the gateway product that turned you into an audiophile

Kenwood would be the name for me.  In 1984 I graduated a Navy school in Idaho Falls ID.  A  $2000 bonus was mine for the extra work.  On to the Fleet, finally.  I knew my CJ7 would be my only personal refuge so I promptly drove to the one car audio place in town.

I dropped every cent on my new system!  Everything was the best Kenwood had to offer.  Dolby C auto reverse tape deck. 3 way adjustable crossover in the console with the tape deck.  I had a box already built across the rear.  A perfect place to put a 8" woofer behind each front seat, driven by a 270 wpc amp.  2 5" midranges gut level in the dash driven by a 140 wpc.  The 2 1" tweeters were mounted at the roof line, forehead level with a 70 wpc.

SO FUN to find out you need a new alternator!  Talk about enveloped in sound.  The signature piece to hear was Frankenstein...The Jeep just bounced and when the ufo lands or whatever the ch ch ch ch noise was it just drilled into my head.

However, now and forever I LOVE my DCM Time Frame 2000s!  Just So Good...  Maybe with todays big tvs they could have sold more

The father of my best friend of over 60 years was an audiophile. He was a McIntosh loyalist from the 50’s on and upgraded his gear every few years. He would have either jazz or classical music just blasting in their house anytime he was home. If I recall correctly, he had big Bozak speakers. I was in that house almost daily. And so my friend (his son) and I became Mac owners as soon as we could afford it which was in our young 20’s. We both bought the small integrated amp of the day. I think it was the MA6100??  I am not really sure anymore. I had a variety of entry level gear but I guess technically, that integrated amp was my audiophile gateway piece. But really it was the dad’s gear that did it. We’ve both continued to own Mac all these years with many, many upgrades along the way. My current system is shown here on the virtual systems pages. Oh and as you’d expect, we’re both jazz and classical music lovers. 

Left GE Trimline for JBL L150.  WOW!!  

Summer of 1970 when I was 18 and heard a system at my friend’s house: Thorens TD125/Shure V15, Kenwood integrated amp with meters and Large Advent speakers. Listened to Hendrix Electric Ladyland, Procul Harum A Salty Dog and It’s a Beautiful Day. Sounded great compared to the GE console we had at home.

I started out in 1956 at age 17 with a Webcor Portable record player, graduated to a console with a radio and turntable under the lid.  Finally, in 1978 my transformative product was a Pioneer SX-1050!  Which I still own though it is rarely called into duty.    I couldn’t afford speakers after buying the Pioneer so I joined a group at HP that had a blueprint of the Bose 901 speakers, accurate down to the sources for every part.  We commandeered the Fab Shop to cut the speakers to the proper size and drill the stepped circles to fit the nine speakers.  What a mess we made.  The next weekend we put the speakers together and wired them along with the equalizer for each pair of speakers.  I was the only female and I had a blast!

My second transformative product was importing the Quad ESL-63 Electrostatic speakers from a store in London.  I replaced the SX-1050 with an Audiomat Arpege tube integrated amp and I was in audiophile heaven.

i still own Quad ESL-63 speakers, the  US Monitor version, and I like to joke that I’ll be buried with them.  And yes, I still like them that much.  I’m into classical music and opera and they are a perfect fit for the music I enjoy listening to.
 

My current amp and preamp are Luxman, the Cl-38uC and the MQ-88uC.  My other sources are a Berkeley Audio DAC Reference Series 2+, Roon Nucleus, Audio Alchemy DMP-1 Media Server, Ayre DX-5 DSD SACD Player and a fully restored B&O Beogram 4004 turntable.  Oh, and a Nakamichi DR-1 tape cassette player.  I’ve been an audiophile most of my life and at age 86 this system is probably it. 

I would say audio enthusiast before becoming an audiophile; JBL L100 speakers at 17 years  of age.  Then when I purchased a used pair of Aerial Acoustic Model 5 speakers in my 50s I became an audiophile.  My first exposure to audio was taking a handheld am/fm transistor, 9 volt, radio and connecting it to a Heath Kit 2 way speaker. The speaker had a 10 inch woofer and two 5 inch midrange cones.  It was and looked just like an AR2a minus the tweeter. (I owned pair given to me in college. great sound just not the same ump as the L100's) I used a mono mini earplug that had alligator clips on the end to connect to the speaker at around 10 years of age.  That wire opened up a whole new world to me as the sound from that speaker far outweighed the hand held radio. I guess this was my first foray into separate components!

rafevw

it was audio art on church hill and they did the same to me.i think 1976-1977

Enjoy reading this thread - lots of product names from the past that bring back memories. My path began with a pair of stacked Advent speakers powered by a Mitsubishi integrated amplifier and a Dual turntable.

Marantz 2270 with Rectilinear lll speakers. Next came Advent Loudspeakers. They were perhaps my favourite speakers ever

love that story @echolane ! The Quad ESL speakers seem to be the most influential component for so many audiophiles. 

sansui amplifier  circa 1972,  then 200 watt  David Hafler.   passed the Sansui onto my  brother . seemed like the Sansui ran  forever 

Bowers and Wilkins entry level 683 speakers. I was infected by my cousin in law. 

I almost forgot that when I bought the Proceed separates at that audio store tent sale, the owner of the (big) store came to see me and said “I just wanted to meet the person who bought the Proceed gear” and talked to me as if I knew what I was doing hahahaha! That’s when I knew I’d bought something special.

Late 60s KLH compact system. Superb speakers.