What were your humble beginnings on the path to high end audio?


Recently there has been a discussion as to the “price point where mid fi tops out and hi end systems begin”. I’d be willing to bet that there are not many folks who started out in this field of interest spending $100K, $50K or even $10K. Going back to your very beginnings, what was your first serious audio system?

I’ll jump in the wayback machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman and give you a look at my beginnings.

My journey began at around age 13. I started out with a Lafayette KT-630, stereo tube amp that I built from a kit in my 9th grade, “electronics shop” class. The speakers were built at home from plans in the 1968, July issue of Mechanix Illustrated. I upgraded the cabinet construction from plywood, to solid mahogany. The twin woofers in each cabinet were also upgraded to 5” from the specified 4” units and the tweeters were also upgraded from the specified 2-3/4” units to the deluxe 3” units. The inductors in the 6db per octave passive crossovers were hand wound and the caps, terminal strips, L-pads, magnet wire and grill cloth were from Lafayette Radio Electronics as were the woofers and tweeters. The turntable was a purchased Garrard SL72B with a Shure M91E magnetic cartridge.

Check out the amp specifications on page 42 of the Lafayette 1968 summer catalog #648.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Allied-Catalogs/Lafayette-1968-Summer.pdf

The raw speakers are shown on page 55 of the Lafayette 1971 catalog #710. Woofers, 99-F-01554, figure D. Tweeters were at the bottom of page 55, 99-F-00499. The Garrard SL72B is on page 69 of the same catalog.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Consumer/Lafayette-1971.pdf

I still have the speaker systems and the amp and they all still work! Alas the SL72B is long since gone. I mowed a lot of grass and shoveled a lot of snow in the neighborhood to buy all that high end gear at age 13! :-D By todays standards, not very impressive, but to a 13 year old in 1968, it was awesome!

So to reiterate, what was your first serious audio system?

P.S. - If you are interested, check out some select old Lafayette, Allied Radio, Heathkit, Radio Shack, Olson and other old catalogs from what I think of as the “good old days” of electronics and my youth.
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Electronics_Catalogs.htm

vintage_heath
Stvgray you know OHM is still there making "Walsh style" speakers inspired by those Fs.      Smaller pair start at just over $1000 new.    I have two pair currently.  My larger pair use 12" Walsh style drivers mounted in refurbed OHM F cabinets.   I've had those for about 10 years now and sounding better than ever.  
It was around 1978 or so.  I got bitten by the bug in college when a classmate had a component system that had a receiver, turntable and speakers in his dorm room.  Shortly after graduation I was blown away by the sound of a friends system with Rectilinear 3 speakers, Phase Linear pre-amp and amp and an AR turntable.  My first system consisted of Dahlquist DQ-10 speakers, Hafler amplifier, Conrad Johnson pre-amp and a Technics turntable, which was later replaced with a used Linn Sondek turntable, Linn Itok tonearm with a high output moving coil cartridge that didn't require a pre-pre-amp.  The system I really wanted was Snell Model A speakers, ARC SP-6B pre-amp, Threshold amplifier with the previously mentioned Linn turntable and tone arm, but with a Koetsu blue or black moving coil cartridge.  I had discovered Harry Pearson's Absolute Sound magazine when it came out quarterly and was the size of a pamphlet and accepted no manufacturer's advertising.  Very fond memories of those days.
Cica 1969..
Marantz 1060 Integrated Amp..Dynaco A25, & JBL Studio MonitorsEmpire Troubadour Turntable w/ Shure Pickup..TEAC Reel to Reel..Sansui RA-500 Reverberation Amp.. Sennheiser  Open Air HD414 Headphones


Had summer jobs to pay for all.. sure sounded good especially the open reel.those were the days...
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