My late older brother, back in the ‘80’s, bought ESS Heil AMT-1’s and Sansui AU-717 & TU-717…One listen to Steely Dan on his system and I was mesmerized. Over the years I bought components I could afford but always wanted more. After many years of compromises, work, different priorities, $ demands…I now finally have the time and $ to realized a long lost dream.
the gateway product that turned you into an audiophile
@foggyus91 suggested/pushed/encouraged me to start a thread about this. It was related to Darko's post about 12 audiophile misconceptions. One was that we are all about music - vs gear. I think that subject has been chewed up already a 100 times. I am not sure anyone has anything new to say.
However, that made me think about the day I turned into an audiophile.
It was when I bought my first "gateway" product that was affordable but audiophile quality and led me to explore more and tweak and switch and experiment and never be fully content but always be smiling when I turned the power on. It's been about the sound and not the music and that's fine. But I realize now that those Monitor Audio speakers I bought from craigslist were my gateway drug 
Were you always an audiophile or was there such a moment and a piece of hardware that made the difference?
(Lastly, I am very uneasy and on the fence about this forum and starting a thread - for my last correspondence with the moderators. What I learned should bother anyone who cares about fairness or even the appearance of it. I can't discuss it because it will get removed - I tried, my comment lived for less than 5 minutes, )
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This was an amazing and unexpected experience.... I already had my college dream system. Marantz 2285 amp/preamp. Heathkit equalizer and graphic processor that I built, monster cables, Sony linear tracking table, and JBL L65 speakers. I bought a Conrad Johnson PV 10A preamp off of Audiogon. It wasn't very big or impressive looking, but it used vacuum tubes.... Luckily, my Marantz allowed me to plug in the PV 10A into it and thus bypass the internal preamp within it. OMG. Night and day difference in the quality of the sound coming out of those wonderful L65 speakers! I was blown away! Then my quest began to upgrade my entire system to what I call 'entry level high end'. I'm very pleased with the outcome, although it took many years to configure and it did cost a lot of money! I eventually sold that PV 10A to another Audiogon member.... |
I think I was an audiophile as a teenager with my GE portable stereo. That doesn't mean you can't go from something like that to a revelatory experience based purely on sound. I had built a Dynaco SCA-80 integrated and had the Dyna A25 speakers that were so popular, also an ancient Thorens TD-1something TT on a wooden unsupported base. Now when I moved back to Texas it was time to move up, and I was actually making some money. I found a very good audio store and that was my gateway to the real thing. I got Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers, a better Thorens, the Threshold 400A amp Nelson Pass made, the the Apt Holman preamp that was the bees' knees in High Fidelity and elsewhere. That's pretty good stuff and I liked it but the revelation came when my audio dealer offered me a Spectral preamp. It was so cool and had a pexiglas top fitted to it so you could see the insides. Having "built" things before (some of which worked the first time) I couldn't believe how that thing was put together and wired. I bought it. The revelation came when I got it home and replaced the Apt Holman with it. I suppose that was the audiophile moment. The Apt was a high rated piece of junk next to that thing, and now the full impact of the Threshold was revealed. That's the fun of being an audiophile. Just see how many posts we have here on this topic in a short time. The bottom line is that are myriad ways to hear your music, so it's not just about the equipment (but it doesn't hurt!). |
I think I was 13 years old and did some babysitting to make some spending money in the Montreal suburbs. One of the couples I sat for were pretty cool and worked in downtown Montreal, and drove an old purple Volvo fastback. They had an incredible stereo set-up, I have never seen anything like it. It was my first experience with listening to an excellent turntable, tube amplifier and large 3 way speakers, I don't remember the names of any of it, but boy did Led Zepplin II ever sound amazing! I was hooked. |
