What was your first big eye opener with regard to audio?

@noromance2
tubes

I was shocked the first time i heard an all tube system. I knew then that was the ticket for me if not solely but as an additional rig in house.

Its sound still haunts me.
Thanks much.


@lowrider573
I dig both sides of that coin, cost and performance.

the right mix is in fact revelatory. thanks.

@gregm3

yes indeed. Top performing DACs are THE key to digital musical enjoymnent. thank you.


@
kosst_amojan2
This is a no-brainer. It was building my F5. Design-wise, it's an almost ideal amp for my speakers. But to say the amp was a revelation doesn't make the point. The design of the amp lets you decided what kind of distortion you want. I messed with that thing for a while

blindjim>
interesting. if there's something I miss about electronics its the ability to dig deeper into the build/design and tweaking it, or making your own unit.

Sadly, for me that ship sailed long ago.
thanks much.


@jouri_knegt

cables, or perhaps the right mix of them does seem to introduce magic where it was not previously.

for me it was power cords first, and it remains that way when wires are getting arranged into a rig.

plus 1 foor DACs.

matching amp & speaker is as key as any other portion of the mix IMO.
thank you

xshadorne
That a good quality pre-amp is really important and that phase is very important to me.

blindjim> could not agree with you more on the preamp importance. IF there is more than one decent source of course.
many thanks.


three_easy_payments:09am
My first eye opener in audio was actually as a teenage guitar player when I fell in love with the sound of a vintage Fender Twin over the 2-dimensional SS amps they were cranking out in the 80s.

blindjim>
in HS it was a Craig Power Play AM.FM 8 track removable deck.

never considered tubes at all.
THX


roberjerman
Going to a friend’s house back in ’79 and listening to his system:

blindjim>
regardless the venue it is about the sound.


williewonka
My biggest "eye opening" experience was discovering the effect of cable geometries and their impact on the attached components.

blindjim>
I've decided not to cut any of my wires open to check out their construction so I go with what happens when this one or that one gets into the signal chain and I subjectively account for the change.

and often it is simply put, 'change'.

Improvement is more rare.
many thanks.


bdp24507-17-2019 9:33am
Hearing electrostatic speakers
Then it was hearing a direct-to-disk LP played by a Decca cartridge.
Then it was finally hearing a Magneplanar Tympani.

blindjim>
maggies are fascinating speakers. I agree just not my cup of tea as it were.
limited EXP tells me carts have their own voice and can utterly change the entire presentation.



zavato
Magnepans a

blindjim>
yes indeed.
I heard the top Maggie many years ago driven by Levinson power and fronted by the Phillips/Sony cube SACD CDP.

you could shake hands with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.
astonishing.

if they only had some slam and bottom end!
very cool

viridian
When I was five years old, the smell of the tubes and the soft glow of them from my dad’s system. Scott/Klipschorn.

jim>
I sold Scott but not the type you refer to here. sure sorry to have missed that previous Scott bus.


big_greg
"where are the subwoofers?". There weren't any. It

jim>
its still neat to me to find speakers that can dig deep and not need help below 40Hz. they are either few and far between or real pricey.


mapman
Pre-amp upgrade to Audio Research made a big difference but biggest difference ever was first time I heard my Class D Bel Canto ref1000m amps. It was a total sound transformation

jim>
a good while back a friend owned a pr. of those amps and a pr of $10K Canton Karrat speakers and I found that rig very desireable. temprorarily adding in my tube line stage it became IMO even more so.


wolf_garcia
I bought a pair of Altec A7s in 1970 or so for my band...when I hooked 'em up to my stereo rig I immediately got a clue about what's what.

jim>
Its something how a sound can hit a vein and leave an indelible lasting mark which then calls us to discover more about it..


ahofer
I got my first speakers (Acoustic Research) on salesman's concession.


jim >
AR was big back then. I never saw the attraction.

JBL Century 100s were too but cost more... I did see an attraction there. especially with those sculpted orange foam covers.


jfd
ARC SP6 1978
Jim>
you got to that party real early.


on the flip side of engrossing and revelatory rewarding experiences I've found too some events were not so good but as has been mentioned here, each was a educational session.

the note on aR & JBL brought to mind a real kick in the stomach for one guy.

in 1975 - 76 I made my last trip to the Mediterranean and while visiting Italy loads of guys bought new audio gear. they had to navigate one obstacle and that was to get it safely aboard the ship while at anchor despite weather and shifting seas.

for security sake motor boats which carried upwards of 200 men ferried us to and from the piers from several miles at sea.

rough weather set in during my return late one evening and some fellas were hauling their new devices back to the ship.

handing a top flight reel to reel to the man on the landing the grip was lost and the tape deck dove quickly to become a part of Davey Jones' stereo rig.

even though it wasn't mine, it left a sinking feeling in a lot of stomachs that night and that witnessed it, certainly the guy whose deck it briefly had been.


