Senior Audiophiles - Audiophile since the 60-70's?

I refuse to accept that I am a senior. Period. Full stop. The end. Best decade? Way back when people were not so neurotic about a record player. Bring back consoles, have the whole damn thing hard wired, listen to the music, and let's stop the craziness about cables, synergy, sun spots and everything else in the Universe affecting what we actually hear out of those speakers. Do you know how many miles of ordinary cable are used in the recording process? I love the folks who are of the Linn-type persuasion and firmly believe that the source is of paramount importance, since you can't improve anything further down the line. The source starts at the microphone, not the tt. or cdp. Yeah a Telefunken console, those were the days... From the mid-fi trenches, good day.

at age 56 and gone through analog to digital it has been a true roller coaster ride. i now own all linn ,not to sponsor, the 70's for me was the best in music , believe that today's manufactuers have aviously gotten better, i remember the old advent speakers and phase linear amps,etc. they should sounded great those days..it's still about the music and recording has upscaled and that is good. certainly interested to where computer programming is going in the future in streaming and will manf. get involved to bring computer disk together with audio , real audio sound. thanks for listening....the 70's in music and old hafler,vandersteen,linn tables,are true legends.

1. Audio Enthusiast since my first decent system purchased in about 1975.

2. That's a tuff one. Probably the seventies for the vast vinyl offered including audiophile 'Heavy Vinyl' recordings. The nineties for tremendous advances in all areas of analog and digital equipment.

3. Too many expensive components out there that are not worth the additional cost above those products that are at the point of diminishing returns.

4. Not a chance!

I first developed an interest in hifi when in high school during the late 1960's. My first system included a Harmon Kardon integrated tube amplifier. Purchased Large Advents in 1975 and Micro-acoustic tweeter arrays for them shortly thereafter (anybody remember those?). However, what I considered my first audiophile system was bought in 1980 (RGR Preamp, Sanyo Mosfet amp (later BRB) and DCM Time Windows. Bought a Kenwood KD-500 TT with Grace tonearm shortly thereafter. One regret I have is that I did not keep that particular system longer. I do not have a favorite decade for the equipment as it has steadily improved. I do miss the days when there were more hi-fi shops around such as Audio Guild (the ultimate hi fi salon if there ever was one) and Eardrum but there was no internet in those days. I think the late 60's to late 70's was the best time for rock music and also enjoyed the development of new age and smooth jazz in the 80's. Have also enjoyed classical music since the early 80's. I do not think there is as much good, new music today but that is only my own opinion.

Brian,
Of course my third wife is the best! Although she doesn't have the same appreciation I have for audio systems, she does enjoy lots of different types of music. Most importantly, she appreciates my perspectives on life and my sense of humor - we laugh together.

I think the more senior group of audiophiles (not that we are old by any stretch of the imagination) have combined our life experiences and our audio experiences (just understanding audio and experiencing the music coming out 30 years ago) to gain a perspective that cannot be understood by the younger audiophiles. There have been alot of developments in audio over the last 30-40 years, not all necessary successful. But overall, audio is much better and, of course, most of us have more money than we had in our earlier days to spend on our hobbies. Anyway, I look forward to the further evolution of new concepts, new horizons, new technologies, that will continue to take us closer to audio nirvana. Not every new development will be a step forward. Hopefully, via these forums we can continue to share our experiences - maybe save each other from taking some unnecessary and expensive paths.

In that light, it appears to me that there is much promise in the single driver field. It appears to be a subculture right now but it appears that it may be possible to build very accurate and musical speakers at a fraction of the cost of some of the current designs. At the same time, that might bring back some of earlier experiences many of us had in the 60's and 70's of building speakers on very tight budgets.

Anyway, we move on and must look for the good...... Hopefully, the music will blossom again....

Jim