My love for audio equipment started in the late 1968 when my father upgraded from his Motorola tube console to separates (Large Advents, Pioneer SX 828, Thorens 161, and Stanton 681). Soon after, with money saved from my gardening route of four neighbors on my block, I had my bedroom version (Small Advents, Pioneer SX 628, Pioneer direct drive TT, Stanton 681, and Advent tape deck). This accompanied me through college. However, the revelation came after receiving my MS with new affluence from a real job. I was intending to drop my budget at the large discount box stores on Brooklyn and Long Island NY, Crazy Eddies or PC Richard’s. Across the street and down the Boulevard I chanced on a store called Audio Breakthroughs. The sales staff sat me down in front of equipment brands never heard by me (B&W DM7s, PS Audio Separates, SOTA, Gram, Dynavector). I could not believe the timbre, dynamics, staging and imaging. I was hooked and frequented another LI store American Audiophile (Vandersteen 2s, Counterpoint separates, similar TT setup). I ended up with my first low end/hi end system (DCM Time Windows 3, Amber Preamp, Amber Series 70 Amp, Nakamichi 680ZX, Walker TT, Dynavector Ruby). I was addicted. PS My father’s Pioneer SX 828 and my DCM Time Windows are still producing music and retro sound enjoyment in a Vermont vacation home after 40+ years. |
Hello foggyus91, Great subject to start a thread. To answer your question my "gateway" into the audiophile universe was a Dynakit ST70 kit that I received as a Christmas gift back in the 60's. As many know, David Hafler, one of the pioneers of "hi-fi",was the founder of DynaCo. Although my dad and one of my uncles were hi-fi buffs it was the Dynakit ST70 that got my audiophile juices flowing. Thanks for your question as it brings back some great memories. Enjoy the music. |
My migration to the "other" side originated in a pair of Bud Fried R speakers sourced by a Transcriptor T.T. with Grace 707 arm with a Denon 103C cartridge powered by a Threshold 400A class A amp back in 1977ish...Preamp was a Luxman...Moved up from these to a Threshold 800A, then a pair of Dayton Wright XG8 MKIII electrostats and a Dayton Wright SPA preamp...Dave Grusin "Discovery" was the "demo" disc of choice back then... |
In 1972, A $200 Sanyo phono/radio/cassette/speakers integrated stereo I was gifted at age 13. That was a big step up from the portable tape players and radios I owned prior as a kid. 5 years later I was working at Lafayette Radio selling the good stuff and graduated to a 40 watt Criterion (Lafayette brand) integrated amp, turntable and speakers with HEIL Air Motion Transformer tweets. Then to infinity and beyond.. |
I loved music and had an average receiver/turntable/speaker rig. Nothing special. I was only making @$1.25 hr so... I did enjoy recording FM music on my Sony 7" Reel to reel but playback and finding tracks was a pain. So, I started buying used lp's. What bothered me about them was the surface noise. I was reading my copy of Audio magazine when I saw an ad for the SAE 5000 Impulse Noise Reduction unit. Supposed to remove clicks and pops from playback. As luck would have it the audio store in town was an SAE dealer. I won't get into how it worked or didn't but it was good enough for me to cough up the $ to buy it. It started me down the path. I have no regrets except for wishing I kept some of my "stuff". |
For me, this proved to be a somewhat a tricky question. I first asked myself when I first realized that I had fallen in love with music. Then, I asked myself when I first started to really care about the sound quality of the equipment used to play the music I liked. I started buying my own 45s when I was around 7 or 8, after using my aunt's portable tabletop 45 record player for a few years. The first 45 that I bought was "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton. I was around 7 or 8 years old then and happened to be at my grandmother's house. I must have played that 45 ten times in a row, if not more. My grandmother never said a word; never asked me to give it rest! God Bless her! That kicked off my 45 record collection. Wish I still had those things! Sometime around 1960 or so, my parents bought a Grundig stereo console. It had a turntable, AM and shortwave radio built into it, as well as speakers or maybe it was just a single large speaker. That's when I began my LP collection. Sometime in the mid 60s I became much more aware or concerned with the sound quality that the equipment I was using could deliver. That's when I bought a stereo in a box type thing that came with 2 small bookshelf speakers and an amplifier with built-in 8-track tape player. Can't remember the name of that thing. However, my friends and I thought it sounded pretty good. That kicked off my 8-track tape collection. Soon thereafter, I bought a Craig reel-to-reel and started recording music from AM radio stations and, later, from FM when that became more popular. I'd have to say that was the spark that started the audiophile fire. In the late 60s, one of my high school musician friends wanted me to listen