local dealer to replace the dyna. the salesman spotted a fish and hooked up a used ARC SP 9 they just got in. i went home w/ the rotel( now also ARC), the SP 9, AQ cable & interconnect and a bad habit. otoh, i'm having fun and love the music.

If you want to accuse people who got into this hobby through a magazine of being shallow, then you don't quite understand that people don't pick a magazine off the shelf if they aren't already attracted to the material being offered. Magazines are a great way for people to look beyond Bose - if one is both open minded and cares about music. Many of us have learnt that there is a whole world beyond Best Buy stuff out there because of these magazines and websites etc. Of course any intelligent person will sooner or later realize that they opinion on component selection that counts is one's own. So there's no need to put anyone down or get worried that people who read magazines are misguided. Anyhow we should be helping those who are open minded enough to see beyond the norm and help people realize the potential of a good audio systems whatever their original motives were.

S-E-X. Mucho-macho stereo systems attracted the chicks like flies to honey! They say "Music hath charms..."
It certainly does.
Why does the middle-aged balding guy get the red Porshe? Because he likes the color?? COME ON guys! Stop the b.s.; fess up!

I used to race cars and motorcycles - and needed a safer, cheaper hobby. So far it is only safer.

I started in the wood products industry about 25 years ago. The equipment used produces high noise levels and while I am religous about hearing protection, I started to crave beautiful music after being exposed to this sound. Over the years, my craving turned into a great hobby. I even wrote and published a book educating the budding audiophiles.

In the late 70s I was shopping at Pacific stereo (I think that was the name) looking for a TT. I met a man and his wife that introduced me to the hi end equipment and some hi end dealers. To make a long story short this man put togeather a modest system for me. He went out of his way to make sure that I got the best I could for the money. He even gave me his Dynaco pre amp. He told me that when I start to update that I should give the pre amp to someone else who is starting out and not to sell it. I will never forget this mans kindness and generosity. He helped make my world a bit better and not just the world of audio. I see a bit of him in many of Audiogons members.

Well I did'nt really GET INTO IT until I could afford too. That was the really frustrating thing about my 25 year love affair with sound reproduction; that early on I was disappointed with what technology could deliver and then as advances were made and evident to me, I was unable to afford them. Now the current state of techology is pretty awesome AND I can afford to get the better stuff. Which frankly IMHO is whats needed to really enjoy this hobby. Perhaps others could be happy with a lesser system, but I feel that it still takes some real change to get a killer system. Yet big bucks is NOT the key: Intelligence, sensitivity, diligence and faith are more important. FAITH, that the ugly duckling you see before you today COULD become something so much more beautiful. MikE

I like to say "Rock and Roll saved my soul" as a teen ager in the early 70's. Word and feelings I could not express found expression in the Stones, Santana, Dylan, Mitchell, and the Dead. Concerts became "church" for me and the records relieved me of my adolescent anxieties and took me to a joyful place. Consequently, the better the music reproduction, the better I was able to re-experience that "magic" over and over again.

What began with my father's laughable table stereo with a built-in 8 Track player and Garrard turn table in 1969 has become a search to recreate and reexperience that musical magic. Today I can appreciate the beauty and grandour of being human through jazz, classical, and folk as well as my beloved "rock classics". I'm now leaving the mass market of mid-fi for the new world of hi fi and I'm having a good time seeing what this new strata of technology and excellence has to offer. Oh, I hope you old time audiophiles remember how much fun it was to "fall in love" with sound and equipment, to learn the names of the different manufacturers, to learn the "inside" jokes and secrets of the audiophile culture/cult because that's where I'm at. For a lot of us, it was always about the music, and about expressing what it was to be human. We just found a more expressive and expensive tool to search with than most folks.

Also read High Fidelity and Stereo Review in college, as a way to procrastinate on writing philosophy papers. Same in graduate school. I did not get that master's degree, but I have spent the last four years and over $30,000 spending and tweaking, listening, buying and selling, and being generally obsessed. It's led to some spectacular sonic results from time to time, but I'd say it is somewhat unhealthy for me, like it is a substitute for something else (I don't know what yet).

