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What equipment or event thrust you into the hobby?

Many paths have led us into the pursuit of audio nirvana. Was there a single event or piece of equipment in the early years that started you down your path to audio bliss?

I used to sit in front of one of those little portable record players when I was a lad of 3 who loved listening to music...spinning records...and mostly at twilight...and I thought they sounded better in the evening. I moved from kiddie records to 33s, like the South Pacific album...graduating to Georgia Gibbs "Dance with me Henry" at 4, Sinatra, and anything else my parents decided to bring home. From there, the path led through the origins of rock in the 50s and the classic rock of the 60s and ultimately to jazz (still collecting records). My first credible system was built around a Marantz 2252B receiver, a Dual 1214 turntable, drving and feeding a pair of Advents. Saul Marantz must have known what he is doing because that receiver is still alive and kicking today, the only investment being a few cans of tuner spray.
mcpody
krell_man
827 posts
 
I come from a musical family. As far as becoming an audiophile itself, my uncle was a college professor who had a dedicated listening room back in the late sixties. He had a turntable and tubed receiver and the music sounded marvelous. I've strived for that ever since.
jameswei
795 posts
 
My curiosity was first piqued in the mid-1960s when a department store salesman told my parents that a Magnavox console was just fine and we should forget about a bunch of exotic looking "components" that were way expensive and only for hobbyists.

Later, in the late-1960s, a lot of guys in my college dorm had pretty fancy systems, and I really caught the bug. My ardor cooled in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Around 1996, I needed something to read during lunch, and I bought a copy of Stereo Review. Julian Hirsch wrote a column about how the highly praised Rectilinear IIIs of the late 1960s would stand up against mid-1990s speakers -- probably not that well. Since I was still listening to my Rectilinear IIIs, I suddenly felt completely obsolete. This started my most recent upgrade cycle.
newbee
4,093 posts
 
"...path to audio bliss"

Give me a break! Bliss?

Like you I had a good (enuf) system. I focused on listening to (and discovering a lot of new music) and on a lunch break, instead of going to Tower records and looking thru vinyl I went into my first high end store. Fancy looking stuff, high price tags, and lots of talk about things like stereo imaging, depth of image. "air" around the instruments, etc. I bought it, hook line and sinker. Spent the next 20 years shopping equipment - music purchases were incidental and often made to optomize the audio experience (audiophile recordings anyone?).

It was fun and consuming while I was doing it but I sure regret the amount of time I spent listening to audio and not the 'music'. I started out with Rectilinear 7's (designed by Shaninan) a Hafler 500 amp, an Apt Holman pre-amp, and a Technic's 1350 TT w/Shure V cartridge. I loved it. My present stuff is 'better' but I don't love it more.

There is a moral in there somewhere. :-)
jmcgrogan2's avatar
jmcgrogan2
6,346 posts
 
When I was 10 or 11 years old, my older sister came home from a dance with a door prize that she won, an LP. It was Cream's Disraeli Gears. She spun it on the record player in her room and let me listen in. I loved it! She didn't care for it, so she gave it to me. I went out and bought my first system with money I had earned from caddying.
Previous to this, I didn't have much musical listening experience other than the radio. My mom listened to Country music, my father listened to Celtic tunes. Neither musical format really ever stirred any interest from me.

This was different though, this music (Disraeli Gears) spoke to me, with it's heavy bass lines I was hypnotized.

I've had the bug ever since...........

Cheers,
John
rlawry
414 posts
 
I would attribute my audiophile sickness to at least 2 events I can remember. First, when I had just graduated from high school I visited the apartment of a co-worker who had a Lafayette radio receiver and some Epicure speakers. They were of course far superior to anything I had heard up to that time and I was hooked for life. Second, in 1990 I visited a stereo store and heard the first high-end system I had ever heard, some Quad ESL-63 speakers driven by VTL 225 tube monoblocks. That was the event that turned the page for me and fueled my current addiction.
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