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Audiophila, what got you started?


ACV92

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@Schu - Well, looking at your build I can say that you've compensated for that.  Mine was when my Dad rocked his old Marantz setup when I was little.  The receiver had the blue hue on the display, dual meters, and had Marantz speakers.  The grill's on the speakers had a foam, waffle iron, look to them.  I couldn't being to tell you what the model numbers were.  He would crank E, L, P, "Lucky Man" and make sure to point out when the synthesizer worked from L to R.  "See, you can hear it moving back-and-forth", he would say.  Ever since then I've been hooked. 

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1. An article on Hi Fi in Boy's Life magazine.

2. Hearing magnetic stereo movie sound tracks, the 4 track CinemaScope variety, and especially the ultra dynamic 6 track 70 mm Todd-AO sound, which sounded like there was an orchestra behind the screen.

3. Frequenting Hi Fi stores where one could actually hear and compare components.

4. Going to Hi Fi fairs. 

5 My dad building a horn loaded speaker enclosure for me, while my mom helped me wire an amplifier from a kit.

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My dad got me into surround sound. I had a surround sound setup in my bedroom when I turned 15. I got his kg3.5 speakers when he upgraded to klf10s.  I bought my belles and hooked them up in my surround sound setup and they sounded like crap. A buddy of mine brought over a vintage Sony integrated receiver, hooked it up to the belles and my mouth dropped. Since this event (a year ago), I've been hooked on 2 channel as well as surround sound. I've picked up a bunch of klipsch since in the past year. I'm listening to my restored Harman kardon tube receiver on my khorns as I type this.

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For me it was a college buddy, circa 1978.  He had some good stuff and I liked what I heard.  I went to parties and was blown away by the sound of the Advent speakers and one guy had the new Bose 901's.  Wow.

 

My buddy took me to the local high-end speaker store and taught me some critical listening skills.  Then we went upstairs where the GOOD stuff was, including some Klipschorns.  BIG Wow!

 

I never forgot that sonic "memory."

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Had this mean English teacher in about 7th grade. One day she brought in a pretty good record player school issue I'm sure. But she put on Cat Stevens album and I was impressed . I had been a little interested before had old radio hooked to an extension speaker with tube amp built into it. That was about 1970 and only thing I was into back then was slot cars....Frisbee....bicycles....pinball at the little town pool hall..lol.

  Then I finally got a Sony 7065 and a pair of Koss pro4-AA that's all I had for what seemed like forever..........

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Schu: that's more or less the deal but you forgot the toilet paper tube 28 gage magnet wire tuning coil and the wire antenna strung out the window to the apple tree in the back yard. did not take long to lose the cats whisker and move on to dedicated crystals. first speakers by the summer I turned 12 and sold those to a neighbor later that fall and built a better set with the profit. been going on ever since.

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You might say that I was spoiled from the age of Kindergarten by the RADIO I listened to every night as I fell asleep...A Grundig Majestic, which my father had bought in (then) West Germany while we were stationed there from 1954-1957.  When we got back stateside and I was in Kindergarten, I asked Dad if I could put that radio in my bedroom (it also included an outboard Grundig record player which had a 45rpm changer spool which could be attached to that player!).  Dad realized it was really NOT being used much, so he relented and It sorta became "mine".  I still have it.  Although not really anywhere NEAR "true audiophile", it sounded great as close as it was to my ears at night...and it was my bedside "system" until I got to Junior High School, when I got a USED portable stereo record player that was actually pretty good-sounding for its time...it had built in side-firing speakers system...BUT was ONLY a record player...so the Grundig was still used quite a bit.

 

When I got to college in 1971, I had lots of buddies with nice systems (for that time!)...and since I was already a music freak, I was hooked.

 

I went in the Army the end of that first college year and ended up stationed in Europe where pretty much EVERYBODY was buying up stereo separates systems (mostly because they were so relatively inexpensive compared to what they would cost stateside...and music was about our ONLY audio-visual entertainment!)...I listened for almost two years to what everybody had, while paying VERY CLOSE attention to...how they took care of their equipment, and how often they had to take items in for some kind of repair.  I noted all of this PRIOR TO making any decisions on WHICH items I wanted in MY system...then I waited until those particular items went on sale and one-by one grabbed them up.  By the time I was about a year away from leaving Europe, I had what I wanted and was doing MY thing with it!:

 

I bought pair of JBL 4311 monitors and had FOUR JBL L36's drop-shipped to my father's address before I left Europe.

Harman/Kardon 900+ receiver

Teac A2340-R tape deck, with 4-channel DBXII model 124

Technics RS-676AUS cassette deck

Technics SL 1300 turntable with extra headshell...one shell w/ Sure M91ED; second shell w/ JVC (actually made by Audio Technica) 4MD-20X  cartridge, with 4DT-20X stylus....the top of the line CD-4 Cartridge of that time!

One pair of Soundcraftsman 20-12A stereo equalizers

Koss K6LC stereo headphones

Koss Phase 2+2 quad headphones

I still have all of this stuff (except the JBL speakers), and I still regularly use the old Koss K6LC headphones when recording anything, believe it or not!

 

I returned stateside, got my honorable discharge and headed home to Prescott, AR in June 1976...within under a month, I was working at Klipsch...within another year and a half, I had my "flame twin" Heresys and all four of the JBL L-36 speakers had been sold ( I had sold the JBL 4311 monitors to a buddy before I left Europe)...and things went pretty RADICAL "audio-fool"-wise from there!