I got hooked on the emotional response of listening to music. As time goes by from the late 60's to now it has been an on going evolution of listening and equipment. One of my first jobs was selling high-end audio and have never gotten tired of the feeling the comes with the music and of very fine repoduction.

I started out with a Yamaha integrated; I was looking to fix my brother's car stereo when I ended up in a used hifi shop. A short time later I got a set of McIntosh gear which promptly shook my listening room into life. That was the begining, I didn't think about it for some time, I just did not like the sound I had. Next came speakers, still not happy. On a whim I got a MSB Link, which changed my perception of my home system it was a taste of purity in sound that sang thru the deficiencies in my system, I wanted more and I wanted it bad. I got a new amp and pre amp, new cd transport, cables, everything, its not enough, its never enough. Well soon I will at least be semi-satisfied, enough to sleep normally.
Hehe, as I tweak over getting a Rel Storm III to give me, that low end that makes music engaging. hmmm, how long will take me to save for it, and then I need those Kharmas. And maybe a new dac, ohh the DIP is on the way...oh yeah, I think those power cables need to be replaced, my ears are happy and my wallet is empty, and my next paycheck is on the way ;)

I started paying way too much for my stereo equipment, and shazam! I was in. ;-)

had a JVC receiver and CD player with Cerwin Vega speakers, which imaged well they don't. I saw the cover of high fidelity magazine with plexiglass speakers, had to check them out. started reading audio magazines. Read Polk ad about stereo dimensional array speakers and why there imaging is better than conventional speakers. Went to absolute audio in Orange CA to audition them and was totally blown away, had no idea a stereo could sound that good. Purchased Polk speakers a few weeks later. I wouldn't listen to a Polk speaker today, have learned to hear in the past 15 years or so. what I thought was good then is terrible now.

My brother-in-law had a Garrard TT and some Fraiser midgets which were given to me. I loved music and was working at the AV department at the university while working on an EE degree. I needed an amp so my boss gave me the amp out of a motion picture projector and a Bogen pa amp. I don't remember for an RIAA pre but it played music.

I became an audiophile the day I walked into a teachers dorm room and he was playing musin on a Thorens TD125 / McIntosh C28 / Citation 12 / Klipsch K-horns. Tull's "Locamotive Breath" is STILL in my memory even today!
That day changed my life completly..... Chris

without music,there would be no hobby,however,the hobby can be half the fun!(that was for leaf)cough...cough...jerk...cough,man,excuse me!now then!it began for me at age 13.at my neighbors.his system wasnt that great,pretty much the best of the chain store goods,but at the time that was the best id heard,my parents just had the worst stereos.so to hear this was wonderfull to me.i had no idea recorede music could sound so good.(keep in mind i was 13)and it took off from there.my mom worked at a library,i saw all the back issues of stereophile and audio,and looked in aww!!!at 14-16 i dreamed of having the equipment i have now.but now its not good enough!i love this hobby,and i love music!!!(you can love both right)lol

This is a cool story:

I was stationed in Japan on the USS Midway in the mid 1980s. My best friend at the time was a guy who was REALLY into audio gear. The navy exchange in yokosuka had a superb high-end audio department - Accuphase, Nakamichi, Denon, etc. Anyway, He had purchased quite alot of stuff already that was sitting in a storage unit on the base. I caught the bug from him and was planning on buying some gear at some point before my hitch ended. We were out to sea and someone in our division got a cassette tape in the mail that had some preacher telling about the evils of rock and roll and all the backwards messages that were in these songs. We all listened to the tape and it was interesting because he would play the section of the song forward and then backward and then we'd all get a good laugh. My buddy the audiophile really got freaked out by this. That night he pitched his 300+ cassettes over the side, came and woke me up and said, "you wanna buy all my audio gear?". To make a long story short, I ended up buying all of it from him for a bit less than what he paid at the exchange, which I later found out was more than HALF of what these items were retailing for in the states. All top of the line stuff that he hadn't ever even opened - including a Nakamichi Dragon, Denon Hi end seperates, a Teac X1000R open reel deck, Audio Technica ATH8 electrect headphones (2 sets), a Denon DP62L turntable and and 3 very nice moving-coil cartridges and a DBX 3BX dynamic range expander. It sat in the storage unit for about a year until I shipped back to the states - I shipped it all back with me and that's how I got into this hobby.