BTW... I'm sure worse events have unfolded we can not easily forget.
I can recall a fair number without half trying.

@jnovak
To this day, I haven't ANYTHING that comes close to the sound I heard that marvelous day at Soundex.

jim>
I guess everyone will have that one session or event that continues to haunt them with its incredible ppresentation.

mine was an all tube 30wpc set of monos and a pr of VSA VR 4JRs of all things. some unknown tube cDP, perhaps Cary. the Thor line stage and EL 34 monos played Diana Krall. the sound was glorious. evocotive. emotive utterly engaging.

not able to afford that rig's price tag I tried mostly in vein to duplicate its sound. using some of the same and some different pieces. got the line stage still. had the same speakers. got similar costing cables and power filters. a BAT SS amp.... then a pr of EL 34 monos. at that point things were very close indeed. then I exchanged the vSA units for Silverline Sonata IIIs and the presentation exceeded that of the former showroom demo, but it still did not have the former demo's inner glow within the notes.

the monos I used were running 60wpc in ultralinear, the demo monos ran SET at half the power of those I could acquire.

I've come to the notion once you find a rig that you love, duplicating it elsewise is likely not gonna happen. emmulating it? sure. bettering it in some regards? perhaps.

but if you love that demo's sound, asemble that outfit as precisely as you can in your digs as synergy is a result of all of its components.
thanks much.

for me... experiencing sound when it is ultra good takes on spiritual properties.

flynnrd
Switching to tube amplification. Distortion? Maybe. But it sure sounds good to me.

blindjim>
plus 1 for sure!

chuck92914 posts
07-19-2019 2:03pm
While inquiring about another component, dealer suggested PS Audio Directstream JR DAC. I bought it, And Everything Changed. It was like listening to Dark Side of the Moon for the first time. Have since upgraded to SR and DMP.
Second was at the Florida Audio show to listen to speakers. Many good ones there, but the Spendor A7s just sang to me. They are now singing in my listening room.

blindjim>
wasn't that room the one that also was showing with VA Listz?

I only heard that rig with the Listz... I felt that demo had nothing to write home about. admittedly, the choice of music during my attendance was well, not striking. old 007 LP tracks.

glad you enjoyed the Spendors though.. I would have liked to been able to hear them myself.

jszei
1. First without question it is the impact high quality power can have on sound.

2. Second is a properly treated room.


blindjim>
on both counts, its like making significant component upgrades.


bluetone
in reality, this is a humidity issue in the room. I

blindjim>
humidity affects walls, floors, ceilings, furniture, furnishings, speakers, drivers, pianos, guitars our sinuses, and our hearing too.

certainly Humidity is something to address. .


guskund
The music sounded like real instruments !

thus the rabbit hole appears ........


blindjim>
ain't it the truth!

always avoid the 'big room"!


stvgray
the most jaw-dropping single change I ever made in my many systems was installing a direct AC line from our breaker box to new four-plug boxes in my listening room. WAY more difference than any of the many multi-thousand-dollar changes I had ever made in my various systems up until then.


blindjim>
I believe to this day, had I stumbled onto or had any faith in upgrading power line conditioning or merely adding dedicated power lines sooner, I could have lived with the first substantial upgrades I made in power via Krell KAV 250 & BW speaks.

the cables as it turned out were really substandard too. too bad. even adding the mate preamp to that amp was a premature move given nothing had been done to improve the power or signal wires

live and learn the hard way or keep an open mind!! .


Steve
mrvordo
Probably my "first" was realizing that the pre amp was the heart of any system. There is no way to tell what is going on in your system until the pre amp is of sufficient quality.But my first "Oh My Gosh" moment, was when I started trying power cords and power outlets. I couldn't believe the difference that they made.


blindjim>
it seems these two things are garnering a strong concensus for their bang for the buck!
I know I'm sold.


@jdl>
Lampizator DACs. First a Big 6, followed by a Big 7. Lampizator DACs are indeed different. All of the analog stage is tubed. My Big 7, I loved the Big 6 but I wanted DSD capability, uses an R2R ladder DAC (not a chip) for the PCM decoding, and a separate filter (not a DAC chip) for the DSD decoding. It also uses a tube rectifier and directly heated triode tubes in the output. You can roll the tubes, my preference is for the 300b. There are no chips or op-amps in the signal path. They have turned digital into my preferred source, especially DSD.


blindjim>
Lampy has snatched and stolen my attention lately for sure.

I flatly missed an opportunity to hear their Flag some months back and kick myself for it.

have you heard the GG or Pacifica?


