I think as soon as I got to college in 1970. I already had a long history of loving music… but hearing better systems, at first in dorm rooms, then off campus… that was it, a life long passion formed.
How long ago did you catch the bug?
My first inkling was about 1972 when a friend mentioned such things as Dual, Thorens, AR, Scott, etc. By '74-'75 I knew about all the Japanese manufacturers (courtesy of a military PX catalog) and about McIntosh. By '76 was using a hand me down all in one Panasonic compact system. The compact system did not last long and very shortly after, '77, came a "proper" 1970's system with such names as Pioneer, Kenwood, Shure, AR, Teac.
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Around 1965, Dad had a Bogan tube mono amp, a 45 player, and a really large (3X3X5 feet) coaxial speaker enclosure he made. Pretty much state of the art in the early sixties. It didn’t have a speaker grill at first so the cat would just walk in the large open port and sleep inside. If you cranked up the amp the cat would come shooting out at full speed. He also had a box set of 45s from the show "Guys and Dolls". We later used them as Frisbees. Darn kids. |
Birth, I was raised around a dancing mother that played a mean mouth harp and a father that had JBL C45 Metregons, Mac, Marantz Garrard and Thoren gear. BIRTH!! 1954 By 1960 I had a pretty good grasp that electricity would fry your little grape to BBs if you weren’t careful.. Smoke coming out of my young dumb ears.. |
I can't recall a time when I wasn't enthralled by sound as much as the music itself. My first foray into mods was adding external speaker to my clock radio in around sixth grade. We were first in neighborhood with one of those large console combo tv, turntable, radio, big old Magnavox with 15" woofers. There was Lafayette audio outlet near home, drooled over all that 'exotica'. My first exposure to real high end was my best friend's Dynaco quad set up with Linn tt in mid 70's, many a stoner night with that setup! Took me many years to build a system to equal my aural memory of that system.
@russ69 I too remember throwing records as frisbees, yes I was a dope. |
@jl35 very cool that you still have the 1019!
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I was 24 years old by a friend who made his own speakers and push me to buy Tannoy dual concentric gold... Thanks to him... He know and read about engineering design of speakers and amplifiers with one of his other knowleageable friend.. But never investigate acoustic... Then like him i never investigate acoustic like most audiophiles all my listening life till a few years ago... I then discovered the huge power of acoustic treatment but way more powerful the power of mechanical acoustic control in a dedicated room .. Things has not changed in audio threads most people talk about electronical or electrical measures and they have no idea that most of the S.Q. come from the room/speaker relation like my first mentor...They think that the capacitor choices is more important than the room ... 😁😊So important they are they are secondary compared to the acoustic settings power... The electronic is like the brain engine, the room/ears is like consciousness, it is the driver of the engine... He is dead i wish he was living and could listen the sound of my room now... Because what we listen to is completely at 80 % speakers/room dependant...You can contest my number and take it to 70 %...The essential fact will not change...
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Late 90s for me got my first real paying job and decided since I liked listening to music more than anything I should get a real stereo. First real system a Rega Planet, Bryston B-60 bought new and some two way Definitive Technology towers I picked up used. Shortly after that I discovered Audigon the rest is history. |
@jond The Planet, B-60 and DT speakers sounds like a great first system! |
Thanks @zavato if only I hadn't started reading about tubes in audio mags! |
Age 4, 1965.. big truck arrived unloaded Bozak, MX-110Z, MC240, Dual 1019 w a Shure and 40’ of brown lamp cord… Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra… hooked…. My parents had no carpet or couch but did they have tunes… I still have the MC gear….listening to the 240 as i write this…..many miles, many years….more smiles… |
I think I had what is probably a common experience: I had been going along using commonplace Sears Roebuck level gear, thinking of hi-fi nuts as weirdos as suggested by Mad Magazine, until I listened to music at the house of a friend who had a decent sound system, which opened up my ears to how much better music can sound. I remember going to those old chain stereo stores and they'd have all the chain stereo store brands with all the switches and the equalizers and the meters, and there'd be a handful of the higher end items that would be a black box and one dial, or something like that. |