to a new stereo system that he had just purchased. Can't remember the model numbers but it was a Sansui integrated amp, Thorens TT and a pair of bookshelf speakers. I think the TT cart was a Shure. He loved Chicago. So, we played their new album and the sound from that system just blew me away! I have to say that's when the audiophile bug started, for me. In 1972, I had finally saved enough money to purchase what I consider to be my first entry-level audiophile quality two-channel stereo system. This very same friend, much more knowledgeable about stereo equipment than I at the time, took me to Tech HiFi in Cambridge, MA. That was a kid in the candy store moment for me! After spending money that I really should have devoted to college expenses, I walked out with a Sansui 2000X receiver, Phillips 212 TT equipped with a Shure cart and a pair of Studiocraft speakers that I eventually upgraded to Ohm C a year later. The rest, as they say, is more history. |
I had a hand-me-down Onkyo rack system I got from my dad when I went to college. It was good but then my roomate and I discovered separates when visiting Second Sound in Boulder way back in the early 90s. I found a used Adcom GFA-2 amp and pre-amp there. I traded in the Onkyo system for that set-up. It was a "step up" for me in sound quality. Then I bought an affordable Sony 5-disc changer. My speakers were some Advents (can’t recall the model). I had a great sounding system for what it was back in my ramen-eating college days. My dad gave me one of his reel-to-reel decks, and I would make 3-hour-long mix tapes for our house parties as well. |
Great thread! I took a class at Colorado State University in 1980 called something like "Audio Physics." It focused on teaching physics through the practical application of science through a stereo system. Shortly after the class ended I purchased my first stereo system which included a entry level Luxman 2040 integrated receiver, a Phillips 777 turntable, with a shibata type stylus, a Sony tape deck, and a pair of big speakers. The speakers actually bugged me and I sold them and purchased a Three D Acoustics pair of satellites with a subwoofer. I knew something was up when a year later I had a local guy (Harms Labs in Fort Collings) build a custom sub for me. (I ran into Steve Harms a few years ago and he was still building and repairing speakers.) Ten years later, I purchased a used pair of Acoustat 1+1 speakers for $350 from a friend who was disappointed with the bass. I added a Vandersteen sub and the friend couldn't believe how much better they sounded than his expensive new B&W speakers. The original Three D satellites are part of my 7 point surround system in our small TV room, with a B&W center and four B&W surround and rear speakers built in, plus a small SVS sub. Great for TV. The Acoustats are thirty plus years and I am researching completing a rebuild on them. They still sound better than almost anything out I have listened too. It helps to have good electronics sending the signal to them. It has been a fun journey.
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My Gateway product was the ADS L810 speakers in 1978. They were so good, I eventual had two pairs used. By this time I had the the other components of my system, Phillips GA-212 turntable (with Ortofon cartridge) purchased in 1974, SAE MK30 Preamp, Mk31B amplified, and my fantastic Sansui TU-9900 Tuner purchased in 1976! I still have my originals ADS L810s (in storage) and my Sansui TU-9900 (in use). Up until I purchased the ADSs, I had mass produced Jensen speaker, but decent Superex studio headphones. Maybe my true gateway product was the Phillips GA-212, I knew early on, the first thing I wanted to do was to be kind to my vinyl! |
I have been into music listening since an early age starting with a transistor radio in grade school. My first real audio component journey began in 1980. I don’t remember whether the speakers or amp and preamp came first. I’ll start with the amp and preamp. Luxman c-120 preamp, and m-120a amp. Then DCM Time Window speakers. All of those were with me until 2015 or so. Added a Mitsubishi LT-5 turntable a year later. Don’t remember the cartridge - I think an ADC MM. Unfortunately that turntable was stolen around 1987. Replaced with a Thorens 160 MkII. The Luxman m-120a is still with me and has ben refreshed recently. The DCM Time Windows are now with my son. They just didn’t work well in my present apartment in spite of working well in 6 other environments of various sizes and shapes. There is something about that Luxman M-120a amp that is just hard to replace. It can compete with most modern amps very well. I am surprised at what it can do to the sound even with cheap speakers. I guess it just hits the spots of what I expect in music presentation.