I still have the Teac, the headphones and the DBX unit. I sold the seperates, the Dragon and the turntable & cartridges many years later and actually MADE money on them! Pretty sweet!

The Navy Exchange! Brings back nice memories.

In 1971, my sister's boyfriend went to "Nam. I was the caretaker of his stereo. If I remember right, it was a Pioneer receiver and a Garrard turntable and some JBL speakers. In 1974, my brother-in-law (not the same as above)came back from Germany with a Pioneer Quadrophonic system. I still have about 6 SQ albums, including Dark Side of the Moon. If you have never heard quad Pink Floyd, you are missing out, even if it was not on a not very good system. During my college days, I was dumpster diving w/a 14 watt/channel Kenwood system. It was better than nothing. I had a trick set-up "three" channel sound. I hooked up a pair of speakers to the 1st connection and a single speaker to the second set of speaker jacks. By setting this up in a circular layout, it gave a very spacial sound. Moving on. When I graduated from college, I immediately started saving my money for a good stereo. Ended up w/Dahlquist DQ-10's and SAE electronics. A year or two later, I heard a Threshold, WOW!! I though. So over the last 20+ years I've upgraded equipment as I could find money (wife and kids put a big bite in the stereo funds) to where I'm pretty happy with my system. The best part is my daughter is a confirmed audiofile having grown up with good equipment. I've willed the stereo to her.

Just who decided that this hobby is expensive? Value for money, it is dirt cheap! The only thing to compare would be a 12 cylinder Ferrari F1 engine at full revs. in my living room...actually 2 of them would give a fine stereo effect. And THAT would be much more expensive!

Stereo, even your bog-standard Rolls is more expensive, let alone twο Ferraris. Surely, this is one the cheapest expensive hobbies around. Think about the cost of Formula 1, of a polo team, etc... $15K for a pre-amp (power cord included), $30K for power (power cord included): geez, you can't get a decent 6litre Merc for that kind of money.
Dirt cheap, I say! ;-)

A polo team doesn't play ANY music and I have never liked the sound of Blaupunkt's either. Yeah baby, DIRT CHEAP!

No joke, growing up in a rich neighborhood in the 80's where all my friends had set ups with names like Mcintosh, Nakamichi,B&W,Thorens etc... I remember the first time I sat down if front of huge B&W monitors and Nakamichi Dragon "everything" (the coolest stuff at the time) and hearing music like never before. Thats all it took, I knew that some day I would make enough money to get my own stuff. Now those same friends come to my house and look at my high quality beautiful system and smile like a proud father. This "hobby" is my drug, no doubt about it!

Brain damage that continues to progress...

I fell down and hit my head.

I had a friend at work who had bought Vandersteins speakers and had the Dahlquist DQ10's in a closet. He was too shy to sell them and wanted to throw them away but they were too big! I kept offering to pay him be he would only take a weight bench set and crystal rocks in payment. (He was also into pyramid power and the power of crystals. Fortunately my wife is a Geoligist.)
Damn you Mike, now I will only settle for quality equipment. I still have the Dahlquists but have also owned Paradigm and now am using Magnepan 2.7's in my listening room.

In the late 60s I studied violin and used to listen to the pieces I was to learn - borrow the record from the library, follow the sheet music on this monoral thing of my parents. Anyway I visited a friend with wealthy parents and he had this big Marantz EV system that knocked me out. His mother said "It's so wonderful you are listening to Issac Stern and not that awful rock and roll." Talk about kinetic audio! I saved up my money. Another friend said "my dad is selling a stereo." It was a pair of small ARs, an entry level DUAL TT, and a Fisher 100 integrated amp - dirt cheap. I was in heaven and even took the system to college. Several years later I found out my old bud's generous father supplemented his income as a fence!!!! No wonder he had all that "stuff" in his garage.....

