I may have memories that predate any of the prior responses. Although I am 60 years old, I became interested in audio at about the age of 10. My father was an attorney who represented a number of the pioneers in the audio industry, when it was in its infancy. I still have a recollection of a system which he built in the mid 1950's with a Radio Craftsman tuner/preamp and amplifer, a Garrard changer with a Pickering cartridge, a Pentron tape recorder and an Electro-Voice 12TRX triaxial speaker in a Carlson cabinet. (Now, how many of you remember this stuff?)
My first taste of the "high end" came in the late 1950's, when I helped my father build, from kits, the Harman-Kardon Citation I, II and III. He had a system that was state of the art in its day. As a source, he had a Garrard 301 turntable with a Shure/SME arm-cartridge combination (what a beauty!) and a pair of AR-3a speakers. To that he added a Sony 777 open-reel recorder, which was way ahead of its time (back in the days when Sony was referred to as "Sony-Superscope").
My own first system was built in the mid 1960's, with a H-K tube receiver (which I built from a kit), a Garrard changer and a pair of Fisher speakers. I got stuck in "mid-fi" during the 1970's (I read Stereo Review back then and believed what I read), and had Sony receivers, direct-drive turntables and JBL speakers.
I was first exposed to the "high end" in the early 1980's, when I graduated to a Tandberg 3012 amp and 3011 tuner, with B&W DM14 (and later DM2000) speakers. I was one of the first to jump on the "digital" bandwagon, with one of the original Magnavox CD players. I remember paying $25 for CD's--in 1983 dollars! I talked myself into thinking they sounded great. They didn't--they were thin and screechy.
I have steadily upgraded over the past 20 years to the point where I feel I have nowhere farther to go. I'm currently running a Mark Levinson 380S preamp, a pair of Mark Levinson 33H amplifiers, a Sony SCD-1 for digital and SACD, and a Michell Orbe, SME IV.VI, Spectral Reference and VTL phono preamp for records. Speakers are B&W Signature 800's.
In terms of quality of sound, today's equipment is without question the best there has ever been. In terms of quality of source material, I have to go back to the early days of stereo, from the late 1950's to the late 1960's, with the RCA Shaded Dogs, Mercury Living Presence, Decca/London ffss, and Everest LP's. These were often definitive recordings, as music, and the engineering was superb. (Have you ever heard an original 1S/1S copy of Pines of Rome? I have one! You would never believe that this record was pressed in 1960.) It continues to amaze me how the great engineers of the day, such as Lewis Layton, Robert Fine, Kenneth Wilkinson and Bert Whyte, could have captured such amazing recordings at a time when the reproduction equipment couldn't possibly reproduce what the recorders were actually recording on tape. The advent of 32 and 64 track recorders, effects processing, Pro Tools and the like, were the worst things that ever happened to the making of recordings. It allowed everyone to become sloppy. One of the great things about SACD today is the fact that, because the number of channels available to the recording engineer is limited, the engineers are forced to rediscover what Layton, Fine, Wilkinson, Whyte, etc. figured out over 40 years ago, and the results speak for themselves. Also, SACD allows today's engineers to go back to these great 30-40 year old recordings, play them back on top-notch analog recorders (such as Ampex ATR-102's and Studer A80's), without intermediate processing, and capture the full glory of the original master tapes on a state of the art medium.
So, we really are in a golden age of audio. We have the best equipment today, and the ability to reproduce both the latest in recording technology (SACD) and the great LP's from the 1960's.
My first taste of the "high end" came in the late 1950's, when I helped my father build, from kits, the Harman-Kardon Citation I, II and III. He had a system that was state of the art in its day. As a source, he had a Garrard 301 turntable with a Shure/SME arm-cartridge combination (what a beauty!) and a pair of AR-3a speakers. To that he added a Sony 777 open-reel recorder, which was way ahead of its time (back in the days when Sony was referred to as "Sony-Superscope").
My own first system was built in the mid 1960's, with a H-K tube receiver (which I built from a kit), a Garrard changer and a pair of Fisher speakers. I got stuck in "mid-fi" during the 1970's (I read Stereo Review back then and believed what I read), and had Sony receivers, direct-drive turntables and JBL speakers.
I was first exposed to the "high end" in the early 1980's, when I graduated to a Tandberg 3012 amp and 3011 tuner, with B&W DM14 (and later DM2000) speakers. I was one of the first to jump on the "digital" bandwagon, with one of the original Magnavox CD players. I remember paying $25 for CD's--in 1983 dollars! I talked myself into thinking they sounded great. They didn't--they were thin and screechy.
I have steadily upgraded over the past 20 years to the point where I feel I have nowhere farther to go. I'm currently running a Mark Levinson 380S preamp, a pair of Mark Levinson 33H amplifiers, a Sony SCD-1 for digital and SACD, and a Michell Orbe, SME IV.VI, Spectral Reference and VTL phono preamp for records. Speakers are B&W Signature 800's.
In terms of quality of sound, today's equipment is without question the best there has ever been. In terms of quality of source material, I have to go back to the early days of stereo, from the late 1950's to the late 1960's, with the RCA Shaded Dogs, Mercury Living Presence, Decca/London ffss, and Everest LP's. These were often definitive recordings, as music, and the engineering was superb. (Have you ever heard an original 1S/1S copy of Pines of Rome? I have one! You would never believe that this record was pressed in 1960.) It continues to amaze me how the great engineers of the day, such as Lewis Layton, Robert Fine, Kenneth Wilkinson and Bert Whyte, could have captured such amazing recordings at a time when the reproduction equipment couldn't possibly reproduce what the recorders were actually recording on tape. The advent of 32 and 64 track recorders, effects processing, Pro Tools and the like, were the worst things that ever happened to the making of recordings. It allowed everyone to become sloppy. One of the great things about SACD today is the fact that, because the number of channels available to the recording engineer is limited, the engineers are forced to rediscover what Layton, Fine, Wilkinson, Whyte, etc. figured out over 40 years ago, and the results speak for themselves. Also, SACD allows today's engineers to go back to these great 30-40 year old recordings, play them back on top-notch analog recorders (such as Ampex ATR-102's and Studer A80's), without intermediate processing, and capture the full glory of the original master tapes on a state of the art medium.
So, we really are in a golden age of audio. We have the best equipment today, and the ability to reproduce both the latest in recording technology (SACD) and the great LP's from the 1960's.