 

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My old man was always into music, his father being a bandleader musician, back in the 30's.   I grew up listening to B&W matrix 802's I believe, then Kef 105.2's, which were killer speakers,  hooked up to a 300 watt Mcintosh amplifier. He had a boyhood friend who sold audio gear and got good deals on them.   He had the first stand alone CD player that came to market, I think it cost about $1000 bucks back in the day.  It did not blow my brother or myself away at the time. This was his bedroom system and was supposed to be hands off from us.  Too hard to resist though,  when the house was ours, we would fire it up and of course be careful to remember where all the dials and switches were set at once done, as he would notice.  Only fools get caught and we didn't.  My hand me down speakers in my bedroom, as a teenager, where a pair of Altec Lansing speakers. They had a 15" coaxial driver in each, I forget the model name, had the wooden lattice grills, a couple of them broken out of course, with a Fisher 30 watt tubed receiver and an Gerrard turntable.  That system would play as loudly as you could stand and sounded great at the time.  I wonder how it would sound if heard today? 

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I'm going to have to say rock concerts, back in HS. About the same time our HS had one of those "don't do drugs" speeches in our gym and one of the people speaking was a singer I had never heard of. After about 30 minutes of speaking he said he was going to sing a few songs. His name was Bill Withers and his first song was "lean on me", I had never heard of him but his voice was amazing.

Many more concerts and i was looking to get something to use at home to play music, at that age and money it was mostly junk for a good while until I got a sansui 8080 and some JBL speakers. My parents had a console cabinet radio I didn't care for.

The next 40 years was spent looking for that live sound, and I now have the best sound I have ever had, but to be honest it's still not that real live in-person sound. But I'm happy and no longer looking. 

 

Go to live concerts in a good venue, and reset your ears. :emotion-21:

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First decent stereo I bought myself was in the mid 70's.  I was living in Daytona Beach at the time.  A local stereo shop offered a free receiver with the purchase of 2 speakers.  I have no idea what brand they were as I sold them within a year or two.  All I know was that they sounded better than anything I had owned previously.  My next rig I definitely remember as I had it for quite some time.  It was a silver faced JVC 60wpc integrated amp with separate tuner.  I also added to that a Lenco turntable, Audio Technica cartridge and 2 Scott speakers.

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I bought my first real stereo rig in 1977. GAS Son of Ampzilla amp, Thoebe pre-amp, Infinity Qa speakers, and a BIC belt drive turntable. I'm not sure it was audiophile but I am sure I was banned from at least two apartment complexes while I finished college! That system saw lots of loud play at way too many parties. 

 

Mark

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I first got into music I guess very early on.  I can remember in kindergarten one time, teacher left the classroom & the class to our own devices.  someone suggested firing up some tunes.  I remember noticing that the classroom record player was just like or similar to ours at home, so we did it.  I think I got in a bit of trouble for that.

 

FF to high school in late 70's, in the days of what we later called AOR radio, album oriented rock, rocking the car stereo to Free Bird, Frankenstein & such.  we didn't have spending cash for a system at home but I had bought a few albums to play on the record player still around from k-g days.  but since we could rock the car stereo with little to no backlash, that's what we did.

until we went off to college.  for my frosh yr, I bought a pair of Infinity Qe's and my roomie bought the TT & a Pioneer receiver.  similar to Cincymat except we didn't get kicked out of anywhere, but we p$$d off the neighbors more than a few times that year.  the next summer, I bought my HK that I just recently replaced - almost ... well, a bunch of years later!

 

I can remember the brother of a close friend had his basement room setup with a Mac pre & amp of some kind, playing on I think a pair of Magnapans.  it was so loud & clear, it had WAY more that what we could stand.

 

now, with a bit of disposable income, I'm beginning to build another system.  caught a pair of R-28F's on black Friday '15, picked up a pair of Heresy I's mid-year last year, just got my Integra delivered & setup, and hoping to close the deal soon on a pair of vertical CW's.  we're getting there  :D

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So, my folks got me one of these bad boys when I was 7 or 8.  I can't believe I found a picture of it.  I used that thing to death.  It had red, green, and yellow flashing lights and I would play all the 'latest' 45's, some of my folks stuff, and my Star Wars LP.  Hi-Fi at it's pinnacle.......

 

My Dad didn't want me messing with his stuff.  There were so many fun buttons to push though. 

Record Player back in the day.jpg

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I come from a long line of tinkerers.  In the 50s, my father built a monaural Heathkit integrated amp to power a Heathkit bass reflex speaker.  With the advent of stereo, he built a stereo Heathkit integrated amp and a second speaker.  

 

I was pouring over Allied Radio catalogs dreaming of putting together a system.

 

In the late 60s, in college, I was exposed to some very good systems owned by "rich kids."  When moving into a house with three other guys, it was my responsibility to order a system for the house.  I contacted International Hi-Fi, the mail order arm of Stansbury Stereo in Baltimore, to order a pair of Dynaco A25 speakers, Pioneer receiver and Garrard turntable.

 

My first real post college job was in Annapolis, MD.  I again contacted International Hi-Fi to order Bose 901s, AR-XB turntable, Shure V15-III, Sony cassette deck and Dynaco kits (ST400, PAT5 & FM5).

 

While I appreciate good sound quality, the music is more important than the hardware.  An excellent recording of an excellent performance played through a decent system is more satisfying than a poor recording of a poor performance played through a SOTA mega-buck system.

 

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