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I think I was just born into it because of my parents. We always had big speakers, big tube amps when I was young. My parents partied every weekend..they both played guitar & most their friends played too. As a young kid in the 70's I did kinda gravitate to the multiple reel to reels we had. I certainly didn't understand equipment then so I was more just drawn into the loud music. My mom was a housewife & it was loud music all day everyday for a good part of my childhood. This just carried over into the rest of my life. By the 90's though I was starting to realize that there are levels to this sound quality thing. |
My father’s HH Scott 222 integrated amp, a Garrad turntable and a pair of 15 inch full range drivers of unknown origin listening to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in the 8th grade. The local hifi shop had a pair of Klipschhorns that were so spooky…now I have four pair of Klipsch speakers driven by a host of tube amps. |
Mine was a pair of Infinity RSIIb speakers, which led me to seek better amplifiers, which led me to seek a better preamplifier, which led me to …. And here I am almost a half century later with what I think is a decent system that produces, IMHO, excellent sound quality, assembled over the last four years at what, in today’s prices, seems “reasonable.” |
...been at this for nearly 6 decades, starting with what was at hand for little and building what I could for speakers.... Overtime and over time, the selections improved....but any other than spouse to hear the changes became less of a event to share....still true, more pronounced of late, but 'tis what it 'tis.... I can't hear your gear....Some names change, some remain the same even if morphed into a larger organization, some improve, some become unheard ever again. Specs got to the tipping point where the differences became subtle to the point of a sort of 'confidence in the system', the numbers don't seem to matter anymore. Nuance becomes ALL....the cables, the details, the 'analog/digital divide' yawns and the SS+Tubes get tossed into the maw....happened with stage amps awhile back, did you notice....? Awhile ago, I opted to switch to BFTB over COG....been happier since. The 'puters have their 'gigs'....sources, monitors, programs of interest and use....Then the 'typ' TT's, cass decks, cd players of various flavours... "CD or DVD? ...and all the digidomains as seen..." (...a pun too far...) A matrix or 2 stirs the brew.... ...and there's all the other including the Real Other, but some will know of what that is....but it's obvious I've got IT bad... ...just a different variety.... I've got the Poison....I've got the Remedy Play louder, the weekend pends, J |
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I learned about the sound quality with my friend when i was 20. My friend was older and a bit more experienced. His own very old friend whom he presented to me was a genuine "audiophile" with many room dedicated to his hobby but curiously with no acoustics basic, only electronics, different design, a suspended turntable and other eccentricities as it appeared to me...
He advised me to buy Tannoy dual gold ... I did... My journey begun but stay there without change nor progress because i cannot buy anything 30 years later anyway. My wife cleaned my Beyerdynamic headphone after 9/11 event and i decided to go studying headphones... But i disliked all the 10 headphones i bought.... Then if i wanted a good S.Q. i understood and realized a decade ago that i must do it myself at no cost(acoustics experiments with low cost speakers) because i could not upgrade anything... |
My older sister was dating a rich guy , it was the late 1970’s I was around 13-14 years old, up until this moment I grew up with a father that loved his big Pioneer 4 channel and huge home made speakers listening to classical loudly. I walked in to this condo over looking Tampa Bay on the 10th floor and what I saw blew me away! It was a complete McIntosh system with all separates, pre amp, tuner, amplifer all lit up brightly with nomenclature around all the knobs it was night and the effect was a substantial first impression indeed.The sound was sublime through the XR-7 MAC speakers using either a Tandberg cassette deck or a reference Sony turntable, I was smitten and the journey began for me.