Hi,
As a product of the seventies. (high school), i understood pioneer, yamaha, kenwood brands. I knew of carver, mcintosh, dynaco, but only as a fringe element.
Shure mcintosh was good but who could afford it? if i only knew!When it was my time I bought yamaha and klipsch,I dont regret this as I still, have ,my klipsch though I miss mmy yamaha tuner.Now i rediscover tubes and its off to the races!

Heh! some day long time ago I used a low to mid-end Chekhoslovakian and Russian electronic equipment. I also had a turntable with built-in phono. I spent a significant amount of money in Russia that not anyone can afford for this system setup...
When I came to US, I desided to go for CDs and CD-player that I could affort for my first years. After listening three-four CDs, I stopped buying them at all...
Currently I have nearly $10000 of components of high end and it seems it's never going to stop...

What a great Tread i can remember walking to the audio store to make payments on my ultra high end yamaha audio system. i was sixteen and owned a audio system that cost about three or four grand . i did not even spend money on a car. that is when this sickness started. then when i bought my first car for a $150.00 i put a $2000.00 system in it. but now i have grown up and bought a house and the system only cost about half as much as the house and it is still growing. But i am having fun wright?

Well one day long long ago...well not that long ago. when i was 15 I walked into costco saw some big klh floorstanders for 80 bucks each and right then i knew i had to have them..a few days later hooked up to my 15 wpc aiwa mini system. the disease started. I had never heard such sweet sounding music before...next was my 99 dollar klh sub. Then came my teac recever and cdp for a total of 250 dollar all from costco *the heart of hi fi*..I knew i coul do better so i got some heavy duty monster cable and a pair of 85 dollar Clarity Wires ic's. Next came the 700 dollar JBL's..LOVE THEM..And here i am, The sansui au-517 i was using to power them has scince had some problems so its back to the teac..And now i am 16 and have my eye on A new amp,a nad c370 or jolda 1501?... I have been doing it for 1 year and have gained Sooo much knowledge about this stuff...too bad i dont learn like that in school. I currently have around 1500 in my system it just keeps going up.Who knows where i will be in ten years..? :-D i hope i get a good job! Great thread also.

My next door neighbor was very into audio when I was in Jr. High and High School. We were in the same class, and we are still friends to this day. (He actually is partners with my mom in a bookstore). Anyway, his system was midfi. He had a Kenwood integrated amp and a turntable and a CD Player and some speakers. His system sounded decent. On my 17th birthday I got a Kenwood receiver and some Yamaha speakers and a Kenwood CD changer. I was very happy then... Right up until I innocently walked into a hifi shop in Dallas (Audio Concepts). I heard a system that knocked my socks off... I remember asking the audio salesman: How much are those small speakers in that amazing system? He said $250. I was completely floored. His next statement was: It is amazing the sound you can get when you have ten thousand dollars of electronics driving $250 speakers in the right room. I gulped... I always thought speakers determined all of the sound of an audio system. From that moment on I WAS HOOKED on HI-END SOUND! That was 13 years ago. Since then my audio and music tastes have evolved. Luckily my pay has evolved proportionately to satisfy my thurst for great sound. My system is listed under the Virtual Systems. Not many digital setups compete, expecially dollar for dollar.

I was blown away by the incredible sound from a friend's MV-52 tube amplifier from Conrad-Johnson. This was 8 years ago. He later introduced me to another person who was running Krell gear into Martin Logan speakers.

I was hooked! I bought all used pieces like a Classe DR-10 amp, CJ PV-12 tube preamp, Thiel CS 1.5 speakers, and CAL Icon MK-II CD player. I have since swapped everything out several times over, except for my Thiel CS 1.5's which I'll keep forever even if I eventually upgrade.

Prior to hearing this audiophile class equipment, I thought my Sony receiver with JBL L100 speakers were pretty hot.

My current setup includes Adcom GFP-750 preamp, Audio Research LS-16 preamp, Conrad-Johnson Premier 11a tube amp, Cary 306/200 CD player, Adcom GCD-700 5-disc changer, Pioneer Elite CD Recorder, Magnum FT-101A FM tuner, and the Thiel CS 1.5 speakers.