my first exposure to high end was in a port angeles WA. stereo shop back in may of 1979, i was listening to an ordinary neil diamond LP being played through equipment whose name escapes me now, but it was high end stuff judging by the lack of price tags ["if you have to ask, you can't afford it"]. but the thing i noticed was the utter background silence and clean undistorted, detailed and full-bodied musical sound of the the LP compared to anything i'd heard up to that point [inner groove tracing distortion, groove roar, crackle and hiss]. it sounded to me just like a master tape but i knew it was not. i recall seeing a burwen declicker and noise reducer in the equipment stack. that scene planted in my mind the thought that some day i had to also have something similar. it took me 10 years to catch up with that. |
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Junior high - probably 1976 - my friend Dan had his dad’s stereo. It wasn’t much but is was separates rather than the ubiquitous all-in-one systems everyone had at that time. He played The Who, Live at Leeds and I couldn’t believe how much more there was to the music. The next year my grandmother decided to give all of her 28(?) grandkids their inheritance - $1000. I caught a lot of crap for going straight out and blowing all of the $s on a stereo. Kenwood KA-701, Pioneer PL-17 ( w/ Audio Technica cart), and AR-14 speakers. The Kenwood is still going strong with my oldest son at grad school and my ARs are with my younger son in undergrad (the TT died). Funny part is that none of my siblings or cousins has any idea what they did with their inheritance but mine is still making beautiful music all these years later. |
Father was a vocalist, his grandfather a fiddler. Mother played piano despite being tone-deaf and hostile to rock, while her mother, the fun one, reminded people of Mae West and Lillian Russell, was a huge fan of Little Richard, Jerry Lee, Liberace, Elvis, anyone flamboyant really, plus early rock from Bill Halley forward. Bought me Platters, Drifters, British Invasion and much else. So I wasn't going off to college without an all-in-one record player. Then, soph year, I had a roommate with sophisticated tastes and as good a component system as you could find in a dorm suite: my introduction to audiophilia. Then another who would play Wagner at top volume through his Klipsches. Ever since I have always owned component systems within the limitations of space and budget. Finally, now in retirement in the streaming age, I have time to learn, to experiment, and to tweak pretty much indefinitely. This remains enjoyable even though my poor old badly abused ears are pretty well shot by now. |
13 years old, it's been a fun ride...I pretty much have all I ever wanted In a system which includes a Sugden A21 class A integrated, Tannoy Legacy Eaton, Avid Ingenium, Tavish Design Classic phono preamp, Rothwell & Jensen SUT's, Cyrus Cdt, Marantz hd Cd-1 cd player, Border Patrol Dac, Musical Fidelity V90 Dac, Aiwa AD F770 3 head deck, Cambridge/Creek t500/t43 tuner, mini disc player/recorder, even a panasonic 8 track player/recorder...countless phono cartridges both moving magnet/moving coil, several headphone amps, who knows how many headphones (12?), and a host of power conditioners, interconnects, power cords, etc....plus in reserve, I have a Marantz pm14s1 integrated, a Naim 5si integrated, several pair of speakers (wharfedale/martin logan), 2 alternate cassette decks, 5 alternate turntables....I could go on and on....lots of money spent over the many years, but to me worth it. |
I remember walking into Stereo Exchange in the City when I was 14 and being in awe at all of the used gear they used to have in the racks along the front wall. It was audio nirvana. Everything you saw an ad about in the magazines was there in real life. A little while after that, my sis was dating a guy who was a hi fi salesman at Harmony House II on Amsterdam Avenue in NYC. He invited us over to hear his rig (a Sony tonearm and table that used a cake cover as a dust cover, Dalquist Speakers and can't remember the rest) and that was it. 1974 |
Folks bought me a CRAIG all-in-one in 1974 or so. Turntable, 8-track, and tuner. It made music and drove a pair of Koss headphones to my liking. A couple of buddies were CB geeks. It was a big thing back then. They also had real stereos, so I was exposed to better gear early on. Then in college it was crazy. Guys exiting the service and coming back from overseas with all the cool Japanese gear (it wasn't vintage back then...). I was also exposed to real blues and jazz in college.