Matt M |
My foray into the deep, dark & at times, very pricey audiophile road had two different origins. The first was when I went to a store in 1974 to audition Large Advents which were quite nice but then listened to a relatively new brand, ADS & their model 810’s powered by an Ampzilla amp. Wow! I bought the Advents fir to budgetary constraints & then added a second pair I got used which made a big difference but I knew someday I wanted a true audiophile speakers. This desire lead to Snell A II’s in ‘82, then Proac EBS’s & finally Ariel 10 T’s for regular cone / dome speakers. The second path began when I did pro sound systems for live shows & multi media presentations in Miami working for my Dad’s audio visual company. I learned about high sensitivity horns from Altec, JBL & EV powered by crown DC300 A amps. This lead to eventually, years later to desiring the dynamics & live sound that horns excel at but without their common colorations. In 2004, I heard Avantgarde Duo’s & was hooked! After a number of years & house changes, I wound up w/ Volti Audio Rivals & still really enjoy their live, dynamic sound. |
Stage 1: AR-4x / Sansui Integrated / AR-XB Listening to Mississippi John Hurt in a small off-campus apartment, but the speakers were set up properly and I heard a stereo image for the first time. Might have been the pot, though. Stage 2: Bose 901 / McIntosh C26 and 2105 pair / Thorens TD-160 + Shure V15-III Listening to Pink Floyd. The 901s were hung from the ceiling on chains. Once again cannabis may have been a factor. Stage 3: Large Advents / McIntosh 5100 Integrated / Thorens TD-160 + B&0 SP-12 Listened to this rig a lot in a friend's dorm room. That was a nice system. Stage 4: Magnepan Tympani III w/subwoofer / Audio Research SP-3a, 2- ARC Dual 76 Amps + Phase Linear 400 for the subwoofer / Thoren TD-125 Mk II + SME Arm + Supex MC cart. We listened to Joan Baez 'Diamonds and Rust', Joni Mitchell 'Miles of Aisles', Dan Hicks & Hot Licks 'Live at the Troubador'. Only got to listen to this for a couple hours, but that did me in. I'd heard some pretty good systems by this time, but this triamplified vacuum tube/transistor triamped hybrid with these immense panel speakers and dual KEF B-139 transmission line subwoofers was so far beyond anything id ever experienced. The sound was so immense, so transparent, and the acoustic spaces rendered so palpably, I was slack-jawed. Would probably be so again if I heard it today. From something like that, there's no turning back. I was officially an audiophile. I have had all kinds of systems since then, some large, some small, a couple vintage, more Magnepans, plus 3 dedicated home theaters. It's been fun, and even if my hearing isn't what it was half a lifetime ago, I still know how to listen to the music, a skill that many have never learned.
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Perhaps I've always been an audiophile, even as a kid some of my attention focused on sound quality. My best buds quad Dynaco setup with Linn LP12, this accompanied by light shows and ingestion of various substances was my gateway.
My own early setups pretty forgettable, Dahlquist DQ10's the gateway to higher end audio, still have them stored away.
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Mid 1960s went to a Dick Clark rock event at the Chicago International Amphitheater by the stock yards. All the bands were using a common PA system. JBL. I wrote a letter to JBL describing the system’s and they actually answered giving me their best guess as to what the components were. I have been a JBL man since. Started with a pair of Dorian S12 then. Used those until the mid 70s when I bought a pair of L222 Disco towers. Still my main speakers now. 50 years later. |
First got the bug when my best friend at the time got a job at a "stereo shop" in our local mall (ya, back when they existed, in the early 80's). Hung out there alot and got exposed to shelves of display gear and a dedicated listening room with a wall of speakers. Bought (at a employee discount, thank you Donny) a Yamaha mixing board, Harmon Kardon citation 16 power-amp, Yamaha P350 TT with ADC cartridge and some massive Jensen speakers. Hooked since. I'd say it was the HK power amp that took me over the top. The speakers turned out to be mostly show and the mixing board got replaced pretty quickly, but that power amp I loved. |
I went to a dealer in Richmond, VA, in 1979. I had no money for audio equipment, and little more than for room, tuition and food. He had a set of Magneplanars fed by an Audio Research pre and amplifier. The turntable (no idea what kind) had a “moving coil” cartridge (What’s that?). When I heard the needle drop, I was just stunned. I had no idea that music could sound that way, just sitting in a room. He asked me if I liked jazz (sort of…!), and he played a record I had never heard of, “Jazz At The Pawnshop”. Well…needless to say, I never forgot that experience. |
mid 70s Altec bi-amped speakers with SAE preamp, modest turntable and I can't remember the cart. Direct to Disc recording really hooked me, and the rest is not history yet. Added a Nakamichi LX-7 cassette. Moved to Seattle in '85, cot the deck serviced and new heads installed. I had purchased some Tandberg monoblocs, and when I went to sell them the tech that serviced the Nak agreed to my asking price on the amps *if I would sell the Nak with it - took my asking price on all, and I was off to the next phase. |
Unsure if I’ve always been an audiophile, but I’ve always been attracted to speakers. Starting working at Cineplex Odeon at 15 and the first thing I purchased before saving for a beat up car were these Cerwin Vega VS-120s connected to an old Sony Receiver and CD Player. And to be honest, I don’t think I’ve experienced the same consistency of enjoyment with my current system. Something about the new experience and sharing the CVs with friends in the 90’s digs really deep for me.
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