Always knew about hi end, but ex-wife didn't allow. Got divorced. Bought a mac MC 30 at a yard sale (with a C 8) for $35!!! Got the MC 30 fixed, got another one. Now have about 20 mac tube pieces and a bunch of solid state, too. Got M & K S1-C satellites and a Def Tech Powerfield 12 sub to replace Def Tech BP 10s - Wow! Upgraded from AR TT with Benz silver to VPI HW 19 Mk III with SME 309 arm and Glider - double Wow! Just got a Musical Fidelity Nu Vista M3 integrated - WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW! Where to next? I don't know, but what I've got now is pretty profound. Love that vinyl sound. CDs sound better now with the M3 (Marantz 65 SE thru X-10D with X-PSU). Maybe an MSB Link DAC with upsampling, or a better cartridge, or a power supply for the VPI, or God knows what. It'll never end, but it sure is fun. New wife like it too!

A bit more then two years ago, a good friend of mine put together a fairly modest 2-channel system that consisted of NHT 2.5i speakers and Arcam amplification and CDP. A few days later I picked out a bunch of my favorite CDs and headed over.

A couple of CDs and a few expletives(WOW, holy ****) later and I was already thinking about what I could afford. A number of months later, my wallet was empty, but the tunes were........ the tunes were awesome. They still are.

No regrets.

MY first touch with HIFI system was when I where 15 years old , my dad had a great system he had not used since about 1 year and I never listened carefully to it so on 1995 this was his birthday and I bought him the lastest CD of the beegees he instantly lighted up his system ( JBL L200 with MCintosh MC 2300 power amp and MX117 tuner preamp) I was amazed that audio can be this great . Then I wanted to have my sound system he bought me a Marantz 2226B receiver ( I still got it and keep it) and a pair of JBL LX44 speaker , it was like nirvana to me , and since then I've always upgraded my system to what it is now JMLAB Mini Utopia , YBA 2 preamp , YBA 2 HCDT power amp Transparent ultra interconect and reference speaker cable with a YBA CD 1 player.

I started my audiophile hobbie with my first car. I bought a second hand sports car in 1993 and the car came with a pretty decent sound system. Since then, I was hooked. I continue to upgrade my system in the car but never thought of home stereo since I only live in a small bedroom in my parents' house at that time.
In 1998, because of my music hobbie, I sold my "old" sports car and bought a brand new mercedez 'E' class that cost me a bomb. I spent 7k on putting in a brand new stereo system.
In recent years, my financial position has improved and started going into home hi-fi. Bought myself Plinius pre/power amps and all the expensive cables. The hobbie continues to grow and I've just recently placed a down payment for a new house that cost me 1.5 million just so that I can have a decent music room for my hobbie. With this house, I'm going to be stucked working like a dog for the next 30 years so that I can pay back the mortage. Did anyone say that music is free?

my brother was always into music. i got married to a fantastic girl who was also VERY INTO MUSIC. the two of them started competing who could get the better sound out of our limited incomes. alot of macaroni and cheese nights later we've each only!!! got about 10 grand worth of equipment each AND still want more, da--it.... recently got 4 mapleshade cd's--- big mistake , to revealing to my system!! heh,heh wait till i take them over to my brothers.i can hear him now--" @#$%#@#$%%# "

I had the pleasure of groing up in a house full of the best of the mono days of Hi-Fi. My Father had/has Mac C-8 pre-amp, Mac 30 amp, Fischer 80 & 90 tunners all driving AR-2, 3 and a smallish Bozak. He started me out w/ a Halicrafters receiver (AM & SW), then a SS receiver and Garad TT. Now I have Most of his stuff and a Big system of my own. I also had the pleasure of working in the industry for a while where I learned a lot!. I try to keep intouch w/ the changes, but I do not try to keep up!. with children and the need for a real income, primary priorities have changed. I still buy vinyl and keep listening as often as possible.
This is a great Hobby/passion.