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Late 60s. Junior high or High School. Find myself sitting on the floor between speakers of our Sears stereo. You know the ones. Big ole hunk of wood. Herb Alpert was playing and at the end of one track they bounced the trumpet back and forth quickly in the mix. I thought that was cool. First time I’d noticed audio/stereo. Got some B&O bookshelf speakers for Christmas coming out of HS. Bought a used Fischer integrated (still have it) and a Garrard turntable freshman year of college. Wow! Bass! (Hauled this rig from hotel to hotel for literally years when I was on the road with traveling bands.) College early 70s. Drummer in a band I was with was into audio. I was hanging at his house and he wanted me to hear his new Cornwalls. He dropped the needle on a track with a female singer and acoustic guitar (Pentangle?). It sounded to me like she was RIGHT THERE, sitting inside the speaker, singing to me. Had no idea recorded music didn’t have to sound, well, recorded. I was totally amazed and totally hooked. |
Middle school in the late 80’s to early 90’s. Friends Dad had a state of the art at the time Home Theater set up. Lost count on how many times we watched Tombstone! First spade of my own where I could let my love for Audio shine was at 16, my car was the spot. My audio gear was worth more than the mighty Toyota Tercel. The bug has shifted from Car Audio to Home Theater to now a heavy focus on 2 Channel. Just bought a Krell stack, never thought I would have the means or opportunity for the kind of gear I have today and…. Still always looking for ways to get that next little bit further. Crazy, fun, stupid hobby. |
1960. The neighbor across the street (an EE) had a Mac mono amp and one Klipsch corner horn. That thing played all day every day with a Mac tuner. I was interested and amazed at 7 years old. One day I asked him how loud it could play, they used it as background only. He just smiled invited me in and let that baby rip. As you are all aware that was it for me, I was totally stunned. I would scour on my bike for console TVs discarded. Had my bag of tools and would "gut" them. Finally got one amp and a speaker to work, added more speakers (raw) as I found them and finally blew the thing up setting my bed on fire in the process. Got my butt kicked and also gained space in my dad's small workspace. Living in North Jersey there was many many audio stores and NYC was only a 20 minute bus ride away. Imagine letting a 13 year old go to NYC on a scouting mission in this day-in-age. Hook, line and sinker... Regards, |
At age 13 in 1964 my older brother built a Dyna ST70, PAS3, FM3 while I was away at camp. When I returned home he took me with him to buy speakers from a nearby stereo shop in Ridgewood, NJ, where I got my first glimpse of a demo room with a TD124/SME w/V15, McIntosh electronics and an array of speakers. We compared and chose KLH 17s. A few years later I heard Rectilinear 3s at Leonard Radio in Paramus...they were ear opening in comparison to the ARs and KLHs. The final straw was a trip to Victor's in Chicago and hearing Quad ESL57s, IMF TLS80s and Tympanys w/ ARC electronics. Hooked. I couldn't afford that stuff, but the quest for "the closest approach to the original sound" was on. |
When I was a junior in high school and was a drummer in bands that actually made money! I remember going off to college with my Kenwood integrated amp, a Dual 1219 turntable with a Shure V15 Type 2 cartridge, a Wollensak reel-to-reel, the Koss Pro 4B headphones and a pair of Dynaco bookshelf speakers. As an adult, when I could see "the light at the end of the tunnel" with my youngest's college expenses, that's the time "the bug" cost the most (in terms of dollars!) |
As a young kid I was always into technology. The more buttons a gadget had the better. Around 1965 my brother-in-law bought one of those all in one wooden cabinet stereos on legs. I loved using that thing to play music. I’d sit right in the middle of it to hear stereo. Something I never could at home on our old table-top AM/FM radio. |
I’d always been interested in having the best sound system that was feasible for me but there were decidedly “juvenile” ideas as to how to do this along the way….My first real severely-coveted sound system related item was a canary yellow, spherical 8 track player/AM-FM tuner with a speaker on each “side”. This was 1971 and I eventually saw the SQ advantage to a more conventional stereo which wasn’t quite as much of a one box solution (CBS Masterworks 8 track/AM-FM tuner combo with separate, box style speakers). I lived with the ‘Masterworks unit thru high school and, in 1975, saw a magazine ad in the National Lampoon for an 8 track player with “actual Dolby noise reduction” made by Pioneer which I absolutely had to acquire for my first car. Turns out, the retailer nearest me that sold that gadget was one Sterling Home Electronics in Houston and they had things there that were far more spellbinding than a mere 8 track to shoehorn into a ‘69 Ford Galaxie! I forgot about the car stereo and it was at that point that I was officially bitten-by-the-bug. |
It was around 1970 when I got bit by the bug. My future ex-brother in law came back on leave with some stereo gear he got at the PX and set it up in my dad's house so we could have a listen and that sunk it's claws deep into me. After getting permission to lower the stylus onto the record and practicing the technique was the clincher and I've been hooked ever since. All the best, |