@jandewitt>
I remember. 35 years ago my audioshop lent me a set of loudspeaker cables. “Here, try this. Let me know what you think”. It made me listen to my cd collection in a whole new way.


blindJim>
30 to 40 years ago a wire upgrade was cutting off the ends of extension cables and using them for speaker wires.
sheessh!


@cd3>
The so-called upgrade ladder whilst promising much actually delivered precious little, especially after my upgrade to reasonably full bandwidth loudspeakers.


blindjim>
there is indeed wisdom in those lines. chasing that last 5 to 15% gets terribly costly, and after some extensive reflection on it, its just not worth it.

optomizing the rig and room once quality pieces are on board is the real ticket.

if curiosity still rages, IMO its time to simply put together a different design, or topology outfit elsewhere, rather than to drop tons into new amps, line stages, sources, etc.

speakers as you say are key though. their mating to the amps is pretty much the whole make it or break it deal. room acoustics not with standing.

speakers have to fit both room and amps or your gonna be chasing your tail.

killer speakers too big for a room is asking for trouble.

in fact, I've always seem or proven very good speakers with all else in front of them being great to outstanding is better than the other way around.


@johnsonwu>
Getting a pair of Technics SB-C700 and comparing them with my YG Hailey and Avalon Eidolon Diamond.


blindjim>
OK... I'll bite. What happend then?
who won?

one thing is for sure, despite any arguments on audionic memory, the first time anyone who cares at all about music hears something really special, extremely elevated excellence in sound reporduction, or a presentation that they have never encountered before which checks all of their boxes, THEY WILL CERTAINLY REMEMBER IT!!

the recall may vasilate a bit, but that moment is solidly ensconsed in the memory.

as well it should.

I think it is experiencds  like that 'one' or maybe a few which ignited the passion for us to pursue those event (s).

otherwise, the vast majority of us would be really OK with entry level or mid fi gear so long as the presentation was engaging.

but once ya hear something way beyond any other EXP... you are either hooked, or well, deaf. lol

Hearing something sublime, startling, or incredible is one thing. those events are just special.

hearing or enjoying a startling event, or presentation is one thing. getting into the past time itself is yet another. In this place ‘eye opening’ events especially eraly on seem to crop up regularly.

at the top of that list for me has to be:
just how much components can cost!!

in all, the true mind blowing aspect of this venture for me remains how much things cost despite their form and application.

$25K for an extension cord?
wow. yeah.

for me the biggest eye opener after the fact, is the stratospheric prices attached to some things in the audio world. no question about it.

finding out ‘everything matters’ was perhaps as interesting and intriguing as has been
the realization things here can exceed the cost of a decent home.

this little nugget did not come as an eye opener, but as a ‘mind blowing’ epiphany. it stemmed predominately from the Audiogon pages and its membership.

never would I have believed placing different types of ‘footers’ beneath a component could alter the entire sonic presentation. Never.

many years ago one member from Colorado sent me a bag of wood blocks. several in fact. each group in their own packaging. each group of 3 pieces was off of a different tree.

Coco Bola. zebra, ebony, Mahogany, and others.

he said ’try ‘em’. so I did.

results were mixed but there were noticeable results from one tree to another. and, it told me there was likely something to be said for even more upscale footers or isolation devices in general.

consequently, as Eric alluded to way early in this thread, DIY and personal experimentation are still an impoirtant aspect   in the hobby.

previously the only area DIY had expressly urged me on was with acoustic treatments for the listening room. so many varied and various things do account for plainly fascinating results which are IMO, derived from unbelievable experiments.

rugs. Drapes. curtains. kinds of furniture. egg boxes. Pillows. insulation! and even foam.

I’m not even gonna get into speaker placement and how marginal moves there can be absolutely revelatory.
whoa.

in nearly every instance, I had to do it for myself, in my own home and my own gear, to eventually become convinced everything matters.

naturaly some things matter a bit more than others, but….

the DIY nd tweaking to optimize ones system are key to enjoying and understanding the hobby.

MOniker = it seemed the shortest, simplest path to an end. 

growing is about gaining new view points and leaving behind those which prove futile or have been found out as unworthy. I've hd several pairs of bW speakers thru the years. they adore power and IMO need added smoothness or tubes in the signal chain somewhere to be at their best. 

the current line of bW seem to have finally had many of their previous shortcomings amended successfully. Or so I read about in the 802 and 800 D IIIs. 

there are other speakers however. tons of them and every speaker talks to this person or that, esthetically and or sonically.

regardless the expense or economy of one's system, this is about the enjoyment of music with an eye towards the system's build, and then, its optimization. where ever that last bit finds one, should be good for them no matter the dollars invested.

one fascinating eye opener IMO is how far one can yet enhance the sound of any system thru acoustical and isolation treatments as applied to the room and or the components.

Everything matters.

How much, when, and where are the mysteries that make the Audio hobby interesting and often, exciting.