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

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

I may have memories that predate any of the prior responses. Although I am 60 years old, I became interested in audio at about the age of 10. My father was an attorney who represented a number of the pioneers in the audio industry, when it was in its infancy. I still have a recollection of a system which he built in the mid 1950's with a Radio Craftsman tuner/preamp and amplifer, a Garrard changer with a Pickering cartridge, a Pentron tape recorder and an Electro-Voice 12TRX triaxial speaker in a Carlson cabinet. (Now, how many of you remember this stuff?)

My first taste of the "high end" came in the late 1950's, when I helped my father build, from kits, the Harman-Kardon Citation I, II and III. He had a system that was state of the art in its day. As a source, he had a Garrard 301 turntable with a Shure/SME arm-cartridge combination (what a beauty!) and a pair of AR-3a speakers. To that he added a Sony 777 open-reel recorder, which was way ahead of its time (back in the days when Sony was referred to as "Sony-Superscope").

My own first system was built in the mid 1960's, with a H-K tube receiver (which I built from a kit), a Garrard changer and a pair of Fisher speakers. I got stuck in "mid-fi" during the 1970's (I read Stereo Review back then and believed what I read), and had Sony receivers, direct-drive turntables and JBL speakers.

I was first exposed to the "high end" in the early 1980's, when I graduated to a Tandberg 3012 amp and 3011 tuner, with B&W DM14 (and later DM2000) speakers. I was one of the first to jump on the "digital" bandwagon, with one of the original Magnavox CD players. I remember paying $25 for CD's--in 1983 dollars! I talked myself into thinking they sounded great. They didn't--they were thin and screechy.

I have steadily upgraded over the past 20 years to the point where I feel I have nowhere farther to go. I'm currently running a Mark Levinson 380S preamp, a pair of Mark Levinson 33H amplifiers, a Sony SCD-1 for digital and SACD, and a Michell Orbe, SME IV.VI, Spectral Reference and VTL phono preamp for records. Speakers are B&W Signature 800's.

In terms of quality of sound, today's equipment is without question the best there has ever been. In terms of quality of source material, I have to go back to the early days of stereo, from the late 1950's to the late 1960's, with the RCA Shaded Dogs, Mercury Living Presence, Decca/London ffss, and Everest LP's. These were often definitive recordings, as music, and the engineering was superb. (Have you ever heard an original 1S/1S copy of Pines of Rome? I have one! You would never believe that this record was pressed in 1960.) It continues to amaze me how the great engineers of the day, such as Lewis Layton, Robert Fine, Kenneth Wilkinson and Bert Whyte, could have captured such amazing recordings at a time when the reproduction equipment couldn't possibly reproduce what the recorders were actually recording on tape. The advent of 32 and 64 track recorders, effects processing, Pro Tools and the like, were the worst things that ever happened to the making of recordings. It allowed everyone to become sloppy. One of the great things about SACD today is the fact that, because the number of channels available to the recording engineer is limited, the engineers are forced to rediscover what Layton, Fine, Wilkinson, Whyte, etc. figured out over 40 years ago, and the results speak for themselves. Also, SACD allows today's engineers to go back to these great 30-40 year old recordings, play them back on top-notch analog recorders (such as Ampex ATR-102's and Studer A80's), without intermediate processing, and capture the full glory of the original master tapes on a state of the art medium.

So, we really are in a golden age of audio. We have the best equipment today, and the ability to reproduce both the latest in recording technology (SACD) and the great LP's from the 1960's.

Got my first "serious" system in 1957, at the age of 12, thanks to an uncle in the business. It included a gigantic pair of Stromberg Carlson horns in beautiful solid wood cabinets. HH Scott, KLH, Advent, Heathkit were my bosom buddies.

I've enjoyed every decade, 1970-1980 perhaps the most for the emergence of some really good gear unaccompanied by astral nonsense and astronomical prices.

I watch the current state of audiophilia with amusement that occasionally mounts to hilarity. Oops, hold on, I have to go wind my Tice clock.

Would I trade what I have now for what I had then? No way.

will

My first "serious" speakers were Bozak -302 in 1965,I have no time nor you the interest in all the systems I had.There is no doubt in my my mind that the last decade brought us excellent,i.e. superior speakers and electronics.I do not agree that the current cost of high end equipment has risen dramatically.An Levinson ML-2 Amp,was priced at around $3000. (if my memory serves me right) a loaded ML-6 preamp was about 6,000.that was thirty years ago when you could buy a house in La Jolla, Ca. for 100,000 plus.and you were lucky to earn $30,000 a year.Today you can get superb amps for a few thousand etc.The old marantz,and macs, simply dont cut it.

Nice thread Brian-- I've enjoyed the respones. I was 13 years old in 1956, and along with my slightly older sister, we wore out 45s by Gene Vincent, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ricky Nelson and many other early Rockers. I consider myself very fortunate to have been that age and actually witness and be part of the "birth of Rock and Roll".

Our equipment was lousy-- a portable Magnavox record player, but it had TUBES. My favorite decade stretched from about 1955 and Buddy Holly (my hero) to 1969 and CCR. IMO, those years encompass the heart and soul of R&R. We then muddled along with mid-fi gear for 20-25 years, but still loved the music.

I didn't learn what an audiophile was until about 1990 when I got the disease and became one. My present gear is the best I've ever had-- or heard, and wouldn't trade it for any other, but the "magic" decade of R&R was 1955-1969 for me.

Music nowdays is better and worse than those early years, and now that CDs have matured, good digital music can be found, and there is huge variety today compared to the 50s and 60s. I don't like what the huge music companies have done to music though, ie the merging of country and pop-- it all sounds the same.

But if you look around, some really good music is available, ie re-issues of blues, R&B, and some new age like Enya, Enigma, Mai're Brennan, Clannad, and Waleala. And there are some unique modern artists that I really like, ie Cowboy Junkies-- who can classify their music? Also Melissa Etheridge and George Thorogood. GT may be a dinosaur, but if so, he's a T-Rex!! Cheers. Craig