Thanks for pointing that out. 😫 Imagine, now, the disparities in initiating musical play with a set up from 1970 to what passes for it today. Even the rewards phase of getting it all going are vastly different and account for a lot of the differing perspectives on what can and can’t benefit a system. All the best, |
I’ve been an audiophile since high school. Growing up with a jazz musician/Caltech scientist father, I wasn’t allowed to use the system in his study: a Fisher 400 receiver, an ELAC/Benjamin Miracord turntable (with styli for both 33 and 78 rpm; he’d been a band leader in the 1940s, and recorded a dozen or so 78s), and KLH speakers. In college, dorm mates had systems I coveted: ESS speakers with that Heil “Air Motion Transformer” tweeter element, double Advent speakers; even a Heathkit receiver that a particularly nerdy friend assembled one summer. Probably the best component in my necessarily modest system in those days was a Thorens turntable with a Micro-Acoustics cartridge. I lost that in a burglary in upstate NY in 1978, along with some Kenwood separates. My Design Acoustics D2 speakers are still with me, though. In 1969, my parents' fancy Beverly Hills friends gave me "Electric Landyland" for Christmas. At the holiday party at their house, I heard it for the first time on their Bose 901s, professionally set up hanging from the ceiling in the corners. I was a JBL fetishist at the time, and wasn't impressed. Then, in college, a friend with similar interests took me (it must have been 1970 or '71) to a high-end store in Los Gatos. The salesman was kind of rude to us, knowing we couldn't afford any of his stuff—but he did agree to play Beethoven's Eighth Symphony from the Berlin/Karajan box set that included the Ninth. That was probably my "aspirational" moment: his shop had a properly set-up listening room (with the exception of the Bose, even the good stuff I'd heard to that point had been in dorm rooms). I've been hooked ever since. |
For the past 9 years I have two realtors send me real estate listings so I can know what houses are selling for. I get 2 to 4 listings per day and not once have a seen a pair of speakers standing in a single room. What also amazes me is I also have not seen surround sound systems with large screen TV's. A $2 million house with people watch TV and listening to their TV speakers. How cheap can you get. Are people allergic to music? The audiophile community has failed to recruit people to share in this hobby. I can't imagine having people over for dinner without being able to sit down to listen to music and enjoy wine together. I think there is something wrong with our society. |
@cerrot i remember harmony house on Amsterdam - near Rockefeller U and Sloan Kettering. I thing they were still open as late as around 1990 or so |
As an infant my mother could not get me to sleep. For months she tried everything. Finally, in desperation she stuck a table radio in the crib. It worked and I have been listening to music almost continuously ever since. I got my own record player on my 4th birthday, a brown Zenith portable with a black Cobra tonearm. It was not long befor I realized that my dad's system sounded A LOT better. Bozak B302As driven by a Stereo 70 with an HH Scott front end and Rec O Kut turntable. The real prize was an Ampex tape deck. By the age of 10 I had managed to collect a soldering iron and all the tools to build an amplifier. I managed to talk my dad into a kit Stereo 70. I suppose you could say that is where the real journey began as far as "high end" systems would be concerned. I think I was born an audiophile, a genetic mishap. |
Correct me if I am wrong but it appears that a majority of us Forum dwellers are about the same age. My Freshman year in college was 1971. Boomers! As a Voice Performance major in the conservatory I had to have my first serious system. Anyone remember Pacific Stereo? I was so proud of my $199 PS special. We would put on Classical albums and everyone at parties would play “name that composer”. And my pianist, perfect pitch roommate would “play” shadow fingers on the ceiling instantaneously to the piano pieces. A cool Niko receiver, a super duper Lenco TT… funny that about a $100 TT would become a sought after restored item. PS had their house brand speaker. The Quadrelfex. It came with the entry level bookshelf. Took several years until I started the never ending upgrades. My first was a very great pair of Klipsch Heresys. |
5, 6 years old. My uncle had this tv stereo console that I liked. Big, powerful sound. That started it. Mid 60's my dad took me to the Salvation Army. They had a stockpile of such console units. For $5.00? they let me take out whatever I wanted My dad explained that they were going to dismantle them for trash and I was helping them. Yes. A Frankenstein system. LOL 60 years later... Great granddaughter of Frankenstein, system. Better looking. Better sounding. But still, a Frankenstein. |
In many respects… the real high end stuff has always been primarily an old guy thing. As a young audiophile I used to drive up to Phoenix from Tucson to the Audio Research / high end audio store to look and listen. The only guys walking out with new Audio Research equipment we’re old guys. Us youngsters were there to dream…. Maybe buy a used budget piece of equipment. Like the shiny new corvettes… old guys! A small compensation for getting old. |
I was part of a family band growing up and I would mess around with the PA equipment. Got my first audio system in 1971 and first really high-end system in 1974. So, let's see, that means something around 50 years in this hobby. Still intrigued by it all, in fact just got off the phone with Jerry at Audio Magic. I've had a variety of interests through the years, but Audio/Video has gotten the most consistent attention. |
